He certainly was not looking to make his life any easier, but such was his determination to get as close to his ancestor’s original recipe it meant going the extra mile to get the ingredients just right. TASTING NOTES: Our gold award-winning Winter Gin Liqueur is distinctive, original, balanced, & smooth. Bursting with aromatic notes of dried fruit, winter spices from Sri Lanka and the freshest orange & lemon zest from the Amalfi coast. Tom: Good question because I have no idea about spirits. I’ve never worked in booze. I’ve had various jobs in the past, some incredibly brilliant and amazing and some less so good. This came about because I love having dinner parties. I always like people at the end of a dinner party to stay for an extra couple of hours to make sure, since we’re all together, that we make the most out of hanging out. Lush Life Merchandise is here – we’re talking t-shirts, mugs, iphone covers, duvet covers, ipad covers and more covers for everything! and more! Tom: Yeah. Yeah. I think they’re called something or other. And so, ‘Where do they come from? What oil are they covered in?’ And I mean, I kind of opened a can of worms a bit didn’t I, but we had six months of, at first awesome fun testing out whether it was vodka or gin and a bit of lemon and a bit of star anise. Was the Sri Lankan cinnamon better than the Indian cinnamon?

I think by the time we left the restaurant in the early hours or the late hours of the evening, I think then, we thought there could be something, but it’s all very well and good saying. Right. Okay. We’ve got something. What do we do next? What happened next was pivotal. I got introduced to Fairfax from Sipsmith who very kindly gave me two hours. Hubert, by now known affectionately as ‘The Rev’, then set out to create memorable drinks worthy of the big annual celebrations which he particularly loved as these brought everybody together. Wintertime with its focus on Christmas and especially summertime with its Fetes, when he could select fruits such as plums and rhubarb from the vicarage garden. Hubert’s recipes and distillation methods were designed to create a popular tasty more drinkable gin drink at lower alcoholic strength, 20-30% ABV with a high degree of purity, blending carefully selected real fruit and natural spices of high quality.

These days, there’s so much more than Irish cream to choose from too — new, innovative flavours are inspired by comforting desserts, seasonal spices and plenty of chocolate. Reverend Hubert’s original spirit is a genuine recreation of a recipe that was first created over 100 years ago. Label within a label The label and design looks to reflect the mixed personality of Reverend Hubert Tom: Right. We’re there at the process of what are we going to call it? How do we name it? And there was nothing. I’m a big fan of things happen for reason. I am at my Auntie Caroline’s house having lunch and she brings out a flask of his from the wall, right. One of the walls. It’s got a recipe on it and It’s got sloes in it and one thing and another. I’m like, wow, I kind of suddenly been making this and he had a Reverend Hubert had this and then, then there’s this connection between me and Hubert. THE PERFECT GIFT: The Reverend Hubert Winter Gin Liqueur makes an ideal gift for Christmas. It’s also perfect to serve to family and friends on special occasions and get togethers during the colder months.

The brief was very much to bring out the cheeky, glint in his eye, friendly, warm personality of Reverend Hubert. Look closely and you can see a halo around only half his head, to signify he was a man of cloth, but who also knew how to have a good time at the same time. I am so proud of what we are doing. It feels like we have created a new category, but then I think there is plenty of room for a category between vermouth and gin. A mixable liqueur that you can use to replace a spirit, a gin in different recipes,” he explains. Tom: That’s a good question because originally it was vodka. Fairfax again, super helpful. So, why vodka as well, he said, , gin is more popular vodka. You can make it with gin. I didn’t think too much about it. The gin added a touch of Juniper to it. That was just an easy decision to make very straightforward when we switched. Susan: It’s amazing with how many ingredients you’re talking about that it really only took six months to get what you wanted. There was a different tannin for Joe, the cost is irrelevant. Okay. So, Joe just wants to make the best. And at some point, you have to say, yeah, I’m afraid we can’t have the Guatemalan well-known raisin that only comes out five times a year, five buds a year. I’m like, let’s just calm it down. So, we did the best we could while keeping it a viable project.I’ve seen all these pictures of him at a lot of parties. They’re either photos in the church of, you can imagine a Christmas Eve gathering a few carols and then a few drinks, all that situated on a tennis court because he was a big tennis fan. He insisted on a grass court naturally next to the Vicarage. When I look at all the pics, whenever I see him, he’s smiling. He’s happy. He’s jolly. He’s clearly enjoying his life and the label, right? So much so that he now has a 10% stake in the business and is committed to hand peeling Amalfi oranges and lemons for large parts of the year. His gin drinks were of course a roaring success and eventually became Keighley’s worst kept secret. Tom: It was still the same fun. Susan, the point is and the joy of doing this is that it’s just good run. Right? So, every day there’s good fun. I enjoy meeting people. I enjoy chatting to people.

I think guys can work it out on their own. I had a conversation with someone recently who spoke about you must have a signature serve for the Rev and yes, we’ve got a few signature serves, but I’m not going to say to anyone do this or do that, have fun with it. That’s the point of having it be a bartender, enjoy, have a laugh.Born in England in 1868, Hubert was the son of a wealthy merchant family. After graduating from Cambridge University, he was set to follow in his father’s footsteps working in the family business, living a life of privilege and comfort. Susan: I’m so excited to have you here. It was so great to meet you last year. I’ve wanted to have you on the show for so long. And now of course, winter is here and since you make a winter liqueur, it was time. Where did this idea even come from?

Whilst the gin category might be fit for bursting, the sight of a winter gin liqueur is rare indeed which makes the story behind the Reverend Hubert even more fascinating. If you are sitting comfortably then let me begin… Tom: What a huge learning experience, but it taught me also to understand the tastes and the flavors that you get. So, some people have got good palates and some less, but when you start, your brain and your palate start connecting together. What I mean by that is I could start telling the difference between six bits of orange in a bit of gin and leave it for two weeks and I could tell the difference. Tom: Susan. Good question. I lived in Australia for a long time. I absolutely love Sydney. It’s one of my favorite places in the world. New Year’s in Sydney, there’s a place on Bondi Beach called Icebergs, right, which is an amazing restaurant. You can sit there, you can watch the surfers, you can see everything coming in. Tom: I suddenly thought this is absolutely remarkable. When that kind of stuff came together, there was no question that my ambition to make this happen became more and I was super keen to get Hubert out there, Hubert Bell, which I think is quite a cool name and to see what happened. It tasted all right. It was nice. So, the Christmas pudding comes out and I’ll bring it to the table and it’s lit and then we’re all doing shots. And that was when a couple of friends of mine who are not mad on liqueurs decided that this was quite good. And so, I went out to refine it, to try and make it into something better.We are constantly trying to improve it. It’s great that it started off as a home made drink, but filtering and fining of something so full of ground spices and raisiny shrub was a real headache . So we spent a great deal of time working out how to use filtration systems and bentonite fining.” Susan: Absolutely, just one caveat. Do not shake champagne. Do not shake champagne and anything with bubbles. Also, as we all learned, you don’t just have to stir a Negroni. We learned that last year with our dear friend Stanley Tucci who shook his Negroni all over the place. Lester says he first came across the Reverend’s winter gin liqueur when he was given an old “smashed up WW1 hipflask with a barely legible label” by his aunt for his eighteenth birthday that happened to contain his winter liqueur and “a recipe of sorts”. “Here began the lesson,” says Lester. So, he did it anyway in secret. Working with like-minded members of his congregation, he started creating recipes and distilling. He would regularly hide his gin still (Gertrude) and relocate his gin making activities to various wooded areas across Yorkshire to hide them from prying eyes.