On Your Farm

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On Your Farm: Growing botanicals for gin

Growing botanicals for gin

BBC Radio 4 - On Your Farm, Growing botanicals for gin

We visit a farm on the Suffolk coast which grows plants to use in the production of gin.

Anna Louise Claydon visits a farm in Aldeburgh on the Suffolk coast, which specialises in growing plants to use as botanical ingredients in the production of gin.

Anna Louise Claydon visits a farm in Suffolk which specialises in growing plants to use as botanical ingredients in the production of gin. Andrew Heald’s 400 acre farm in Aldeburgh has been in the family for thirty years. Once intensively farmed arable land, it now produces sea-plants and herbs – like caraway, bog myrtle and rock samphire – which are used in his beachside gin distillery. Anna visits both the farm and the distillery, and learns how the crops are used in making not only gin but also herbal tea-bags. She finds out how Andrew made the move from asparagus grower to botanicals specialist, and hears about his hopes to restore the soil quality of his land and move more of it into conservation. 

Produced and presented by Anna Louise Claydon

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