About Walnut Tree Distillery 

We are Emma and Graham, the distillers, bottle washers, labellers and general gin obsessives behind Walnut Tree Distillery.

Emma’s family has been farming in Norfolk for 100 years but can be dated back over 5 centuries in local parish records. Graham moved to Norfolk more than 20 years ago, to work as a research scientist at UEA, following the completion of his PhD in Chemistry at Leicester.

We source a large number of our botanicals right here on the farm, including all of the sloes and walnuts that go into the making of our gins and it feels quite fitting, and definitely a nod to the past, that not only are our gins sold around the county of Norfolk but also in the very pub that Emma’s Great Grandfather owned all those years ago.

 

The Walnut Tree Distilleries Journey

Our journey into owning and running a distillery inadvertently started when Emma’s Great Grandfather bought the farm that she subsequently grew up on. At the time of purchase he was actually running the local pub, which family folklore says he only wanted as it had some decent stables to house his horses! The farmhouse is where Emma’s Grandfather and Grandmother bought up their 4 children, one of whom was her father, and thus saw the beginning of the next generation of farmers.

Our journey into gin started with Emma’s Great Grandmothers Sloe gin recipe, which we started to use many years ago. After some very favourable feedback it then occurred that between us we had both the Chemistry know-how and some space on the farm to create our very our (albeit very small) piece of gin heaven and hence Walnut Tree Distillery was born.