Hepple captures wild Northumberland juniper in every bottle

Hepple is a small village on the banks of the River Coquet, four miles west of Rothbury and on the edge of Northumberland National Park. It is also home to one of the most thoughtful spirits producers in the country.

Hepple was founded in 2014 on the Hepple Estate by a group of friends. Estate owner Walter Riddell brought the landscape itself, chef, writer and naturalist Valentine Warner brought a lifelong fascination with wild ingredients, bartender Nick Strangeway brought decades of cocktail knowledge and Chris Garden brought the distilling expertise. In 2020 Hani Farsi joined as chairman.

They began with gin, inspired by the ancient wild juniper growing across the moorland. Some of the estate's oldest juniper may be more than 300 years old. The aim was to capture the freshness of green juniper while building the depth and texture needed for exceptional drinks.

To do that, Hepple combines traditional copper pot distillation with lower-temperature vacuum distillation and supercritical extraction, treating each botanical differently. Douglas fir, sloe and hawthorn from the estate have inspired further spirits, and every bottle is hand-finished at the distillery using recycled glass.

Conservation runs through everything. Since 2014 Hepple has planted roughly 100 to 200 young junipers each year, and the Hepple Juniper Trust works with Natural England, Northumberland National Park and Newcastle University on one of the largest juniper propagation programmes in England. Encouragingly, juniper is now beginning to self-seed naturally on the estate.

Across the 4,000-acre estate, the Hepple Wilds project has focused since 2020 on improving soil, holding water and restoring nature. Blocked drainage channels have created new ponds, wet grassland and fen, while cattle, Exmoor ponies and Mangalitsa pigs help shape the land. More than 1,500 species have now been recorded, and surveys in 2025 found new wetland life, breeding amphibians and rare fungi.

Hepple's spirits are finding fans close to home too. Blackfriars in Newcastle lists Hepple among the Northumberland spirits behind its Taste of Northumberland accreditation.

Visits to the estate are coming soon, and in the meantime the full range can be ordered from the Hepple Spirits website.