Diversification: UK farm makes Europe’s first sheep’s milk vodka

When looking for a method to diversify their farm, Tim and Tan Spittle discovered a singular, and seemingly untouched avenue to discover: Sheep’s milk vodka.

“We knew concerning the cow’s milk vodkas and clearly researched sheep’s milk and puzzled why there weren’t many individuals doing that form of factor,” Tanya stated.

After three to 4 years of analysis and improvement, they launched Blacklion Vodka in 2021 – turning into the primary sheep’s milk vodka in Europe. A minimum of one yr later, that they had received a number of worldwide awards.

“You’re not going to consider milk whenever you’re consuming it,” Tim advised Agriland. “It doesn’t have a milky style in any respect.”

It’s a bit of creamy he stated, with “slight” notes of vanilla and an extended aftertaste. “It’s a sipping vodka somewhat than a bottle of fireside that’s simply happening your throat. It’s an actual high quality drink,” he stated.

The couple, which run a big sheep farm within the Cotswolds, don’t simply use any outdated sheep’s milk for the drink – they’ve devoted “vodka sheep”.

“We cross two breeds,” Tim defined. “We cross a Swiss breed which is a Valais and we cross it with a business milker.”

The farm in its entirety usually has about 600 sheep. The ‘vodka sheep’ are stored in small teams and are milked, producing about 1L/ewe/day.

“It’s a small batch, tremendous premium product,” Tim reiterated.

Making sheep’s milk vodka

The curds from the milk go to a pal of the couple who makes cheese, leaving them with the whey that they flip into vodka.

“With cheese making, clearly the separation of whey happens,” Tim defined.

“Curds going off to make a pleasant sheep’s cheese; the whey is redundant, sometimes a waste product, a byproduct of that course of, and it appears such a disgrace to not use these fantastic, tangible sugars.

“That’s what you should utilize to ferment and distill simply as you’d do with potatoes or grain, making a mash or beer-type answer; that’s what you utilize to distill and make a spirit.”

They selected to make a vodka as a result of they imagine the vodka market is “nearly to evolve” and that the gin market is “fairly saturated”. In addition they wished it to be an artisian, small batch, premium product.

“Simply because we’re farming doesn’t imply to say that that we must be in any manner tough and prepared,” Tim stated.

“There’s a whole lot of good farm merchandise on the market and we expect we must always sit it at the easiest finish of the market.”

Blacklion Vodka is out there in 20cl and 70cl bottles, and may be bought on-line, or at numerous small outlets listed on the corporate’s web site – together with Clarkson’s Farm star Jeremy Clarkson’s well-known Diddly Squat farm store.

Farm diversification

The vodka enterprise began out, as talked about, as a method to diversify the farm – which is one thing that the Spittles imagine is de facto essential.

And it’s not their solely diversification transfer; round ten years in the past, they transformed outdated cattle barns and now have an “urban-style fitness center” – Freestyle360 – on the farm with just a few hundred members, Tanya, who has a background in advertising and marketing, stated.

“That helps subsidise our farming actually,” Tim added. 

He believes that what’s holding different farms again from diversifying is money and time, but in addition the “inclination and presumably among the abilities to do different issues which they’d be superb at”.

“I feel farmers must be supported extra within the diversification,” he stated.

“We discovered that after we diversify, it’s by no means supported as we hope we’d need to be from issues like planning and different areas – they need to be.”