Defiance Distillery which won San Francisco World Spirits award reopens bar

Defiance Distillery, based at Woodend Mill in Lees, picked up the Best In Show, Unaged White Spirit category prize at the San Francisco World Spirits awards last year with its Defiance Navy Strength product – beating competition from around 3,000 entries.

It was the first time a UK firm was handed the accolade since 2006, a great achievement for a distillery described by owner Paul Sheerin as “tiny” in comparison to previous award winners.

Unfortunately the timing of the award came at the start of the pandemic but it did attract business from overseas.

After opening in January 2017, Paul made the move for the distillery, which makes gin, vodka and rum, to open a bar in August 2019.

Like many businesses, the firm has had to close its bar and has had trade severely restricted due to the Covid-19 rules.

But the bar has now reopened with help from the company’s devoted following.

INSIDE: The bar

Paul, 53, said: “We are open on Friday nights where we can fit 26 people in seated and on Saturday’s we have gin experiences where people can learn about gin and where it came from.

“We have a loyal following who come and visit us and we have had a couple of sell out bookings since we reopened too. We got export bookings on the back of the award last year which has helped.”

Paul is delighted that the firm is back open amid the health crisis.

SERVICE: At the bar

BAR: Insiden the bar

He added: “We did OK during the pandemic, we cannot complain and we are still here. Some people had a really hard time though.

“We had no wholesale action for 15 months but we managed to get through and it could have been a lot worse.

“The loyalty of our fans has been great, that is what has kept us going.”

People wanting to make bookings are advised to do so on defiancespirits.co.uk.