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? Susan: It’s amazing with how many ingredients you’re talking about that it really only took six months to get what you wanted. 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.

Susan: That that’s amazing. That’s such an amazing story. So, now a couple of years later, how has it been for you to be the owner of a spirit company?

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.

I know where to go in the world to find the perfect style of a certain type of fruit. Like Serbia and its plums.”Tom: I was doing that as well, and I think he was a big fan of Stanley, who doesn’t like Stanley, a legend! I think it amalgamates them together and it creates a kind of nice, a little bit of white foam on the top, which visually appealing. He’s the man, he’s doing it. Yeah. Good. 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.

Susan: Exactly. It was the Negroni that was heard around the world. Now I always leave my guests asking them one question, which is, if you could be drinking anything anywhere right now, where would that be? And what would it be? 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. When we make things, I might seem weird, but I’m always surprised that it works with this liqueur with the lemons and the oranges and the spices and the sweetness , there’s always something that can match and blend with something else.

Now some nearly 120 years later Tom Lester has decided to give it a second life and created a 2020 version of the winter gin liqueur recipe – that so requires every ingredient to be sourced, peeled and squeezed by hand. we came together then for me to make a Fortnum and Mason Mince Pie and Marmalade liqueur: so, the Mince Pie-ness of the Reverend Winter is there. I love marmalade. So, we had a chat and said, well, that might be a dumb idea, but how about we make this?