Hyke Gin is a premium gin from the young Foxhole Spirits brand. The special feature: it is made from high-quality by-products of the grape harvest manufactured with the aim of enhancing the creativity of the Beverage Industry promote and reduce food waste. Innovation and sustainable living go hand in hand in the English manufactory.
Co-founder of Foxhole Spirits and inventor of Hyke Gin James Oag-Cooper in personal conversation with Haus von Eden
1. The idea for your company came about through? A conversation between me and Sam Linter, the senior winemaker in one of our cooperative vineyards. We had both thought a lot about how to use the excess grape harvest.
We found that no one had ever made a gin from English grapes and asked us if that was possible. As a pilot project, we collected a small amount of the crop waste and created the first Foxhole Gin.
Source: Foxhole Spirits
2. What is special about your product? That all of our spirits are designed to be made from excess raw materials. The secret is that they are actually incredibly high quality materials. The complete processing of the raw material sets us apart. We also focus on quality: This applies to the spirit itself, but also to everything else such as packaging, service and, above all, the tasting by our "Signature Serves".
3. Your mission is it? Produce premium quality spirits from otherwise unused resources.
James Oag-Cooper, source: Foxhole Spirits
4. Are you drawing inspiration? When I see how we can tackle the problem of food overages. Understanding the enormity of the problem and turning that knowledge into quality products is a good feeling. Also knowing that we have the skills and abilities to fulfill our mission.
5. Your brand stands for? Handcrafted products that are unique, honest about their origins and most importantly, delicious. Our Hyke Gin is an embodiment of this ambition and our innovative spirit. The product and design reflect the different places from which the grapes used come from.
6. Tradition is lived by you? Our production methods: Because wine has been around for thousands of years. However, we are using a modern twist on processing, hoping to inspire consumers and industry to make greater use of vintage byproducts.
"Distilling has been around for thousands of years, but our products have a new focus on sustainable luxury, and I hope sustainability will be a matter of course in the future, and no explanation is needed."
7. Consciously life means for you? That all people in everyday life more consciously deal with our resources. In addition, industry should seek to implement more sustainable practices through its production and supply chains in order to exploit resources and minimize waste.
8. You want to show the world? That luxury products in the food industry can also be obtained on a larger scale from surpluses. Not only is this important to the beverage industry, but all industries should become more inventive and streamline processes and innovations. Then there is no reason why not everything should be sustainable, including luxury goods.
9. Your secret of success is? Our traditional Botanicals recipe. In the recipe developments, we quickly realized that the unique taste characteristics were those that came directly from the brandy. Our recipe allows these properties to show through in the final gin without appearing dominant.
10. Your next step is? To experiment with alternative distillation techniques to gain more alcohol from the grape skin. Finally, we would like to sell enough products to recycle 100% of the excess grapes from our supplier Richard Hochfeld.
Richard Hochfeld is one of the largest fruit importers in the UK, with 1,4 million baskets of grapes a year in surplus. After that, we also want to work with other partners to share our knowledge and expertise.
