What do you get if you combine two former members of the Royal Navy and a seasoned pro from the world of wine and spirits? The Portsmouth Distillery, that’s what. While Rum is their central passion, that hasn’t stopped them becoming an award-winning producer of gin, too. 

Some things are just meant to be.

For some of us, our journey in rum starts and ends with something like Barcadi. Or maybe we’ve dabbled with the beverage known as Navy rum, the blend that traditionally features rums from places such as Jamaica, Barbados and Trinidad.

What we drink is our prerogative, of course. But it also makes complete sense that two former members of the navy, boasting more than 60 years’ experience between them, would end up starting their own distillery.

Where else? In a fort surrounded by the sea and centuries of naval history, of course. And as seasoned advocates of great rum, they want to show consumers just how good UK-made rum can be.

“Both Giles and I coincidentally left the Navy back in 2012. He would set up his own business and I went off to work for the Geest Line,” recalls Vince Noyce, operations director at The Portsmouth Distillery.

As the premier shipping line to the East Caribbean, Noyce would frequently find himself back in the Caribbean handling the import of bananas.

“I was already a big fan of rum but spending regular time in the Caribbean allowed me to reimmerse myself in it,” Vince Noyce, The Portsmouth Distillery

“I was already a big fan of rum but spending regular time in the Caribbean allowed me to reimmerse myself in it,” he explains.

“Literally!” smiles Giles Collighan, the distillery’s finance director.

With a working pattern of eight weeks on, eight weeks off, Noyce found himself back in the UK and regrettably, at the bottom of one of his favourite rums – English Harbour from Antigua Distillery.

Attempts to procure more of the spirit online failed so, in a throwaway comment to his friend and former colleague, Noyce suggested the duo started a rum club for fellow fans.

“We started it as a hobby back in 2015 but it gave us a real insight into the rum scene, both here and overseas,” Noyce says. “It was never going to set the world alight but the knowledge we absorbed by doing it was invaluable.”

Talk of selling other people’s rums, eventually, turned to the feint possibility of giving it a go themselves.

“We both had a few drinks and I think we were maybe semi-serious at best,” he recalls. “But then I was made redundant in August 2017. I told Giles that if we were going to do it, now was the time. Otherwise I’d get another job and we’d never do it. This was our chance.”

So they took a deep breath and one year later, The Portsmouth Distillery was born.

While Noyce had remained in the maritime world after leaving the Navy, Collighan entered the business world. A slight change from the years spent together serving on Type 42 destroyer vessels.

“It’s interesting because both Vince and I had the same experiences during our time in the Navy. But when that came to an end, I took out a franchise with a finance company where I spent time speaking the financial directors at businesses, discussing how they could save money, effectively, he says. “It allowed me to grow my financial background quite quickly and when it came to starting a distillery, dovetailed nicely with Vince’s knowledge of rum. We’re a good fit.”

When it came to opening a distillery, Collighan and Noyce had two factors that were non-negotiable. The distillery had to be located on Portsea Island and secondly, it was to be housed in a historic building.  

“We started our search and were put in touch with the City Council,” says Noyce. “Mark Pembleton, their economic growth manager, had been in dialogue with Historic England about the ways Fort Cumberland could be redeveloped with local companies.”

Fort Cumberland is located on the southeastern corner of Portsea Island on the shingle spit known as Eastney Point.
It was built to control the entrance to Langstone Harbour to the east, and to improve the defences of Portsmouth Dockyard to the west.

The significance of Eastney Point as a defensive outpost was well recognised as early as 1716 when an earthwork battery was built on the site to defend Langstone Harbour. In the mid 1740s, following the Jacobite rebellion, the threat of a French invasion was very much in the mind of William Augustus, the 2nd son of George II and Duke of Cumberland.

He, therefore, undertook a review of the nation’s defences and the first proper fort was built on Eastney Point.
Construction began in 1747 under the watchful eye of Ordnance Engineer and designer John Desmaretz.

The first fort was star-shaped in plan and was constructed with rubble stone revetting. Gun embrasures for the larger guns were concentrated to the south and south-east on the seaward side of the fort.

Each point of the five-pointed star allowed defensive fire in all directions, leaving no blind spots where attackers could hide.

Following the War of American Independence and the deteriorating political relations in England a review of Portsmouth’s defences was carried out by Charles Lennox, the Duke of Richmond.
In this review he recommended that Fort Cumberland should be rebuilt.

Plans for the new fort were submitted in 1782, and works commenced in 1783, however work was very slow and costly with the fort taking some 29 years to complete in 1812.

The second Fort, and the one which remains on the site to this very day, was a pentagonal fort in plan with projecting defensive earthworks (bastions) at the end of each length of curtain wall, and was built mainly of brick and Portland limestone.

Construction of the new fort was hampered by shortages of raw materials and the lack of labour. The labour was a mixture of contract and convict. These convicts were housed in prison hulks which were moored in Langstone Harbour.

The fort has vaulted casemates within the curtain wall; these were incorporated to counter the advances in artillery which meant these buildings were vulnerable to shelling.
These casemates housed the men, stores and powder magazines in the relative safety of the curtain wall.

Life in these brick barrel-vaulted rooms would have been very unpleasant and crowded, with as many as 30 men to a casemate. It is in two such casemates that the Portsmouth Distillery made its home, a number that has grown to seven since starting out.

Dich Oatley is the distillery’s sales director. Having has spent many years in the wine and spirits industry working for specialist importers and in interactive corporate events, Oatley bumped into Collingham and Noyce by chance at the Portsmouth Seafood Festival in 2017.

“It was chance meeting, but it was clear early on that we were all on the same page,” he says. “I had been thinking of maybe starting something on Hayling Island, where I live, but it’s not quite as interesting as Portsea Island. So I think it worked out really well.”

Oatley would formally come on board the following year and hit the ground running, which is handy because when the distillery’s Fort Gin launched in November 2018, the only way was up.

Formulating the recipe for the Portsmouth dry gin, three ingredients that would play a key role grew at the fort itself. These locally-foraged botanicals include Elderflower, Gorse Flowers and Sea Radish.

“It was chance meeting, but it was clear early on that we were all on the same page,” Dich Oatley, The Portsmouth Distillery

“I hadn’t made gin before so I just started to play around with the process,” says Noyce. “But one thing was certain, and that is I wanted to create a spirit that could be enjoyed neat.”

He adds: “My view about spirits is very simple and that is you need to try it neat the first time you drink it. If it’s not palatable neat then you have to ask yourself the very basic question of what the bloody hell you are doing in the first place. You shouldn’t have to disguise the flavour with something sticky.”

After months of research, Noyce felt that he had achieved his eureka moment and was eager to get feedback.

“Everyone in the office tried it and we all thought it was fantastic. But we would, because it was our baby, and everybody loves their own baby, don’t they?” he explains.

The team would undertake broader market research to validate their views on the inaugural spirit.

“We ended up with around 38 people taking part in a blind tasting,” he says. “Pretty much all of these were industry palates and from sampling nine gins, Fort came top. Not just top, but by 98 points clear. I couldn’t believe it.”

Further research was carried out and more positive feedback was received.

“So we decided to quit while we’re ahead and stick with the recipe,” says Noyce. “With that, Fort Gin was born.”

“Rum is our reason for being,” Vince Noyce, The Portsmouth Distillery

One year later, Fort Gin was awarded a IWSC Bronze Medal for Gin in the contemporary styles category. But despite being a dab hand in gin production, the distillery’s operations director’s passion remains firmly in rum.

“Rum is our reason for being,” Noyce exclaims. 

“The reason that we make the gin is because we’d be foolish not to. It’s a way of creating revenue while we’re letting our rum age. Both we approach the production of each in the same way. You will never see any old spirit coming out of this distillery.”

He adds: “We like to try and do things as they should be done, or at least the way we understand they should be done.”

The team are particularly proud of 1968, their unaged white rum made from sugar cane . It’s a deliberate mix of different types and styles of rum, using fine sugar cane from Central America, instead of molasses, to produce a sweet, flavoursome spirit.

But they’re even more enthused by release of their three-year-old rum, which they anticipate should be ready in approximately 12 months time Until then, its ageing in 200 litre ex-Jim Beam bourbon barrels. And it’s a process Noyce has enjoyed being part of.

“The classic ageing process for rum takes place in ex-bourbon barrels. And there’s a plethora of them available because in the US, you can only use each barrel once when producing bourbon,” he says.

“I opted for Jim Beam because I wanted to impart that lighter bourbon flavour. Not something that would smack the rum in the face. I wanted something to complement the spirit where they would grow together as they age.”

And be it gin or rum, the distillery is proud to call Portsmouth home. Something they’ve actively conveyed through their branding since day one.

“When we first started looking at our business plan, it was to start organically within Portsmouth and to really try and get local consumers to buy into us, and what we’re doing,” says Collighan. “If we could become sustainable thanks to local support, we would then have a platform to build on.”

He adds: “We want people to know who we are, what we’re producing and where we’re making it. We are proud of our story and want to share it with others.”

For Noyce, it’s a pertinent point, especially when other companies can opt to be “liberal” with the truth.

“Let’s be honest, there’s a lot of deception in the distilling world,” he says. “You can call yourself after a place and have production take place hundreds of miles away. I think it’s important to be honest and genuine when dealing with others.

“I think we all get a little miffed on occasion when we see others being economic with the truth, because people can get sucked in by it.”

But going forward, the team are confident in their approach. While online sales have helped counter the drop-off in custom elsewhere, a promising new listing at a major supermarket promises to be a highlight in the early part of 2021.

“We’ve seen sales from Portsmouth right up to the Highlands of Scotland, which is very rewarding,” says Oatley. “The key going forward is to retain that loyal business we’ve received in the last year.”

Collighan adds: “Pre-pandemic we were welcoming more than 120 people on distillery tours. It’s not just the revenue brought in from tours, but the secondary sales you get with people buying drinks to take away.

“So it’s a case of doing our best to maintain the business we’ve created during these last months when our normal channels hopefully return. But it’s an exciting time.”

Which is especially true with the distillery’s gin being stocked at some local Waitrose stores from April onwards.

“Our mission in the last 12 months has been to ensure we are still on people’s minds. With the new ways pubs and bars operate, customers have been unable to visit the bar and pick out a drink in that fashion, especially with the prevalence of table service,” says Oatley. “So the chance to stock our gin in somewhere like Waitrose is a great opportunity for the business and a positive start to the year.”

But achieving the listing was also the result of a lot of hard work, and the best part of 18 months in the planning.

“We held a tasting, which went well but following that it has been more than a year and a half banging on the door to get to where we are now,” says Collingham. 

Noyce adds: “It’s funny how these things work out. We have our gin going on the shelf, which is great. But the real goal is the be the artisan white rum on the shelves of places such as Waitrose.

“It’s the product we want to be recognised for, and I truly believe there is space for a product like ours. We have a great deal of faith in the quality of what we distil here in Portsmouth and look forward to sharing it with others, too.”