Award-winning gin maker to go into administration

An award-winning gin retailer is to go into administration citing "rising costs and difficult trading conditions".

Spirit of Harrogate, which was founded in the North Yorkshire spa town in 2014, is behind the Slingsby Gin product range.

Lewis Business Recovery and Insolvency said it had been instructed to "assist with placing the company into administration", with Gareth Lewis and Matthew Russell the proposed joint administrators.

Lewis said: "We are now actively marketing the business and assets for sale as a going concern in an attempt to preserve jobs and maximise the return for creditors."

He said the firm, which has five employees, was "one of Harrogate's iconic independent retailers and the Slingsby Gin product range is very well respected both locally and nationally".

The company was inspired by the the story of William Slingsby, who is said to have discovered the "unique properties" of natural spring water in Harrogate in 1571.

Entrepreneurs Marcus Black and Mike Carthy founded the firm to "celebrate the spa town heritage", according to the company's website.

Their Slingsby Gin products use water drawn from an underground aquifer in Harrogate and botanicals grown at the nearby Rudding Park Hotel, but are distilled in Birmingham.

The company's rhubarb gin won gold at the World Gin Awards in 2023.

Spirit of Harrogate was approached for comment.

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