Whitby Distillery set to hold open day in run-up to Christmas with a bar and live music

The business is currently based on Botany Way on Whitby Business Park, which is where they make their popular Prince of Darkness and Dark Spiced Rum gins, with 10% of sales of the latter going to the town’s RNLI.

And exciting plans to relocate to a new centre within the grounds of Whitby Abbey are in the pipeline within the next 18 months.

People are being invited along to the current site on Friday December 8, from 3pm to 9pm, to see what goes on behind the scenes.

Jessica Slater, who founded the business in 2017 with Luke Pentith, said: “A lot of people locally don’t know they can come up and visit so we thought a good thing to do would be to have an open day.

"Normally you have to pay for a tour where we talk people through the distilling process, but idea is to have a day where we open the shutters, have a bar, live music, discounts for people to buy gifts and a gift wrapping station.

"Everything happens under one roof and there are few distillers that offer tours, but we’re keen for people to see how we take those raw ingredients through to the end product.”

People can look round the site where Whitby Distillery produces the Prince of Darkness gin, with its distinct cherry and orange flavour.

It was initially produced last year as a limited edition drink for the 125th anniversary of the publication of Dracula, but Jessica said it has proved so popular it is now on a par with their best-sellers.

But when the new centre is built in the south west corner of the abbey site, production will transfer across there too.

The new building will also boast a tasting lounge, an on-site shop and the North Barn where people will be able to book private events.

Jessica added that from there, people will also be to enjoy a view of the abbey which has never been seen by the public before as the building used to be a private property.