Devon’s Own Drams: What’s Being Made on Our Doorstep
Devon’s Own Drams: What’s Being Made on Our Doorstep
One of the things I love most about living in East Devon is that the county has always made things. Not always quietly. Not always for the benefit of those in authority. But with craft, independence, and a distinct sense of place.
The same instinct, it turns out, is alive and well in our distilleries.
When people ask what draws them to Devon Drams - what it is about a whisky community rooted in Sidmouth and the surrounding villages - I often find myself talking about the landscape. The proximity to the moor. The Atlantic coast. The particular quality of Devon light. And it occurs to me, every time I have that conversation, that the same things are drawing a remarkable set of spirits producers to this corner of the country. They are using Devon water, Devon botanicals, Devon barley. They are making spirits that taste, in some real sense, of where they are from.
This article is about them. It is also - because I am who I am - about what they represent: the idea that the best things come from paying genuine attention to the place you inhabit.
A note on scope: I have focused here on the producers making the most distinctive, highest-quality spirits in Devon, rather than attempting to catalogue every operation in the county. This is a guide, not a directory. And it is, I hope, an invitation to visit.
Dartmoor Whisky Distillery, Bovey Tracey - The Moor in a Glass
In 2014, founder Greg Millar and his partner Simon Crow began searching for a still. The right still, for a single malt English whisky they planned to make in a Victorian town hall on the edge of the moor. They found it in the French countryside: a copper alembic, hand-beaten in 1966, that had spent its working life distilling Cognac for the houses of Hennessy, Martell, and Rémy Martin before being decommissioned in 1994. They shipped it to Devon, restored it, installed it in the Old Town Hall in Bovey Tracey, and began making whisky. ¹
Then they persuaded Frank McHardy to become their Master Distiller.
Frank McHardy spent over fifty years at Springbank and Bushmills - two of the most respected distilleries on either side of the Irish Sea. He is, by any measure, one of the great living figures in the world of whisky production. That he agreed to bring his expertise to a small new distillery on Dartmoor is, in itself, a statement about what Greg and Simon were building. ²
The whisky is made from local barley, malted at Warminster Maltings - Britain’s oldest working malting house - and the beer wash is brewed by local cask ale producers to a recipe specified by McHardy. The distillation process is methodical: three primary runs in the copper alembic bring the wash from approximately 9% to 25% ABV; then the low wines go back into the still for a second distillation to produce the spirit at around 70% ABV. ³
The resulting new make is sweet, clean, and malty - with a gentle Dartmoor freshness that independent reviewers have described as carrying green apple, baking spices, and a quality of crisp highland air. The three current core expressions show what the casks are doing: the ex-Bordeaux single malt is lighter and more floral; the American oak ex-bourbon expression builds vanilla and soft cereal notes; the Oloroso sherry cask expression is the most complex - darker, richer, with dried fruit and warming spice. ⁴
In March 2026, the distillery’s sherry cask expression was named Best English Single Cask Single Malt at the World Whiskies Awards 2026. The judging panel noted “applewood and fresh red apples on the nose” with a fruit-driven palate. The Whiskey Wash, covering the awards, observed that “single cask whisky leaves nowhere to hide - this release suggests confidence in both distillate and maturation.” ⁵
Visitors to the distillery describe something rarer than an award: an experience that feels like genuine encounter rather than curated tourism. Tripadvisor reviewers consistently mention the owner’s passion and knowledge, the intimate scale of the experience, and the sense that this is - as one reviewer put it - “more than a business but a community hub that looks to involve the whole town.” ⁶
For a Devon Drams community built on exactly that principle, Dartmoor Whisky feels like a natural ally.
Dartmoor Whisky Distillery, Old Town Hall, Bovey Tracey. Tastings available Wednesday to Saturday. Pre-booking recommended.
Salcombe Distilling Co.
Thirty miles south-west of Dartmoor, on Island Street in Salcombe, sits one of the most beautifully conceived distilleries in the country.
Salcombe Distilling Co. was founded by Angus Lugsdin and Howard Davies, who had met teaching sailing in Salcombe years earlier. The founding impulse was elegantly simple: inspired by their ritual of a gin and tonic at the end of a day on the water, they wanted to make a gin that was worthy of its setting - worthy of the estuary, the schooners, the maritime history that makes Salcombe unlike any other town in Devon.
What gives their gins depth is the historical research behind them. In the nineteenth century, Salcombe was home to a fleet of copper-hulled fruit schooners - fast, sleek vessels that traded across the Atlantic and Mediterranean, returning to Devon with precious cargoes of citrus fruits and spices from North Africa, the Caribbean, and the Levant. ⁷ The botanicals in Salcombe Gin’s flagship ‘Start Point’ - named after the lighthouse at the southern tip of the South Hams - trace those trading routes directly: Macedonian juniper, red grapefruit, lemon, lime, coriander, orris root, and seven further hand-sourced botanicals, each traceable to its origin. ⁸
The still, named Provident after a famous Salcombe sailing vessel, is a bespoke 450-litre copper pot still at which visitors can watch the distillers at work. The distillery itself is nestled among traditional boatbuilders on Island Street and, in what must be one of the more remarkable facts in British distilling, is one of the only distilleries in the world directly accessible by boat. ⁹
‘Start Point’ won Gold at the World Gin Awards within six months of launch, and Double Gold at the San Francisco World Spirits Competition - known in the trade as the Oscars of the spirits world - shortly afterwards. It followed these with three stars at the Great Taste Awards and one of the highest scores ever recorded at the Beverage Tasting Institute in the US. ¹⁰
InsideHook’s senior lifestyle editor described the gin as “bottled escapism” - noting that it is “impossibly smooth” and that the fruity notes “practically explode” when served with tonic. ¹¹
The range has since expanded significantly. ‘Rosé Sainte Marie’, named after a lighthouse in the South of France where the Salcombe fruiters once loaded citrus and herbs, is a dry rosé-inspired gin with no added sugar or artificial colour - an important distinction in a category that is often overcrowded with sweetened alternatives. The Voyager Series collaborates with winemakers and chefs - a recent release developed with Michelin-starred chef Paul Ainsworth used foraged Cornish botanicals to recreate the flavour of the Cornish oyster. ¹² The distillery also produces New London Light, a critically acclaimed range of non-alcoholic spirits that has found its own audience entirely.
For those interested in understanding how gin is actually made, Salcombe’s Gin School - which has welcomed over five thousand visitors and won a TripAdvisor Traveller’s Choice Award - allows participants to create their own recipe and distil their own 70cl bottle on a copper pot still. It is the kind of experience that connects beautifully to everything we explore in Devon Drams tastings about the science of flavour - how botanicals interact, how the distiller makes cuts, how temperature and dilution shape what ends up in the glass.
Salcombe Distilling Co., Island Street, Salcombe. Distillery, bar, retail, Gin School and Rum School. salcombegin.com
Plymouth Gin, Black Friars Distillery
If Dartmoor Whisky is Devon’s newest chapter in craft spirits, Plymouth Gin is its oldest sentence. The Black Friars Distillery on the Barbican in Plymouth has been distilling gin on the same site since 1793 - making it the oldest working gin distillery in England. ¹³
The building predates the distillery by over three centuries. The original structure was completed in 1431 as a Dominican priory - hence the “Black Friars” name. It served subsequently as a debtors’ prison, a meeting hall, and a refuge for Huguenots fleeing persecution in France. Local tradition has it that in 1620, some of the Pilgrim Fathers gathered in the refectory the night before they walked down to the harbour and boarded the Mayflower for America. Plymouth Gin still carries the Mayflower on its label in acknowledgment of that connection. ¹⁴
The gin itself is distinctive. Plymouth-style gin is closer to London Dry in method but noticeably different in character: fuller-bodied, with more emphasis on earthy root flavours and less citrus brightness than many modern gins. The recipe has remained essentially unchanged since 1883. ¹⁵ The Royal Navy was an enthusiastic customer for much of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries - by 1850, the Navy was purchasing over 1,000 barrels of Plymouth Gin per year - and the gin became the standard mixer for the Pink Gin and the Gimlet that naval officers carried across the world.
Plymouth Gin is now owned by Pernod Ricard, which introduces a tension that the distillery has navigated with varying degrees of success. The gin once held EU Protected Designation of Origin status - only gin distilled within Plymouth could legally carry the Plymouth name - but Pernod Ricard chose not to renew this designation when it expired in 2015, preferring to rely on trademark protection. ¹⁶ For enthusiasts, the loss of the PDO is a genuine regret.
For the visitor, the distillery tour remains one of the finest historical experiences in the region: the medieval refectory room with its hull-shaped timber roof, in daily use since the 1400s, is architecturally extraordinary.
Plymouth Gin is not the craft story that Dartmoor Whisky or Salcombe represent. But it is something equally valuable: a reminder that Devon has been making serious spirits for longer than almost anywhere else in England, and that the landscape and water of this corner of the country have been shaping the character of what is in the glass for over two hundred years.
Plymouth Gin, Black Friars Distillery, Southside Street, The Barbican, Plymouth. Tours and tastings daily. plymouthgin.com
Two Drifters Distillery, Exeter
The fourth producer in this piece is the one that surprises people most when I mention it at tastings. Two Drifters is a rum distillery - not spirits territory that Devon Drams typically explores - but it belongs in any serious account of what Devon is producing, for a reason that goes well beyond the liquid in the glass.
Two Drifters is the world’s first carbon-negative rum distillery. ¹⁷
Founded in 2019 by Russ and Gemma Wakeham in an aircraft hangar near Exeter Airport, it was built on Russ’s background as an organic chemist working in carbon capture and storage in Vancouver. The couple wanted to return to Devon, where both had grown up, and to bring their expertise to something they could build together. They chose rum. They chose Devon. And they chose to make sustainability not a marketing footnote but the operational framework of the entire enterprise.
The distillery runs on 100% renewable energy. The bottles are British-made lightweight glass with 100% compostable seals, labels of 95% waste sugarcane fibre, and natural corks. The courier used for all UK deliveries is carbon neutral. Russ’s background in carbon capture means that any emissions the distillery cannot avoid are permanently removed from the atmosphere through certified carbon capture technology - not offset credits, but actual removal. Every bottle of Two Drifters rum permanently removes over 1.2kg of CO₂. ¹⁸
The rum itself has earned its own recognition. The Signature Rum - aged in French oak ex-Madeira casks, chosen partly because the shorter shipping distance from France reduced carbon emissions - received a Silver award at the World Rum Awards. ¹⁹ Russ chose the ex-Madeira casks for a second reason too: the fermentation process at Two Drifters produces a subtle orange character in the new make, and Madeira wood amplifies and complements it. This is the kind of decision - flavour and sustainability aligned, not in tension - that characterises the whole operation.
Tasters have described the Signature Rum as bringing notes of toffee, orange peel, muscovado sugar, and gentle oak - young, but with genuine personality. The Spiced Pineapple Rum became something of a cult product, appearing on the Hairy Bikers television programme in 2024 and subsequently selling out with a delay that tested the team’s customer service considerably (and which they handled, by all accounts, with exemplary grace). ²⁰
Two Drifters is not making whisky. But it represents something important for anyone interested in what craft spirits in Devon can mean: the possibility that the way something is made can itself be an expression of values. The same argument - that how you do something matters as much as what you produce - runs through everything Devon Drams believes about community and connection.
Two Drifters Distillery, Skyways Business Park, Exeter. Distillery tours available.
What This All Means for Devon Drams
Devon’s distillers are not simply making spirits. They are telling Devon stories through what they make - through Dartmoor barley and Dartmoor water, through the routes of the Salcombe fruiters, through the 600-year history of a Plymouth monastery, through a chemist’s commitment to not harming the landscape he came home to. The spirit of place - terroir, if you want the French word for it - is present in every one of these products.
This connects to something I have written about before in our articles on the science of taste and the art of pairing: context is not a neutral backdrop to experience. It is an active ingredient. Knowing that the whisky in your glass was made with Dartmoor spring water, distilled in a Cognac still that once served Hennessy, guided by a man who has spent his life making extraordinary spirit - that knowledge changes what you taste. It is not imaginary. It is real, and it is part of what makes drinking something local, something with a story, an experience of a different order from drinking something that could have been made anywhere.
Devon Drams exists to create those experiences - to build the community in which they happen and the conversations in which they deepen. The distilleries on our doorstep give us extraordinary raw material.
We will be exploring some of these producers’ spirits at upcoming Devon Drams events. If you would like to join us, you can find details at devondrams.com/events or get in touch at community@devondrams.com.
Devon Drams articles referenced in this piece:
What Are You Actually Tasting? The Science Behind Every Dram - on how context and knowledge shape flavour perception
The Art and Science of Pairing - on terroir, provenance, and how the story of a spirit shapes the experience of it
What Does “Single Malt” Actually Mean? - on English whisky regulations, cask types, and the categories that govern what is in the glass
Sources
Dartmoor Whisky Distillery. English Whisky Distillery. Available at: https://dartmoorwhiskydistillery.co.uk/english-whisky-distillery/ (Accessed: June 2026)
Irish Whiskey Blogger. Dartmoor Whisky: An English Whisky Distillery. Available at: https://whiskeyblogger.com/dartmoor-whisky-an-english-whisky-distillery/ (Accessed: June 2026)
Dartmoor Whisky Distillery. English Whisky Distillery. Available at: https://dartmoorwhiskydistillery.co.uk/english-whisky-distillery/ (Accessed: June 2026)
Whisky For Everyone. Review: Dartmoor Whisky. Available at: https://whiskyforeveryone.blogspot.com/2020/12/review-dartmoor-whisky.html (Accessed: June 2026)
The Whiskey Wash. 9 English Whiskies That Won Gold at World Whiskies Awards 2026. Available at: https://thewhiskeywash.com/whiskey-awards/the-best-english-whiskies-according-to-the-world-whiskies-awards-2026/ (Accessed: June 2026)
TripAdvisor. Dartmoor Whisky Distillery Reviews. Available at: https://www.tripadvisor.com (Accessed: June 2026)
Salcombe Distilling Co. Who We Are. Available at: https://salcombegin.com/who-we-are/ (Accessed: June 2026)
Salcombe Distilling Co. Start Point. Available at: https://salcombegin.com/product/start-point/ (Accessed: June 2026)
Salcombe Distilling Co. Who We Are. Available at: https://salcombegin.com/who-we-are/ (Accessed: June 2026)
Drink Finder. Salcombe. Available at: https://www.drinkfinder.co.uk/collections/salcombe (Accessed: June 2026)
InsideHook. Review: Salcombe Gin Is a Bright, Refreshing Way to Kick Off 2021. Available at: https://www.insidehook.com/drinks/salcombe-gin-review (Accessed: June 2026)
Food4Media. Salcombe Distilling Co. Unveils Award-Winning Spirits. Available at: https://food4media.com/showPRPreview/salcombe-distilling-co-unveils-award-winning-spirits-for-the-festive-season (Accessed: June 2026)
Wikipedia. Plymouth Gin Distillery. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plymouth_Gin_Distillery(Accessed: June 2026)
Difford’s Guide. Black Friars Distillery: History. Available at: https://www.diffordsguide.com/producers/81/black-friars-distillery/history (Accessed: June 2026)
Master of Malt Blog. Two Drifters: The World’s First Carbon-Negative Distillery. Available at: https://www.masterofmalt.com/blog/post/two-drifters-the-worlds-first-carbon-negative-distillery.aspx/ (Accessed: June 2026)
Two Drifters Distillery. Sustainability Report. Available at: https://twodriftersrum.com/pages/sustainability-report(Accessed: June 2026)
The Rum Barrel Blog. Review: Two Drifters Signature Rum. Available at: https://therumbarrel.co.uk/2022/07/15/review-two-drifters-signature-rum/ (Accessed: June 2026)
Trustpilot. Two Drifters Distillery Reviews. Available at: https://www.trustpilot.com/review/twodriftersrum.com(Accessed: June 2026)
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