The Folkestone Distillery – Buoyed up on gin

Peter Bracewell is the man behind The Folkestone Distillery.  There are two gins on offer – Beach Buoys Coastal Gin and Beach Buoys Aromatic Gin.  They’re examples of a lot of hard work, concentrated tasting and now happy gin drinking friends and customers.  There are plans for rum and collaborations with local food and drink businesses.  Folkelife met Peter at his still for a sip and a chat.

“I’m originally from Suffolk but came to Folkestone via South London.  Our best friends live here so we’d been visiting for about 6 years.  Then, during Covid, we had just had our first child, and it was clear we weren’t using London for all it had to offer.  We thought we needed to move and Folkestone was first on our list.  It’s got a lot of London about it; the food scene is really vibrant, and there’s the coastal element too.

“I’m still attached to the law firm I work for, so I go up to London twice a week, and then have started to distill my own gin, as you do.”

beach buoys coastal

“It was an idea that had been bubbling away since about 2019 but the costs of distilling were prohibitive.  Then lockdown came along and I discovered this miniature still which was a third of the price.  It made things much more exciting and feasible!  We were bubbled up with my parents-in-law who conveniently had a little mezzanine area above their garage.  I set up my still there and started to experiment.

“It’s taken a while to get exactly the right flavour, but we’re now producing two gins – Beach Buoys Coastal and Beach Buoys Aromatic Gin.  Local vendors have taken supplies and we’re selling across Folkestone and Sandgate.” 

bringing dry gin to the coast

“A London Dry gin has a strong juniper base to it.  And, with a London Dry, you can’t add things to it once it’s made.  With ours, to give it that coastal hit, we’re adding sea salt at the end.  So this isn’t technically a London Dry, it’s a Coastal Dry gin.  This one is quite universal.  I think that most gin lovers would find this a smooth, refreshing gin to add to their tonic of an evening.  There’s a citrus element to it as I’ve added orange and grapefruit peel to the juniper base.  Then we’ve added the sea salt at the end.  It’s a classic gin, very easy to drink.

“Then I wanted to create something that was a bit more complex.  The Beach Buoys Aromatic Gin starts with the juniper flavours and then moves through some rosemary towards a spiced finish with cardamon and allspice.  In all it’s taken nearly 3 years to get the two gins we have on the market.  But we know they’re the right ones, my best friend, who’s helping as a sales consultant said back in October 2023 ‘That’s the one! That’s the one we sell.'”

a family affair

“From starting out in my parents-in-law’s garage to now, we’ve enlisted most family and friends in on the project.  At the moment they’re happy to be paid in gin which is good.  The craft gin market is really saturated though so we’re looking at creating other spirits in the future.  The still I have here is really clever.  You put your alcohol in the vat, which has a heating element in.  The botanicals sit in a layer over the top so that the vapours of the alcohol pass through as they go up the still.  Then, there’s a robot on the side that filters off each different element of the alcohol as it cools down.  

“The heads come off first, which are quite juniper heavy so you want to manage how much of that you put into your gin.  You don’t want it to overpower the other flavours.  The hearts come next which are those other elements you’ve added to your recipe.  Then there’s the tails, which are the root notes, a little like perfumes – top, middle and bottom scents that give that rounded flavour to your scent.  So this robot does all this automatically for me.  The gin that comes off at the end is around 75 to 80% alcohol, and that needs to be diluted to the 43% mark for sale.”

stocking up

“A friend of mine, Drew, has a coffee roasting company which is the coffee that’s served in Gaia Studio on Folkestone’s Harbour Arm.  He mentioned to them that I had gin and we had a meet and a chat and a tasting… now they’re creating their cocktails with my gin.  From there we’ve also got into The Beer Shop in Folkestone, and Docker Bar in Sandgate.  

“Conversations are happening with other people too around the town.  And we’re hoping to get in with local distributors.  My father-in-law is in charge of distribution a bit further a field, so we can get out and about and have everyone drinking our gin.  Would you like some..?