JEZABEL Gin, a quirky newcomer to the boutique gin market created by two Swindon friends, is already making its mark.

Lisa Flack, from Wootton Bassett, and Sara Witham, from Swindon, set up the Peculiar Gin Company in March this year, offering a gin menu and a pop-up bar and organising a range of imaginative events in unusual venues.

Then on June 9, World Gin Day, the twosome launched their very own gin brand – Jezabel Gin. In a classic gin bottle, with a stylish design, this contemporary style gin is proving popular with drinkers and has already received an endorsement from tonic water makers Fever-Tree.

“I came up with the idea,” says Lisa. “I’ve had businesses before and I’m 48 now; I wanted to do something I’m passionate about. It was either meditation or gin, and there’s no money in meditation!”

Lisa was a business development consultant before working full time for Peculiar Gin. When she floated the idea with Sara, a friend of ten years’ standing, Sara was keen to join in and took a quarter share of the company.

“I am more the business side of the company, and she is the creative side,” Lisa says. “We were always really passionate about gin and always enjoyed having gin and tonic together. When I talked about it, Sara was very enthusiastic about getting on board.”

Lisa admits that despite her business experience, they were quite naïve about the demands of setting up a gin business.

“I know a lot about sales and marketing but not much about gin. The lack of sector knowledge means we have learnt along the way,” she says.

This included registration with the Alcohol Wholesale Registration Scheme, and a licence to sell alcohol, which was necessary to run their Peculiar Gin Company pop-up bar. Once up and running, the Peculiar Gin Company offered a pop-up bar with a menu containing dozens of gins for drinkers to try, including craft gins people might not have encountered before. Lisa and Sara also started organising a range of gin-related events in venues such as a gin party on a double-decker bus, or a gin canal cruise. One weekend they organised a vintage bus to make a gin tour from Wootton Bassett to Malmesbury, with a dash of gin en route and another on the way back.

“We’ve done a couple in London. We have a pop-up bar and will arrange to go into a pub and bring our gin stock. It increases footfall in the pub. Clients can have a tasting session and choose what they would like to put together on a gin menu. We also have beautiful garnishes, and it looks absolutely lovely,” Lisa says. “It’s about the experience as well as the drink.”

“We have the same kind of ethic and outlook,” Sara says. “We both work hard and play hard. I thought it was a great concept, and we are both the sort of person who doesn’t stop working till the job is done.”

Once the Peculiar Gin Company was up and running, the women turned their attention to their own gin brand. It is distilled by a Bristol distiller, based in Old Market, and contains ten botanicals: juniper, angelica, coriander seed, orris root, grapefruit peel, lime peel, buchu leaf, plantain leaf, rowan berries and cubeb. The craft gin is made in small batches and one of the botanicals has undergone a secret process to help give the gin its unique Jezabel taste.

“It’s made from 100 per cent British wheat, and to be a craft gin it has to be made by hand on a small still,” Lisa explained. “The still is called Hazel – after the distiller’s mother – and it’s made in batches of 17 bottles per run, or 150 bottles a day.”

The gin is also bottled and labelled by hand. While the name Jezabel sounds like a reference to the biblical queen Jezebel, and is a name associated with glamorous and wanton women, the gin’s appellation has its roots in the name of a man – Jeremy Walker, or Jez, the late father of Lisa’s nine-year-old daughter Libby.

Plans are already afoot to create two more gins – and Sara gets to name the second one.

A bottle of Jezabel retails at £34.95 and you can order it online, or pop down to the Five Bells pubs in Wootton Bassett to give it a try. Alternatively, the Peculiar Gin Company is organising a Gin Fest and Party on Saturday September 29 at the Platform in Swindon, with a gin bar, street food, a cocktail train carriage, artists, distillery tastings and peculiarities.

Tickets are £11 for the 4-7.30pm afternoon session, or £9 for the 8-11.30pm evening party. For more information, visit thepeculiargincompany.co.uk.