Forged Spirits: The former military couple who created their own gin distillery in 18th century mill

“I’m originally from Burnley,” says Garry. “I knew from a young age I wanted to see more of the world, which was one of the reasons I joined the armed forces.”

Gary signed up to the Army when he was just 17 as a telecoms engineer, before being deployed to Germany. It was there that he met his future wife, Victoria.

“We were working in the same building looking after telecoms installations but we worked different shifts,” says Gary. “Victoria had been in Switzerland for the winter season, competing on the British team for skibobbing.” Skibobbing is a winter sport involving a bicycle-type frame attached to skis instead of wheels.

Gary and Victoria were both deployed to Bosnia in different locations, before both heading back to Germany. It was clear life would continue to be like this for them – unless they made a big change.

“We made the decision to leave the Army. I didn’t really have any desire to go back to Burnley but Victoria was from Wakefield so we decided to settle. I love the stunning countryside and the friendly and straight-talking nature of Yorkshire folk,” says Gary.

In Wakefield, Gary and Victoria put roots down, including starting a family. Today, daughter Olivia looks after the distillery’s marketing and social media while son Noah oversees production and bottling.

Settling back into civilian life, Gary and Victoria forged new careers, Victoria as a systems engineer and Gary an IT analyst. But Gary always had to have a hobby.

“I'm quite geeky. I’m also a big foodie and started experimenting with making home-brew beer and wine which escalated quite quickly into making spirits.”

Gary threw himself into designing and creating everything from temperature controls and fermentation cabinets to stills and more.

“I was making vodka from sugar, tomato purée and bread yeast, bourbon from micronised wheat and corn and rum from molasses – it took over my life and went from being just a hobby to a passion,” he says.

“I love creating new products and getting my hands dirty, whether that’s figuring out new fermentation processes or technical aspects of the distillation process.

"Just like cooking, spirit making is the perfect combination of art and science – crafting a recipe and then backing it up with technical expertise to create a top-quality product.”

Gary continued his passion-fueled experiments over a period of four years, while also striving to and achieving what he thought at the time, was his dream job.

“I came to realise after doing it for a few years that it wasn't actually my dream job, it was just something I'd fallen into. What I really wanted to do was develop my passion for making spirits and launch a business.

"Victoria suggested ‘Why don't you try and make a business of it?’ So that’s what we did.”

Gary then had to decide which liquid to launch his business with first. “We all love a G&T. Plus, gin is a white spirit and doesn’t need to be aged, so it seemed like the most sensible spirit to launch with. It’s been very hands-on since. We self-funded everything, using a little savings and credit cards.”

From there Gary began to experiment with gin in a professional capacity from his garage, launching Ford’s of Wakefield, as it was originally known, on Christmas Eve in 2018.

"We didn’t sell a thing that day. Nobody was buying anything on Christmas Eve. But over the next few months we started to reach out to potential customers and promote our brand that way.”

Gary and Victoria kicked off with two key expressions, the Original Gin and Cherry Blossom. For the original, Gary took inspiration from historic recipes found online.

“All my knowledge is self-taught and self-learned,” he says. “There are so many different resources online about distilling and I happened to stumble across an old gin recipe from the early 1900s. There was too much coriander seed and cardamom in the original recipe and it also contained liquorice which, when distilled, had too much of an earthy note, in our opinion.”

From there, Gary and his team continued to refine and tweak the recipe, using tasting groups and their own palates. They changed the name to Forged Spirits and started started looking for new premises.

“We wanted somewhere with character; a place we could bring people closer to the brand and somewhere people would enjoy coming to work.”

This led to the discovery of Tileyard North, a converted 18th century mill that has been repurposed into a creative hub. “It was everything we were looking for – it has lots of character and history is seeped into its walls.

“Tileyard North needed a bar on site, so we stepped in to create that too. From nothing but brick walls as a canvas we built a stunning art deco-inspired bar, The Distillery Bar Wakefield, which we now own and is run by Victoria.”

The move and consequent expansion saw Victoria becoming even more involved with Forged Spirits, expanding her role of product development lead to being mixologist.

The bar, which opened in January this year, is now bigger than the distillery itself. You can enjoy a G&T, cocktail or a pint in the bar while looking through the floor-to-ceiling viewing window into the distillery and watching Gary distilling.

Moving to Tileyard North gave Gary and Victoria the space they needed to expand their range and also to experiment and craft further.

“Our 300-litre still, Katherine, is a beautiful copper still with four bubble sections that allows me to create different spirits. She’s a wonder to behold and I often pinch myself when I consider how much graft and effort we have put in over the past five years to get us to this pivotal point in our journey,” says Gary.

Finding a building that tied into the history of Wakefield and Yorkshire was essential to the Fords if it was to reflect the spirit and ethos of Forged Spirits. “We want our range to celebrate Wakefield. Wakefield is famous for its coal-mining history, just as textile and steel production forms a significant part of Yorkshire’s heritage. Wakefield provided the coal that fired the forges that created the Sheffield steel and drove industry forwards.”

Gary, Victoria and the team at Forged Spirits go to great lengths to support local producers and suppliers as much as possible. “Locality is key for us,” says Gary. “Our label design and branding are created here in Wakefield, by a company called Rhubarb Design House.

"I pick up wheat from a farm in Sheffield for our vodka, we hand select all our botanicals and the glass for our bottles comes from Stoelzle Glass, about 15 miles away. Supplier locality also helps us to minimise our environmental impact and CO2 footprint by significantly reducing the miles driven in our supply chain.

"Keeping local manufacturing alive is also really important to us and ties into our ethos, our branding and our location. We want to celebrate Yorkshire as much as possible in both our creative and production process – it’s all about celebrating Yorkshire and the great things that come out of it.”

This month Craft Gin Clubbers across the UK will be unboxing Forged Winter Edition, a special-edition gin for Craft Gin Club members.