VISITORS to the food festival will be able to raise a glass to Durham’s first gin distillery.

Durham Gin will be among one of the many new products on sale at this year’s Bishop Auckland Food Festival.

The craft distillery, which produced its first batch of gin last month, has been launched by former Whitehall civil servant Jon Chadwick.

Mr Chadwick said: “After working as a civil servant for a number of years, I really felt like I needed to do something very different,” he said.

“Craft distilling is a massive trend over in the US and I thought it would be really interesting to give it a go here.”

The gin is distilled in a traditional handmade copper pot still named Lily at the company’s distillery in Langley Park, near Durham.

Made in small batches of about 200 bottles at a time, it is distilled to a recipe developed in partnership with Herriot Watt and Teesside universities.

“We have spent a lot of time developing the flavour and process to produce a very smooth gin with a sweet, very light flavour,” he added.

“The unique blend of botanicals we use includes traditional flavours such as juniper, but also some more unusual ingredients including celery seed, elderflower and pink peppercorns.”

Mr Chadwick, of Durham, will be using his stall at Bishop Auckland Food Festival to demonstrate how to make gin and even inviting visitors to sample a Durham Gin Martini.