Hepple

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The four Hepple founders on the hill

AN INDEPENDENTSPIRITS HOUSELED BY FLAVOUR

Welcome to Hepple

Hepple began with a group of friends, each bringing a different kind of expertise, and one ambitious question: how do you capture the wild character of a landscape in a glass?

Inspired by the ancient juniper, generous plants and clean water of the Hepple Estate, we make spirits with depth, brightness and remarkable flavour. Rooted in Northumberland, crafted with curiosity, and made for drinks worth sharing.

OUR STORY OUR ESTATE OUR CRAFT
The Hepple range: Wild Juniper Gin, Moorland Vodka and Douglas Fir Vodka

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A Hepple founder in the woods

HOW WE MAKE
HEPPLE

TURNING THE BEAUTY OF THE LANDSCAPE INTO FLAVOUR

OUR CRAFT

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Probably the most important distillery to open in a decade.”

Tristan Stephenson The Curious Bartender

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The Fifty Best — Best Gin, Double Gold Medal 2022 Difford's Guide — five stars, Outstanding, 2017 San Francisco World Spirits Competition — Double Gold 2017
The Hepple story

IN PURSUIT OF
DELICIOUSNESS

The Hepple founders' shared love of land

Hepple was founded in 2014 on the Hepple Estate in Northumberland, bringing together a group of friends with a shared love of land, flavour and exceptional drinks.

Walter Riddell, owner of the Hepple Estate, brought the landscape itself: its wild moorland, ancient juniper, clean water and deep sense of place. Valentine Warner brought the instincts of a chef, writer and naturalist, with a lifelong fascination for seasonality, wild ingredients and the generous plants of Britain. Nick Strangeway brought decades of cocktail knowledge and the restless curiosity of one of the world's most respected bartenders. Chris Garden brought the distilling expertise needed to turn an ambitious idea into a beautifully made spirit.

Together, they began with gin, inspired by the ancient wild juniper growing across the moorland. But the ambition was never simply to make another gin. The aim was to create a spirit that could capture the extraordinary freshness of green juniper from the estate, while building the depth, texture and complexity needed for truly exceptional drinks.

They approached gin from several directions at once. Not as a recipe to be repeated, but as a flavour challenge to be solved. How could they capture brightness without losing depth? How could they make juniper feel vivid, green and alive, while still creating a spirit with structure, elegance and length?

Three generations at Hepple

The answer became Hepple's way of making: a layered approach that combines traditional copper pot distillation with more precise modern techniques, allowing different botanicals to be expressed in different ways. The result was a gin with remarkable dimension. Fresh, complex, beautifully balanced and made for proper drinks.

From that first gin, Hepple has continued to explore the flavours of the estate. Douglas fir, sloe, hawthorn and other botanicals have inspired new spirits and seasonal expressions, each one shaped by the same curiosity: what can this landscape give us, and how can we make it taste extraordinary?

In 2020, Hani Farsi joined as Chairman of the Board, bringing further creative ambition and support for Hepple's next chapter.

Today, Hepple is evolving into an estate-led spirits house, still guided by the same founding spirit: wild at heart, elegant in craft, generous in its welcome and just eccentric enough to keep things interesting.

Rooted in the English wilderness, Hepple is made for martinis, hosting, good company and drinks worth making.

THE PEOPLE OF HEPPLE

The people behind Hepple. Tap a name to read more.

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The Hepple Estate

THE HEPPLE
ESTATE

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ACRES OF WILD
NORTHUMBERLAND
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DIFFERENT SPECIES
LIVE ON OUR ESTATE
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JUNIPER SAPLINGS
PLANTED TO DATE

THE LANDSCAPE IS NOT A BACKDROP. IT IS AN INGREDIENT.

The Hepple Estate

Hepple sits in 4,000 acres of wild Northumberland, where moorland, woodland, water, pasture and weather all shape the character of the place.

This is where our spirits begin. Not in a boardroom, but in the living detail of the estate: ancient juniper, Douglas fir, sloe, hawthorn, clean water, wild herbs, fungi, flowers, fruit and the shifting green of the seasons. Some of Hepple's oldest juniper may be more than 300 years old, growing here long before gin became the drink we know today. These rare trees inspired our first spirit, and they continue to guide how we think about flavour. Since 2014, Hepple has planted roughly 100 to 200 young junipers each year, helping protect and expand a species that is central to both the estate and our story.

Hepple Wilds restoration

But Hepple is not preserved in aspic. It is a working, changing landscape, and through Hepple Wilds the estate is being restored with nature at the centre. Since 2020, the wilding project has focused on strengthening life from the ground up: improving soil, holding water, removing artificial chemicals, managing deer numbers and using light grazing and rootling to build a richer, more resilient ecosystem.

Water is a major part of that work. By blocking artificial drainage channels, Hepple has created new ponds, wet grassland and fen, now rapidly filling with wildfowl, insects and amphibians. Across the estate, cattle, Exmoor ponies and Mangalitsa pigs help shape the land in a more natural way, opening ground, grazing pasture and allowing heathland and scrub to regenerate.

The results are already remarkable. To date, more than 1,500 species have been recorded at Hepple, from birds and bats to moths, fungi, dragonflies and damselflies. In 2025 alone, surveys recorded new wetland life, breeding amphibians, rare fungi, veteran trees and heathland specialists returning to the landscape.

The source of Hepple spirits

This matters to us because flavour is never separate from place. A healthier estate gives us more to notice, more to learn from and more to work with. It gives us plants, water, texture, seasonality and inspiration. It also gives Hepple its particular spirit: wild, generous, elegant and alive.

For us, the estate is not scenery. It is the source. It is where the drinks begin, and where the next ideas are always growing.

The ancient juniper groves at Hepple

The Hepple Juniper Trust

The ancient juniper groves at Hepple are more than a source of inspiration. They provide the bright green berries that define the character of our gin, making us custodians of a remarkable and increasingly rare landscape.

To help secure the future of this remarkable species, the Hepple Juniper Trust was established to protect and expand the estate's juniper population, ensuring future generations inherit a landscape even richer than the one we enjoy today.

Working alongside Natural England, Northumberland National Park and Newcastle University, we run one of the largest juniper propagation programmes in England. Each year, hundreds of young juniper plants are grown and planted across the estate, helping to replenish a species that reproduces slowly and can take more than a decade to produce its first berries.

Today, new seedlings grow alongside some of England's oldest juniper trees, many of which are thought to be several hundred years old. Encouragingly, juniper is now beginning to self-seed naturally across the estate, an important sign that these ancient groves are regenerating once again.

For more information about the work of the Hepple Juniper Trust and rewilding at Hepple, visit Hepple Wilds.

Hepple Wilds

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THE HEPPLE
EXPERIENCE

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Hepple craft and process

OUR CRAFT

HOW WE MAKE HEPPLE

At Hepple, craft begins with a simple belief: flavour comes first.

Every spirit we make starts with curiosity, patience and a refusal to settle for the obvious. We work with remarkable ingredients from the estate and beyond, then explore how to capture them at their most vivid, generous and delicious.

Some flavours need the warmth and structure of traditional copper pot distillation. Others need the precision of low-temperature vacuum distillation, or the extraordinary detail of supercritical extraction. We use old methods, new methods and whatever works best, because the point is not to show off the technique. The point is to make the drink better.

Creating a Hepple spirit takes time. Recipes are tested, adjusted, tasted and tested again. Botanicals are treated differently depending on what we want from them: depth, brightness, texture, lift, length or aroma. Nothing is rushed, because the final liquid has to do more than taste good. It has to make a remarkable drink.

That is the Hepple way of making: layered, exacting, curious and quietly obsessive.

All in pursuit of deliciousness.

OUR PROCESS

01

Selected at their best

INGREDIENTS

Everything begins with flavour. At Hepple, our estate ingredients are the inspiration and the main players: wild juniper, Douglas fir, sloe, hawthorn and the generous plants of the landscape. They are hand-picked, hand-harvested and gathered at the moment we believe they taste most alive.

To build a spirit with real dimension, we work with a careful balance of ingredients from the estate and beyond. Bright citrus, spice and seed notes, from Amalfi lemon to coriander and fennel, are chosen with the same precision, each one adding lift, structure or length to the final liquid.

Water matters too. The quality of the water used to bring our spirits to strength is part of the final character of Hepple: clean, bright and rooted in the estate.

The result is not a list of botanicals. It is a composition.

Traditional copper pot still at Hepple
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The foundation

TRADITIONAL COPPER POT

Copper pot distillation gives Hepple its structure, warmth and depth.

This is the traditional heart of our craft: slow, careful and full of character. In the copper pot, botanicals are distilled in a way that builds body, texture and length, creating the foundation on which the rest of the spirit can stand.

It gives us the deeper notes, the rounded edges and the proper backbone needed for a spirit that can hold its own in a martini, a cocktail or a beautifully simple serve.

For all our curiosity about modern methods, copper remains essential. It gives Hepple its grounding.

Vacuum distillation glass apparatus with green botanicals
03

Capturing freshness

VACUUM DISTILLATION

Some flavours are too delicate for heat.

Vacuum distillation allows us to distil at lower temperatures, capturing the brighter, fresher and more aromatic qualities of certain botanicals without cooking away their character.

This is how we preserve lift, clarity and green freshness. It helps us express botanicals in a way that feels vivid and alive, especially when working with ingredients where brightness matters as much as depth.

If copper gives us structure, vacuum distillation gives us light.

Supercritical extraction apparatus at Hepple
04

The finest detail

SUPERCRITICAL EXTRACTION

Supercritical extraction lets us capture flavour with extraordinary precision.

Borrowed from the world of fine fragrance and high-definition botanical extraction, this method allows us to draw out tiny, vivid details that might otherwise be lost. It gives us intensity without heaviness, aroma without muddiness and a remarkable sense of definition.

At Hepple, we use it not because it sounds clever, and kind of supersonic, but because it helps us make better spirits.

It is one more tool in the pursuit of deliciousness: another way to make the landscape, the botanicals and the final drink taste even better.

Hepple team blending and tasting
05

Where everything comes together

BLENDING

Blending is where technique becomes taste.

Each element is made separately, then brought together by people, not formula alone. The team tastes, adjusts, debates and tastes again, looking for balance, brightness, texture, length and that hard-to-define moment when the spirit simply feels right.

This is a group effort, shaped by distilling knowledge, cocktail experience, food instinct and a shared obsession with flavour.

The aim is not just complexity for its own sake. The aim is harmony. A spirit with dimension, but also elegance. Something that makes a remarkable drink.

Hepple Gin bottles on the bottling line
06

Finished at Hepple

BOTTLING

Every Hepple spirit is bottled and hand-finished at the distillery on the estate. The final liquid is brought down to optimal strength using water from Hepple, then bottled with the same care that shaped every stage before it. Our bottles use recycled glass, part of a wider commitment to making considered choices wherever we can, from the land we restore to the materials we use.

This last step matters. It is where the spirit becomes something ready to leave the estate and take its place in a glass, on a table, in a bar or at home.

Small details count: clarity, consistency, finish and feel.

From landscape to bottle, Hepple stays close to home.

Two Hepple cocktails on the estate
07

Made for proper drinks

ENJOYING

Hepple spirits are made to be enjoyed, not admired from a distance.

They are built for martinis, cocktails, freezer pours, generous hosting and drinks worth making. All that craft, time and experimentation only matters if the final spirit brings pleasure in the glass.

A Hepple drink should feel bright, elegant and full of character. It should have enough depth to reward attention, but enough charm to disappear happily into good company.

Serve it cold. Serve it well. Add friends.

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The Hepple range with cocktails in the greenhouse

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The Hepple range, from the estate to your glass. Free UK delivery on orders over £45.

From the archive

ADDITIONAL EXPRESSIONS

Not every Hepple spirit remains in continuous production. These Hepple expressions represent different moments in our pursuit of flavour and remain available in limited quantities.

The Fifty Best — Best Gin, Double Gold Medal 2022 Difford's Guide — five stars, Outstanding, 2017 San Francisco World Spirits Competition — Double Gold 2017

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