On the southeastern tip of Portsea Island, surrounded by the sea, and Naval History, the fabulous historic waterfront city of Portsmouth plays host to Hampshire’s premier distillery: The Portsmouth Distillery Company. The Portsmouth Distillery was set up to once again produce accessible high-quality spirits on the island of Portsea, where the last time a distillery was in operation was in the eighteenth century. So where better to give a rebirth to a spirit company than in the impressive eighteenth century Fort Cumberland. The principal driver for embarking on this project is rum. The founders have always had a real passion for rum, and through their years in the industry, selling and tasting this versatile and flavoursome spirit it seemed the natural thing to do to start producing it. Initially to fill an ever-growing gap in the market for fine quality small-batch artisan white rum, but with an eye to laying this down to age, playing the long game, to have world-class aged sipping rums in the future. Due to the abundance of locally sourced botanicals The Portsmouth Distillery Company will also be producing a Gin to reflect the history of the site and Portsmouth as a smaller scale producer of the juniper-flavoured spirit in the 1700s. The distillery will be completed when the Chinese pot still, with a gin basket and 4 plate column still is delivered by sea and commissioned in October 2018. The distillery will initially be producing premium artisan spirits, ranging from: gin, white rum, spiced rum and in time aged rum, using the magnificent powder magazines of Fort Cumberland to keep the rum safe as it ages by the sea.
