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Canterbury’s popular image is of medieval spires, Gothic tracery, and cobbled streets lined with overhanging jetties. Yet if you turn off the main shopping street down a narrow lane alongside the Adobe Hotel, you are quickly into a former industrial complex with several stories of brick, warehouses and factories. Today, it is a silent world. There are no longer roaring flames or the clanging of metal as the coke furnaces have long gone; as have the Founders, Braziers, Tin-men, and Engineers who worked in Stour Street and Jewry Lane.
In one of the former foundry buildings, behind a black door large enough to take a horse and cart, there is now a traditional craft brewery producing fine whiskies. Alongside the barrels of whisky is a 190 litre cask of rum which has been aging for two years. At first the Rum was in a cask used for a bourbon. It was progressing well, becoming very complex, with some butterscotch and raisin notes. However, Jon, the Brewer, judged it to be too green. So the liquid was transferred to a specially purchased cask made from Virgin American Oak which has restored the balance to perfection. The rum is named ‘Gamecock’ after Whitstable’s iconic 1906 wooden oyster yawl now being restored.
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For further information on the foundry see: The Bigglestons of Canterbury. Oaten Hill Local History Group, 1996.
To purchase your own Christmas present please contact the Foundry Brewery direct: https://canterburybrewers-distillers.co.uk/shop. A percentage of all sales goes to the Charity.