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F E AT U R E<br />
Let the fun bee-gin<br />
HUSBAND AND WIFE TEAM ALEX AND NATALIE CONTI, THE BRAINS BEHIND<br />
CRAFT GIN BRAND THE APIARIST, ARE BRINGING A DISTINCTLY LICHFIELD TWIST<br />
TO THEIR LATEST OFFERING - AS WELL AS LAUNCHING THEIR OWN DISTILLERY IN<br />
THE HEART OF THE HISTORIC CITY CENTRE. AMY NORBURY DISCOVERS MORE<br />
THE NEW DISTILLERY IN<br />
THE HEART OF LICHFIELD<br />
What started off as a lockdown project to keep Alex<br />
and Natalie Conti occupied when their day-to-day<br />
business of running a travel and events company had<br />
been thrown into Covid chaos, has turned into an<br />
award-winning brand which has made waves in the<br />
spirits world.<br />
The Apiarist Gin is a Great Taste Award winner<br />
as well as a Craft Gin Club pick, and has found<br />
followers on the other side of the globe where it is<br />
popular with Japanese gin fans. It’s an impressive<br />
feat for a brand which came about simply as a way<br />
to use the excess honey produced by the family’s 12<br />
beehives.<br />
“We came at this as beekeeping people rather<br />
than gin people,” explains Alex. “Natalie and I<br />
had bought each other a bee-keeping course as an<br />
anniversary present one year and really enjoyed it,<br />
but it wasn’t until years later when we’d had kids and<br />
got a house with a garden that we decided to get a<br />
hive.”<br />
One hive soon grew into more, and with 12 hives<br />
producing ample honey, Alex and Natalie needed a<br />
new outlet.<br />
“You can’t consume that much honey as a family<br />
of four, so we had to think of something to do with<br />
the surplus,” says Alex. “So I connected with Rory<br />
McKerrell, of Lichfield’s Fifth Spire gin, and we<br />
thought it would be fun to create a gin with our<br />
honey in it. We tinkered with the recipe, and came<br />
up with The Apiarist.”<br />
When their original gin proved to be a hit, the Contis<br />
decided to add to the range. The Apiarist’s four core<br />
products all showcase the family’s own honey.<br />
“The idea behind our original gin was to make<br />
something that was really balanced and had honey in<br />
it but wasn’t sweet,” says Alex. “So we made a really<br />
lemony gin, blended it with our own honey and<br />
then finished it with tea to give it that honey colour<br />
because, as it turns out, honey doesn’t actually give<br />
any colour, it just makes the gin cloudy.<br />
“We then had the idea of doing a more summery<br />
expression, which is where our Forager gin came<br />
6<br />
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