You can celebrate Christmas with an incredible range of locally made drinks from Sussex and Hampshire vineyards, orchards, farms, and hedgerows. Celebrate the superb variety on offer and indulge in sparkling wines, beer, gin, red and white wine, brandy, and cider, all made with produce grown on the South Downs.
We’ll start with our nearest vineyard, the award-winning Ashling Park. It has regularly topped the charts as the best English Sparkling wine with its Cuvée and sparkling Rosé, but this year, it added the best English Pinot Noir at the GB Wine awards to its trophy cabinet. I was glad to see a successful harvest of their pinot noir a few weeks ago, as it has been a challenging harvest for many English vineyards this year.
Long Man Brewery started as a farm before making beer from their regeneratively farmed barley, grown on-site at Church Farm in the South Downs National Park. Their brewhouse is solar-powered, their waste water is used for irrigation and all spent grain is fed to livestock. Not only that, but their beers are delicious. You can buy a bottle, or a mini-cask for Christmas entertaining (pre-order) We have their range and their Christmas presentation box makes a wonderful present. We also have three excellent Goodwood beers, and the more adventurous and wonderful Powder Monkey beers to enjoy as well as a few other locals.
Did you know there was a Sussex Brandy made from Sussex pressed grapes (pommace) that has achieved 3 Gold Stars at the Great Taste Awards? Michael is founder of Spirit of the Downs, creating artisan Sussex Brandy from pressed grapes from local vineyards to create delicate, fruity, smooth and complex spirits. The perfect present, or one for those cold winter nights.
We have many local gins that have great character, not only in flavour, but with their distinctive bottles and stories behind them. Winchester Distilleries ‘Twisted Nose’ gin has an award-winning bottle design and is made with local watercress, we have Wasabi (Hampshire-grown) Vodka and Shiso Gin, Chichester Harbour Gin and Bramble gin, and Jarrolds Sloe gin, all perfect seasonal sips.
And of course there are locally produced soft drinks, including the South Downs based Folkington’s range of juices and mixers (try their Earl Grey tonic!), and Waterlooville-based Hartridges, with cola, ginger beer and lemonade. Don’t forget Yarty’s cordials, a proper company making traditional family-recipe drinks.