Who We Are
Our story
The Surrey Copper Distillery is based in the heart of the beautiful county of Surrey. We make a distinctive library of spirits inspired by a rich heritage and reflecting the very essence of England. The distillery was founded in 2017 by Dr Chris Smart and his wife Professor Katherine Smart. Both are widely experienced and acknowledged as experts in the brewing and distilling industries. The Surrey Copper Distillery relaunched in early 2024 with new team members to drive the business forward and bring our Copperfield London Dry Gins and other drinks to a wider audience.
Our inspiration
Our Copperfield London Dry Gins are inspired by the earliest documented recipe from The Complete Distiller by Ambrose Cooper and which was first published in 1757. While browsing in a book shop opposite the British Museum, Katherine Smart stumbled across a copy of the 1800 edition of The Complete Distiller nestled amongst some beautifully bound copies of Charles Dickens’ Collected Works. Recreating those original recipes in small pot stills inspired the recipe which is now used for our Copperfield London Dry Gin.
What’s in a Name?
Copperfield
We named our gin Copperfield in tribute to the fortuitous find amongst Charles Dickens Collected Works.
The Dickensian links don’t stop there. We have made the beautiful Surrey countryside our home and we are a stone’s throw from The White Horse in Dorking where Charles Dickens penned the Pickwick Papers. Often referencing gin in his books, Dickens enjoyed spirits and perhaps gin most of all. In Pickwick Papers he coined the name Whistling Shop for a place where spirits and particularly gin were sold. In David Copperfield, Mr Macawber orders a gin punch and quickly forgets his troubles! Dickens himself reputedly collected gins in his cellar and one of his favourite drinks was a Mint Julip which was a wonderfully refreshing combination of gin, lemon juice and mint, regularly served at his Doughty Street soirées.
Our gin is made with botanicals from the field and in a copper pot still. The Copperfield name beautifully combines the two.
Sanditon
Sanditon is Jane Austen’s unfinished novel and has recently been the subject of an ITV adaptation.
Jane Austen lived in the Hampshire village of Chawton, near Alton and it is in this house (now a museum) where she wrote and revised all of her novels. The house is a mere 30 miles from our distillery. Jane Austen is known worldwide for her wit, social observation and insight into the lives of women in the early 18th century.
Sanditon is no exception with a rich cast of characters centred around the south coast fishing village of Sanditon and with aspirations of becoming a tourist resort. It is believed that inspiration for the village was taken from Worthing on the South Coast.
The cast of characters includes Miss Georgina Lambe, referenced as “a young West Indian of large fortune”. She is an heiress to a plantation fortune.
The links provide an apt backdrop for our Sanditon Rum which is a great addition to our library of spirits.
Mad Hatter
Lewis Carroll was a 19th century English author, poet, mathematician and “reluctant Anglican deacon”, who is best known for his books Alice in Wonderland and Alice through the Looking Glass.
Lewis Carroll is associated with Guildford, Surrey where his sister lived and where he himself passed away in his sister’s house in 1898. He is interred at Mount Cemetery in Guildford, and the city now has a number of statues, a Lewis Carroll trail and the Guildford Museum has a collection of Lewis Carroll and Alice memorabilia.
In Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, The Hatter tells Alice how he once always had Time on his side but explains that now they have argued. They are always having tea because when he tried to sing for the foul-tempered Queen of Hearts, she sentenced him to death for “murdering the time”, but he escapes decapitation. In retaliation, now Time won’t do a thing for the Hatter, keeping him trapped at 6:00 pm -teatime.
We think it’s a perfect time to enjoy a Vodka cocktail and the perfect addition to our library of spirits.
Our Still
The gin still is called Clara and is very special. She is a 300 litre Mini Carterhead designed specifically for us by one of the world’s leading craft distillery manufacturers, Green Engineering of Italy. Green Engineering not only bring a tremendous amount of technical expertise to still design but as craftsmen with typical Italian flair also produce beautiful stills. And we really wanted her to be beautiful.
Our distillation process is different in that we use an infuser rather than steep our botanicals in the actual still. This spirit vapour infusion yields fragrant flavours and aromas to create an inimitable and elegant gin.
Solar Power
The distillation process needs a lot of energy. Here at The Surrey Copper Distillery, we are very fortunate to have a solar power plant on site. This means that we are able to distil in a cost effective and environmentally sustainable way.
Address
The Surrey Copper Distillery
222 Dunsfold Park
Cranleigh
Surrey
GU6 8GA
