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.
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.