Matthew Steeples visits Aldeburgh in Suffolk to learn the story of a business finding success in lockdown – he discovers Fishers Gin
Aldeburgh in Suffolk is famous for fish and chips. Two of its chippies are supposedly “amongst the best in the UK,” but now this seaside town is producing something just as quintessentially British – gin.
In a building, modestly described by Andrew Heald, the founder of Fishers Gin, as a ‘beach house’ – in the way that the Pritzkers and Vanderbilts referred to their colossal ‘summer mansions’ in the Hamptons as plain old ‘cottages’ – right on the seafront, is now a distillery and boy is it a smart one.
Unlike most distilleries I’ve visited and unsurprisingly to those that know me, I’ve been to many – normally quite unappealing places stuck in the middle of grim industrial estates in places like Warrington, a town sadly known for having Kerry Katona as its “finest export” – the Fisher’s Gin team work in an office that reminded me of the hideout of Pierce Brosnan as fictional Prime Minister Adam Lang in Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts in the 2010 film The Ghost Writer.
Though Fishers Gin was originally presented in colourful packaging that featured an anchor, the design now incorporates “a scallop shell in celebration of Maggi Hambling’s sculpture” – a famed 13-foot high landmark in the town. Named to reflect the history of the fishing village where it is produced, the bottle’s bright colours are said to reflect fishing nets whilst the gin itself has a taste dominated by coastal botanicals.
Stronger than your typical 40% ABV gin at 44%, here is a gin with notes of samphire and bog myrtle and one where hints of salt shine through. A slightly unusual taste follows, but it is refreshingly uplifting and with a team behind it who’ve moved over to selling directly on their own website, here is a business that has adapted to doing things differently due to the COVID-19 lockdown.
Fishers Gin is a gin of maritime origins and it’s a gin to be celebrated like one’s first catch; once you’ve tried it, you’ll be hooked.
To purchase a bottle of Fishers Gin for £39.95 direct from its producers, click here. A Fishers Gin Navy coloured enamel mug can also be bought for £7.95.
The Founder and his Brace of Beagles – Andrew Heald, his hounds (one of which gave its name to the Fishers Gin still, ‘Watson’) and a Fishers Gin Navy enamel mug.The Botanicals of the Sea – The distinct taste of Fishers Gin comes from the locally sourced plants of the Suffolk coast that it is made with. These include spignel, wood avens, rock samphire flower and bog myrtle. These are sustainably foraged.
The Fishers Gin Distillery – Situated next to The Brudenell Hotel, a building used as a home for children evacuated from Belgium during the Second World War, this beachside building is due to open to visitors once lockdown is over. The view out to sea takes in a series of wind turbines – a topic of conversation best not raised with disapproving locals.‘The Ghost Writer’ – The actual filming location used in the 2010 Franco-German-British political thriller was not in Massachusetts, but in Germany. This was due to Roman Polanski being unable to enter Britain or America due to his evasion of justice since 1978. Pictured are the film’s stars Pierce Brosnan, Ewan McGregor and Kim Cattrall in a setting reminiscent to that where Fishers Gin is produced.‘Rebel With A Cause’ – Controversial British artist Maggi Hambling CBE (top) and her scallop sculpture at Aldeburgh (below). It was conceived as a celebration of Aldeburgh’s most famous resident, composer Benjamin Britten, and though opposed and covered in graffiti even by some in the locality, Andrew Heald chose to feature it on the label of his gin.
Dutch scientist confirms a beer a day “would be very good for you” and suggests drinking such protects against insomnia, dementia and obesity
Many of The Sun’s headlines are to be taken with a pinch of salt, but this morning’s claiming “a beer a day can help you live longer” is actually supported by science.
Backing up a previous study, first reported on by Sam Dangremond in Town & Country and shared in The Steeple Times in February 2018, that suggested “drinking alcohol could be the key to living past 90,” Professor Eric Claassen, a gut bacteria expert at Amsterdam University said: “In high concentrations, alcohol is bad for the gut, but if you drink just one [strong Belgian example such as Hoegaarden] every day it would be very good for you.”
With some bottled brews containing up to 50 million probiotic or “good” bacteria, it seems beer is the way forward. We join those saying “cheers” to that.
Pictured top: Hoegaarden is an example of a “very good” tipple according to scientist Professor Claassen.
‘I Never Picked Cotton’ singer Roy Clark’s Rolls-Royce heads to auction complete with suicide doors and emblazoned with his initials in gold leaf
American Hee Haw host and country singer Roy Clark (1933 – 2018) was best known for songs such as Yesterday, When I Was Young and Thank God and Greyhound. Now, enthusiasts of this tobacco farmer’s son have the opportunity to buy a piece of his memorabilia in the form of a Rolls-Royce that he owned for some forty years.
Last offered without reserve at the Leake Auction Company sale in Tulsa in June 2019, the dark red 1964 Phantom V touring limousine by James Young was owned by the star from 1977 until his death. Clark paid $19,500 (the equivalent of £70,000, $86,000, €79,000 or درهم316,000 today) when he purchased it and after it was subsequently sold to a “noted private collection in Texas,” they lavished £24,000 ($30,000, €27,000 or درهم110,000) on servicing it in 2019 and 2020.
This month, RM Sotheby’s will sell the Rolls-Royce – which is currently located in Austin, Texas – as part of their 21st to 29th May ‘Driving Into Summer’ online sale. They have set an estimate of £49,000 to £57,000 ($60,000 to $70,000, €55,000 to €64,000 or درهم220,000 to درهم257,000). Of the car, they remark:
“The limousine is finished in a lovely shade of dark red and accented by a gold pinstripe running the length of the car. The initials “RC” are prominently featured on the driver’s side passenger door. The interior is trimmed in tan leather and is accented by beautiful woodwork throughout. The driver compartment features Smiths instrumentation, an AM/FM radio, and an altimeter in the passenger glove box door. Furthermore, the car is equipped with electric windows and air conditioning which is vented into both the driver and passenger compartments. A division window separates the driver from the passengers. The rear compartment is the epitome of 1960s luxury and features dual footrests, fold-out jump seats, pillar-mounted flower vases, reading lights, and a Smiths clock while fold-out picnic tables flank a small cocktail bar with crystal decanters and glassware.”
Rocker Liam Gallagher speaks the most sense on how to survive the coronavirus lockdown in thanking alcohol
Rock stars aren’t meant to drink kale juice and herbal tea. That’s a fact, but in an interview with Q magazine, Liam Gallagher proved himself to be the man who actually made most sense during the coronavirus lockdown.
Of how he’s survived the pandemic, the singer-songwriter (once described as being like “a man with a fork in a world of soup” by his brother, Noel) commented: “Alcohol. Lots of alcohol. I don’t know what I’d do without it in this situation.”
Given a 2018 survey revealed that “drinking alcohol could be the key to living past 90,” we say a most definite cheers to Mr Gallagher’s most sensible analysis.
With neighbours putting gin and tonics on each other’s doorsteps during the COVID-19 lockdown, we select the most amusing quotes about this fine spirit
In a letter, published in The Telegraph on Tuesday, one Madeline Glancy remarked:
SIR – Every Friday in lockdown, my neighbour has left a delicious gin and tonic at my front door. Beats tinned tomatoes hands down.
Madeline Glancy
Prestwich, Lancashire
If only if all neighbours were so community minded.
Some of the best quotes about gin follow for your amusement:
Not so strangely, most of them are without citation – probably due to the fact that they were likely made when their originators were suitably imbibed in juniper flavoured heaven.
“Let the evening beGIN!” – Anon.
“I don’t know what reception I’m at, but for God’s sake, give me a gin and tonic” –the well-known gin lover and husband of Margaret Thatcher, Denis Thatcher.
“Life is too short for single gins” – Anon.
“Red meat and gin” – America’s answer to Keith Floyd, Julia Child, on the reason for her longevity.
“I love water, especially when it’s frozen and surrounded by gin” – Anon.
“I exercise strong self-control. I never drink anything stronger than gin before breakfast” – American actor and comedian W. C. Fields.
“Gin-drinking is a great vice in England, but wretchedness and dirt are a greater [vice]” – Charles Dickens, Sketches (1836).
“When life gives you juniper, make gin!” – Holistic health author Laurie Buchanan.
“Don’t cry over spilt milk, it could’ve been gin” – Anon.
Night school tutor: “Write a horror story in six words.”
Student: “I-have-run-out-of-gin” – Anon.
“A perfect martini should be made by filling a glass with gin then waving it in the general direction of Italy” – Noël Coward.
“The proper union of gin and vermouth is a great and sudden glory; it is one of the happiest marriages on earth, and one of the shortest lived” – American historian Bernard DeVoto.
“The gin and tonic has saved more Englishmen’s lives, and minds, than all the doctors in the Empire” – Winston Churchill.
“Of all the gin joints, in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine” – Humphrey Bogart as Rick in Casablanca (1942).
“Gym? I thought you said: ‘Gin’” – Anon.
“The only time I ever enjoyed ironing was the day I accidentally got gin in the steam iron” – Comedian Phyllis Diller.
“Stop saying I’m hard to buy for… You know where the gin aisle is” – Anon.
“You’d learn more about the world by lying on the couch and drinking gin out of a bottle than by watching the news” – American radio personality Garrison Keillor.
“Fortunately there is gin, the sole glimmer in this darkness. Do you feel the golden, copper-coloured light it kindles in you? I like walking through the city of an evening in the warmth of gin” – French philosopher and journalist Albert Camus.
“I tried to say no to gin… But it’s 40% stronger than me” – Anon.
“I’ll stick with gin. Champagne is just ginger ale that knows somebody” – Dr. Hawkeye Pierce from M*A*S*H.
“Things, since you left, have not gone well with me: they have taken me from a place where there was gin to a place where there is no gin” – British barrister and detective story author Sarah Cockburn (pseudonym Sarah Caudwell).
“According to chemists, gin IS a solution” – Anon.
“Gin and drugs, dear lady, gin and drugs” – The reply of T. S. Eliot when asked about inspiration.
Jonathan Downey, owner of London’s Milk & Honey bar, takes to social media to share news he won’t be reopening without a rent holiday; it is likely he is set to head a wave of similar announcements
Just as happened to venues like Keith McNally’s Lucky Strike in New York, a wave – perhaps, excuse the pun, even a flood – of closures of bars and restaurants is likely coming in London and across the rest of the UK. As a result of coronavirus most recently and due also to landlord’s charging extortionate rents and council’s levying excessive business rates in the years prior, we could soon sadly end up with far ‘drier’ high streets.
On Wednesday night on Facebook, in an impassioned plea, the owner of the Soho institution that is Milk & Honey – a “prohibition-style speakeasy cocktail bar” where ‘house rules’ include: “Gentlemen will remove their hats. Hooks are provided. Gentlemen will not introduce themselves to ladies. Ladies, feel free to start a conversation or ask the bartender to introduce you. If a man you don’t know speaks to you, please lift your chin slightly and ignore him” – Jonathan Downey shared news that post the coronavirus lockdown ending, his venue might “never reopen.”
In his post, multiple venue owner-operator Mr Downey stated:
This is Milk & Honey in Soho. A very special place that was 18yrs old last week. It’s been the ‘World’s Best Bar’ (a few times) and the making of so many great bartenders, but we may never re-open. Our annual rent is £210,000 but, despite the current closure and no hope of re-opening for months, our landlord won’t allow any deferral or rent free. He expects payments to be made upfront. He’s got no chance.
One of three things will happen (in most likely first order):
– We give the keys back.
– We get a 9 month #NationalRentFree and re-open paying rent for another 18yrs.
– The landlord backs down/sees sense.
I’ve written back to our landlord. I don’t expect we’ll get anywhere and without a #NationalTimeOut, we won’t be able to re-open Milk & Honey. Including VAT, we’ve paid more than £3.9m rent in 18yrs.
Going further, Downey shared the letter he’d written to his landlord. It read:
We won’t be paying any rent on this site again this year. I’m sorry but you’re kidding yourselves if you think otherwise. We have no income.
We have been paying rent there for 18 years, totaling in excess of £3m. We have no idea when we may be allowed to re-open. Even when we are allowed to re-open, we won’t because fear of the virus and physical distancing will mean we will be loss-making. The best (and possibly only) time we can expect to re-open is once a vaccine becomes widely available. Until then, zero income = zero rent.
I have been campaigning for a #NationalTimeOut for tenants and landlords, which includes a 9 month #NationalRentFree. If we get this, then there may be a way through for all of us. Otherwise, we’ll be giving back the keys and surrendering the very valuable 03:00 licence.
I am happy to discuss if you want but that’s our position and we don’t have any other.
Jonathan Downey (right) shared his sentiments on the future of the bar he set up in 2002, Milk & Honey, 61 Poland Street, Soho, London, W1F 7NU in a Facebook post on Wednesday.Mr Downey also published the text of a letter he had sent to his plainly thus far unsympathetic landlord.
Previously, in an interview with The Caterer earlier this month, Downey commented:
The best thing for most people in our industry is a National Time Out – nine months rent-free, with a matching debt repayment holiday for our landlords. Understandably the pubcos don’t like it, but it is being supported by UKHospitality.
We can’t each negotiate 150,000 separate agreements with landlords. We need a national arrangement that everybody falls in line with, that the government decides and legislates on.
We should get the rest of this year rent-free – for most businesses it’s the biggest single cost apart from staff – and extend loan terms for landlords, because if they can’t get their rent for nine months, they can’t repay the debt for the premises. If they have borrowed, they should get a nine-month repayment break. It should be pushed back onto the banks – they can handle nine months of not having loans repaid.
Of the longer-term, he added:
I don’t see anybody doing well. Nobody will do well out of the crisis. I think there will be even more empty high street sites. My next business will probably have to be something outside the hospitality industry. Certainly, the business I’m in – large-capacity venues – I don’t see coming back until there’s a vaccine, which is a year or maybe 18 months away. Maybe I’ll take a year off and come back in the way that music festivals will have to. We needed a shake-up as an industry, but we didn’t need one so brutal.
That, to a large extent, the business model of a lot of hospitality businesses is hopelessly flawed. It’s ridiculously fragile, the margins are far too slim and it’s just not sustainable. We were fucked after 10 days to two weeks of no and low income.
I think there’s going to be a lot of reflection and soul-searching and realising that, despite these brilliant things we do as individuals and businesses, if the business model doesn’t stack up, you’ve got to find another way or find something else to do.
We can’t pay people what we need to pay them, we can’t pay the rent, we can’t deal with business rates at this level and with VAT at 20%. It’s just insane. Everybody wants something for nothing. In hospitality we always try to deliver, but this has made us realise we can’t deliver the impossible or the unsustainable.
Since its inception, The Steeple Times has advocated the premise of ‘use it or lose it’ for bars and restaurants and today we join Jonathan Downey in calling for #NationalRentFree and #NationalTimeOut. Now, we must all unite in coming together to support our favourite establishments as otherwise, just like many of us found with the closure of the very much missed La Brasserie in South Kensington in March 2017, we’ll again be left crying into our caipirinhas with nowhere to go.
Alongside a cat (yes, a cat) named ‘(Frederick Albert) Hitler’ as his barman, the landlord of the “maddest pub in Britain” Steve Cotten is not known for being the most involved of hosts. On TripAdvisor, whilst one grumbler pointed out that his attitude to diners is: “If you want to eat, bring your own food… Or use the kitchen yourself,” Devon Live noted in February 2020 that Prince Harry and Damien Hirst are “fans” of the “off-grid,” Fawlty Towers-esque The Poltimore Arms in South Molton, Devon. The pub has no website, no television, no Wi-Fi, no fruit machines and no telephones and is powered by solar panels, but for lovers of craft ales and locally produced spirits, a woman going by the name ‘The Real Ale Girl’ operates a “secret weapon… emporium” selling such in a back room.
Summing up his refreshingly no-nonsense approach to running his business, Steve Cotten once commented: “I just make it up as I go along. I might not know how to run a pub but I know what’s wrong with every pub I’ve ever been in. There’s no landlord anywhere, nobody talks to each other. I involve the whole community – everyone knows it’s not my pub, it’s everybody’s pub… We are a dark and cold and miserable boozer – and that’s what people like about it… They all know you can do what you want here, use it for what you want, come here on your own at any time of the day or night and help yourself to a tea or coffee. Everybody will talk to everybody… You can discuss any topic under the sun here, nothing is taboo… Everyone has a go serving behind the bar, we all have a laugh and everyone joins in… No one else talks to them like crap like I do.”
Frankly, one is simply left asking: “Why aren’t there more places like this?” Cheers to Steve Cotten.
Ruined Moroccan fortress fit for the most lavish of bashes for sale for £5.3 million; it may be “spectacular” but it most certainly doesn’t have Wi-Fi
Billionaires like Morocco. The late Malcolm Forbes (1919 – 1990) lavished the equivalent of £4.1 million today ($5.1 million, €4.7 million or درهم18.7 million today) holding his 70th birthday at his property, Palais Mendoub, there in 1989. Guests – many of whom arrived by Concorde even – numbered Gianni Agnelli, Mario Buatta, Betsy Bloomingdale, King Constantine of Greece, Walter Cronkite, Diane von Furstenberg, Sir James Goldsmith, Calvin Klein, Dr Henry Kissinger, John and Patricia Kluge, Robert and Dr Betty Maxwell, Lucky Roosevelt, Elizabeth Taylor and Barbara Walters and boy did the food and drink flow. Of the fat bash, the New York Social Diary gushed: “It was a party festooning in ballyhoo, in glitter and glamour and illusion, comparable to Truman Capote’s Black and White Ball twenty-three years before in New York.”
Gone are the days of lavish bashes on the scale given by Malcolm Forbes (and gone are all those pictured) – Malcolm Forbes with his ‘date’ Elizabeth Taylor and the since exposed for what he truly was ‘media monster’ (and father of the equally repugnant paedophile procurer Ghislaine Maxwell), ‘Bouncing Bob’ Robert Maxwell and his long-suffering wife Dr Betty Maxwell.The Concorde used to transport guests to Tangier has also passed on – a technological step backwards if ever there was.
Now, someone looking to throw an equivalently extravagant party once lockdown is over (and once they’ve lavished a small fortune renovating it) in Morocco, could acquire a 32,292 square foot space in what agents Kensington Properties call a “high up… striking position overlooking the River Nfis.”
Going further of the £5.3 million ($6.5 million, €6 million or درهم23.8 million) fortress, they add of Kasbah Tagountaft: “[It] is considered one of the most memorable sites of historical significance in Morocco” and was “once the home of the powerful Caid of the Goundafa tribe who vied for control of the Atlas Mountains at the end of the 19th century.”
Whilst little else is described in the marketing material for this “absolutely stunning property, full of potential,” one thing’s for sure: Anyone with a requirement for working Wi-Fi when they arrive on site, need not apply.
Matthew Steeples highlights three things that are keeping him going through coronavirus lockdown living (aside from not running out of gin)
Having found myself ensconced in East Anglia for five weeks now –never did I imagine myself staying in a rural place so long – and having not actually got into a car or visited a town in that period, I busy my days reading, writing and walking a bit. It’s been especially strange not to physically see friends and I can’t say I’ve fathomed ‘House Party,’ but my telephone device has certainly seen more Bob Hoskins-esque “It’s Good To Talk” action than ever before.
Whilst most people will tell you Netflix has been their best source of entertainment during this period and I will most certainly join them in commending ‘binge watching’ Ozark, I’ve found time to do things that I’ve always put-off such as clear out my iPhone’s address book and chuck out paperwork I’m never going to actually get round to dealing with. It’s been a time to read and reflect and an opportunity to listen to music a little more often and here follows a few other ‘lockdown discoveries’ of mine that you might find useful:
Harvey Nichols
Nobody would imagine that Patsy and Edina’s favourite shop, Harvey Nichols, would be the bargain food and drink store of the lockdown, but given they don’t charge for next-day delivery wherever you are in the UK and there’s no minimum spend, here is an unbeatable service. Unlike some greedy online booze retailers (some of whom have actually increased their prices and introduced preposterously high delivery charges to coincide with us all being stuck at home), you can get a bottle of the heather-hinted, 43% ABV Edinburgh Gin for just £32, a jar of highly addictive ginger and chilli jam for £3.95 or an utterly delicious asparagus and shrimp risotto that feeds two for just £5.95. Add half a glass of white wine and Bob’s Your Uncle and Fanny’s Your Aunt.
Podcasts and Radio Plays
I’ve become addicted to true crime podcasts such as Murder Mile (in spite of the most recent one I listened to being about the appalling murder of my late friend Robert Troyan in Mount Street Mayfair in 2013) in the last weeks. An especially gritty and somewhat grim example is The Clearing, an eight-episode serialisation based on the crimes of the American serial killer Ed Edwards (AKA ‘Wayne’ Edwards) that has been lauded by the Guardian as “an immense achievement.”
Equally gripping, if you haven’t heard it already (I’m listening to it for a second time), is BBC Radio 4’s rerun of GF Newman’s The Corrupted. Featuring a fictional dodgy MP interacting with real political figures from the past including Margaret Thatcher and Douglas Hurd, here is something for political geeks to get their teeth into before the ‘B-word’ again raises its ugly head once coronavirus fades into the background.
‘The Quiz’ on Facebook
Some of us were already playing before orders to stay indoors arrived, but the ‘Quiz Planet’ app on Facebook has proved a charming way to interact with friends from near and afar. Some of the questions do border on the inane and others have induced a Major Charles Ingram-esque cough on my part, but if you want to while away the hours, do sign up and if you want someone to thrash, try challenging me.
And Then… What’s Next?
Most of all, of course, what will really keep you going through all this is this: A day will soon come when you’ll again be eating, drinking and being merry with your nearest and dearest at your very favourite establishment. Whether you fancy fish and chips or a bottle of Chablis (or both), it’ll come and it’ll come not a moment too soon.
For now, do heed the words of the late Mr Hoskins: “What men call chatter, really does matter. It’s about being a friend. Having the time to listen. It’s what makes the world goes round.” Call a friend or, if you’re not a technophobe like me, ‘give’ them a Zoom.
As out of his skull Michael Barrymore yet again makes an utter prat of himself on Instagram, we remind him to stop “destroying” games and instead help get justice for Stuart Lubbock, the man murdered in his very own swimming pool
In yet another self-indulgent image shared on Instagram on Tuesday, disgraced entertainer Michael Barrymore once again showed he cares more about fame than those suffering with coronavirus.
Known for rolling around on the floor off his skull with the equally pissed-up, convicted racist bigot Marie-Claire, Baroness von Alvensleben, Barrymore (born Michael Parker) appeared slumped on the edge of table with a ‘Strike It Lucky’ gameboard. Snapped grinning like the cat that had had too much cream (or boozy sauce in his case), the picture was captioned: “I destroyed the set.”
Michael Barrymore has been pictured inebriated on numerous occasions; his best-known incident was in the company of the especially unctuous helmet haired horror Marie-Claire, Baroness von Alvensleben – a vile specimen who was convicted of racially aggravated assault and obstructing a police officer in February 2014.
