Discover our exclusive October 2020 Gin of the Month, Whitby Gin The Demeter Edition!

A small coastal town is an unlikely place for one of the world’s most fearsome monsters to make landfall – but Whitby, a beautiful little outpost on the Yorkshire coast, is where Count Dracula first set foot in the UK. Find out how this tale, and the seaside idyll in which it’s set, inspired a pair of distillers to create a deliciously dark spirit exclusively for our members and their October 2020 Gin of the Month box.

Here’s the story behind our October 2020 Gin of the Month, Whitby Gin The Demeter Edition!

Many years ago, so the story goes, the oppressive stillness of a summer’s day in Whitby was broken by a sudden storm. Roaring waves, thunderous wind and monstrous lightning appeared. Masses of ghostly sea fog rolled into the harbour and along with it came the Demeter – a ship that locals were shocked to see had the corpse of its captain attached to its helm. From the vessel, an immense black dog leapt ashore and dashed up the cliff to the graveyard above, before disappearing into the darkness of the moorlands.

According to Bram Stoker’s Dracula, this is how Count Dracula, under the guise of a beast, first set foot on British soil. For Whitby Gin distillers Luke Pentith and Jessica Slater, their hometown is a natural setting for one of the world’s greatest tales. Nowhere in the world compares to Whitby, a remote town on the coast of Yorkshire.

From Bram Stoker to Captain Cook, not to mention the goths that descend twice a year for the Whitby Goth Weekend festival, this sleepy seaside town has captured the imagination of many an unusual character. Held on one side by the sea and the other by heathered moorlands, it boasts ancient churches and graveyards, rich folklore and a fossil-strewn coast. No wonder it's a town steeped in intrigue.

Although Jess had grown up in Whitby and Luke was from the nearby city of York, the two met miles away when they were both students at Loughborough University.

The two got chatting, and while Jess’s studies whisked her away to Canada and China, when she returned home fate brought them back together. The next time they met was in the famous Magpie Fish and Chips restaurant, where she worked during her summer holidays, and the two have been together ever since.

They spent the next few years exploring different career paths, and although their different adventures took them up and down the country, they stuck together and found in each other kindred spirits. Both share a keen sense of curiosity – especially when it comes to their favourite tipple.

In 2017 the two of them set off to the Scotland and the Hebrides.

Whitby is a place full of history, legends and remarkable people – and the more they thought about it, the more telling the stories of Whitby through gin made sense.

The small still that Jess and Luke had ordered would create one bottle of gin at a time – and it didn’t take them long to begin experimenting. Their friends and families were roped into tasting sessions that would go on late into the night, as Jess and Luke tried out distilling different botanicals from around Whitby.

Working out of a 40 sq-foot utility room in Luke’s parents’ house, they created their first-ever batch of Whitby Gin. When they released it into the world, they weren’t quite sure what to expect but hoped that a few visitors to Whitby would take a bottle away with them when they left, as a souvenir of the coastal town.  

But just like Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Whitby Gin took on a life of its own. It began as a local favourite, but soon folks from all over the country had developed a taste for the stuff. For a good number of gin enthusiasts, it became their forever gin – the one they always have a bottle of on their shelves.

The support from their local community gave Jess and Luke the courage to enter their gin into competitions. They began sweeping up golds and silvers across the country, but one experience, in particular, emboldened them.

They ended up creating a whole range of gins – including the exclusive bottle you unboxed this October.

It had been a novel that had first brought Jess and Luke together, and when they set about creating a bespoke gin for Craft Gin Club members, they decided to tell another literary story.

Once Jess and Luke had settled on creating a spirit inspired by the famous vampire, they began doing their research, hunting for the perfect name for their gin.

Much of Bram Stoker’s novel is told through the medium of letters, and a whole section of it is told through the Demeter’s logs. Dracula boards the Demeter in Varna, Bulgaria, with coffins filled with Transylvanian soil. Members of the crew gradually begin disappearing, victims of the vampire on board. By the time the ship reaches Whitby, only Dracula remains, and he escapes to the moors in the form of a dog, ready to wreak havoc on the windswept town of Whitby. For Jess and Luke, the iconic ship seemed like the perfect namesake for their gin.

Once they’d settled on the name, it was time to create their bespoke blend. Juniper, of course, would take centre stage, but they had three other botanicals in mind: heather, plum and pepper dulse.

To begin with, they wanted to capture the herbaceous yet floral aroma of the heather surrounding Whitby. Jess and Luke imagined the walks Bram Stoker must have taken on Whitby’s moorlands, and wanted to follow in his footsteps.

To complement the flavours of heather, they added a mixture of dried and fresh black plums to their botanical blend. Not only does their depth of fruity flavours make for a delicious gin, but plums are also a favourite food amongst bats – one of the many animals into which Dracula could transform. Plus, these autumnal fruits are said to grow in abundance around Bran Castle, which served as the inspiration for Dracula’s castle in the novel.

Meanwhile, the rich umami flavour of pepper dulse, sometimes called the truffle of the sea, offers a fascinating and delicious contrast to the subtle sweetness of plum. This type of seaweed, which Jess and Luke source from the local company SeaGrown, really captures the scent of the waves crashing against the piers of Whitby.

Along with 14 other botanicals, including the likes of vanilla and rosehip, they had their recipe at last – rich, fragrant and full of heady flavours. They ordered a brand-new copper still from Germany and named it Dora-Grace, after Dora Walker, the first-ever female fishing boat skipper in Whitby.

Once Dora-Grace had transformed the botanicals into October’s exquisite Gin of the Month, there was just one thing left to do: bottle the spirit of Dracula and send it straight to every Craft Gin Clubber’s door.

Jess and Luke’s story with gin is far from over – in fact, it’s just beginning. Just like Dracula’s quest to find a new home in England, this pair of distillers are also ready to set up shop in a new spot – though their intentions are far less malevolent. They simply need a place to continue telling the stories of Whitby through the gins they create.

They’ve come a long way since they made their first batch of gin in Luke’s parents’ utility room, and now work out of a 635 sq-foot cart shed, but they’re still in the process of creating their forever home.

They had looked at several places in Whitby, including an old fudge factory, but nothing seemed to fit. Then one fateful day, while working with English Heritage at Whitby Abbey, Jess and Luke noticed two derelict barns a stone’s throw away. They immediately felt drawn to them, and after exploring them further, realised they would be the perfect spot to create their dream distillery.

Of course, the historic significance of its location cannot be understated. The skeletal ruins of Whitby Abbey, which was first built over 1,500 years ago, have been inspiring artists and poets for hundreds of years. The stories that have cropped up around the Abbey form the foundation of Whitby’s local lore.

Not to mention, Jess and Luke will have the space to make their dreams come true.

Most importantly, Jess and Luke will be able to achieve one of the dreams they hold most dear: they’ll create a distillery devoted to sustainability and protecting the environment. The two of them love the natural world that makes Whitby such a wonderful place to live and distil gin, and they want to do everything they can to preserve its beauty.

While Luke and Jess often borrow inspiration from Whitby’s rich past, they’re excited to be part of its future. Through the beautiful bottle in October’s box, they’ve revived a long-dead vampire, and once they create their eco-friendly distillery, they’ll breathe fresh life into more fascinating tales from Whitby’s history.

Check out the details on this extra-special bottle:

The texture of the glass reflects the rippling waves of the wild sea, climbing up the neck of the bottle like waves crashing against Whitby’s cliffs.

The cork, made of lovely dark wood, pays tribute to the ship-building industry in Whitby. 

The shape of the bottle mimics the buoys you see hanging from the fishing boats in Whitby harbour.

The label’s purple colour reflects the plums that give the liquid its rich, fruity flavours, while the swirls capture the tempestuous waves of the sea.

The bottom of the bottle is shaped like an ammonite – that is, one of the fossils that you’d find on the Whitby coastline. According to legend, they’re actually serpents turned to stone by St Hilda, the 7th-century abbess of Whitby. This story began Whitby’s legacy as a place with supernatural possibilities.

Find out what accompanied this fantastic gin in our October 2020 Gin of the Month box!