2018 Cheshire Life Food and Drink Awards - Food or Drink Product

PUBLISHED: 10:20 17 July 2018 | UPDATED: 11:05 17 July 2018

WINNER

Jeffrey’s Tonic, Chester

If gin is big news, tonic is less so. Mike and Maureen Robinson aim to change that with a range of tonic syrups which they hope will have us talking of a ‘gin and Jeffrey’s’. Variations on the tonic theme include recipes with lime, galangal and orange, yarrow, cinchona bark with Sicilian lemon juice. The Chester firm’s stated intention is to lift your spirits.

NOMINATED

Forest Gin, Macclesfield

Lindsay and Karl Bond set up this firm in what you’d have to describe as the highlands of Cheshire...Macclesfield Forest. A maximum of 85 bottles are made at any one time, and the additions to the spirit include not just local spring water but juniper berries, coriander seeds, vanilla, liquorice, flowers and Peak District mosses and ferns.

Fruits of the Forage, Macclesfield

Find your own food...that’s the essence of foraging. This questing form of gastronomy has translated into a business for Fruits of the Forage, harvesting fruit from abandoned orchards and plucking nature’s bounty to produce a range which includes hedgerow harvest jam, sloe Seville marmalade, mulled plum jam and hogweed curry chutney.