Cowbridge Nub News aims to support our community, promoting shops, businesses, charities, clubs and sports groups.

We will be profiling some of these businesses and organisations in a feature called 'Up Close in Cowbridge'.

We visited Hensol Castle Distillery, where Cowbridge local and managing director Andy Mallows gave us a tour.

For Andy Mallows making alcohol is in his blood, it's his passion.

After securing a space to make his dream a reality and converting the cellars of Hensol Castle into a distillery, the company began making their own products and bottling for other companies.

The business was ready to launch its gin school when lockdown hit, and Hensol Castle Distillery couldn't open it's new venture.

That's when Andy's wife Kathryn suggested they make hand sanitiser in the meantime.

"We got everyone in the business together and it was really tough," said Andy.

"There was no base liquid, so no alcohol in the marketplace because France wasn't shipping it in, but there was huge demand in the UK.

"We found a distillery in Scotland that was prepared to sell us a young malt whiskey. So we'd buy it from Scotland, and then the WHO recipe means you've got to add hydrogen peroxide and glycerol to make it spread on your hand.

"It sounds easy now, but it was a bare market so we were buying the hydrogen peroxide on the Monday for £1,300, by Thursday it was £2,600. And if we didn't buy it, someone else would. The prices were just rocketing.

"Getting the bottle to put it in cost three pence when we started, when we eventually got it, it was 68 pence. The market was just being used by people to capitalise on it.

"Eventually we got a good stream of alcohol coming in and we'd make it in these big tanks here."

With such high stakes came high demand, and staffing became another pressure for the team who were working 16 hours a day, seven days a week.

"We had some massive orders from London Met Police, for the Welsh NHS, trainlines in Cardiff," said Andy.

To keep up with demands we were working non-stop. My wife is a teacher in Cowbridge, and I met with the headteacher of Cowbridge Comprehensive, Mrs Thomas.

"She organised for all the staff during the shutdown to come across and help us.

"We had Cowbridge Comprehensive staff here helping us to get the order of 130,000 bottles to the London Met.

"We wouldn't have been able to do it without them.

"Then we had a rota made up of sixth form students to support us, so we had double shifts seven days a week for nearly eight weeks."

In total, Hensol Castle Distillery produced 136,000 litres in 1.2 million bottles of hand sanitiser.

"We tried to help the market rather than absorbing volumes of items ourselves," said Andy.

"We were shipping it all over the UK. At the time we were probably the third or fourth largest company doing it.

"Then two boats of hand sanitizer from China came with 40% alcohol per volume. The WHO guidelines say it has to be above 76% APV and ours was 80%.

"People were washing their hands with this shipment, but it was having no effect. The market was killed.

"So it was really good for us and the community. We did our bit to fight Coronavirus but as soon as they market tipped, they didn't need it anymore, we went back to our core products.

Those core products include the Crawshay and Benjamin Hall gin ranges, the Trulo half-calorie drink range, as well as the gin school and visitors centre.

Here, people will come to the bar upstairs, be welcomed with a drink and tour the halls and history.

Then they will come to the sensory room to taste and smell all the botanicals.

"This is where you make your gin, we bring it to life for you," said Andy.

"You'll leave with your own bottle of gin, and you can reorder the recipe any time after that too.

"We haven't been able to open the gin school yet. We were waiting to open and then COVID-19 hit. It's never been open to the public, we've just tested the product.

"The final element of the business is contract bottling for other people and we've been really successful in winning lots of new contracts."

Andy and his son Rhys embarked on this joint venture in 2018, something they had always wanted to do.

"We know how to make good products, but we couldn't find premises, there's a shortage of production space," said Andy.

"I sold some gym equipment to Steven Leeke in 2009, and I thought it would be good if he could build a barn for us like he did for Welsh Rugby Union.

"He said Hensol Castle had built this facility underneath the castle to get all the services in, and he didn't know what to do with it.

"There was going to be a spa downstairs and a Michelin star restaurant upstairs but that fell through because of the recession. It was getting mothballs.

"So, the year has been a journey for us. We never would have thought we'd be making hand sanitiser – never in my wildest dreams did I think that would happen!

"Making alcohol for hand sanitiser and for drinks is 70% the same process, but we didn't get that same buzz as when we're making our orange gin, for example.

"It's not in your blood, we're doing it for a purpose. We were making bullets to kill a bug."

Looking to the future, Andy says Hensol Castle Distillery could start producing its own rum, as the next big trend in cocktail making.

"When we did some contract bottling, we probably did about 22% of the UK's rum production here for other people," he said.

"It's always an honour when people give you their brand to make a product for, it's trust.

"Maybe rum is the next big thing to come."

But ultimately Andy feels Hensol Castle needs to be known for making gin, due to its long relationship with the drink.

"Lord Talbot, one of the owners of Hensol Castle, signed the gin act in 1736 as Lord Chancellor. He had a close relationship with the King at the time ," Andy explained.

"So, it has a direct linage into gin that no other distillery in the UK has.

"For 2021, I'd like it to be full here and also have a bigger site. I'd like it to become a landmark and get some recognition for Wales."

You can buy a voucher to experience the gin school at Hensol Castle Delivery here.