Alan Partridge, Colman’s mustard, Delia Smith... eat your heart out. There’s some new Norwich icons in town.

As a wine retailer we're often on the hunt for new producers from all corners of the globe. It's not often we get to meet an exciting new producer just 5 minutes walk from Naked HQ, in the heart of Norwich city centre...

So, when an email dropped into Matt's (Naked Wine Guy) inbox a few months ago from a couple of guys called Craig and Rory, who said they were making award-winning gins just around the corner, he thought someone might have been pulling his leg.

But sure enough, Matt took a stroll, and that’s exactly where he found them, working out of a cool cocktail bar they’d launched themselves a few years ago. And after tasting their kit and getting to know them, Matt knew this was one of those rare instances where it wasn’t just too good, it was also very true.

Craig and Rory told Matt about how they’d met while working at another popular local distillery.

The two of them had worked together for years. Not just there, but also at a local Norwich gin bar. When that gin bar suddenly closed down in 2019, they saw an opportunity to strike out on their own together, so they snapped up the site and immediately got to work making it home.

They completely renovated it and transformed it into a brand new cocktail bar – called Gyre & Gimble – where they started making their very own gin, distilled on-site, to be served at the bar.

Craig and Rory still make all their gins on-site and even though they’ve only been going 3 years, they’ve already won some big awards.

The stuff Matt tasted was truly superb. The guys absolutely know what they’re doing, you have to if you’re going to win gongs from the likes of the IWSC and the World Gin Awards.

But they know they can achieve even more. Which is why they were so keen to join up with us. The extra support from Angels and having a local Norwich partnership means less hours on the road for the guys and more time they can focus on making their incredible gins...

“The fact that it’s a business on our doorstep. It’s two local businesses collaborating together to support each other. We haven’t got to go down to London, Liverpool or Manchester to look for those big deals. We’re really excited to be on board!” Craig Allison and Rory Smith, Ginmakers.

The guys are currently hard at work, bottling up their first batch of gin for our customers, which should be arriving soon.

If you’d like to know more when it arrives, just drop them a follow and we'll make sure to keep you in the loop.

And, we won’t spoil the surprise, but the guys are super-passionate about the environment and there’s something VERY cool about their first gin which could be a game-changer for the planet. More on that next week...