Hooting Owl Distillery: Yorkshireman creates South Yorkshire gin with 'a bit of Sheffield in every glass'

A self-professed "proud" Yorkshireman has created a brand new gin specifically inspired by the woodlands of South Yorkshire, which is said to have "a little bit of Sheffield in every glass".

Dominic M'Benga set up the Hooting Owl Distillery with the aim of creating the "finest, smoothest, hand-crafted Yorkshire gins" inspired by the county's landscapes.

He said: "I'm a proud Yorkshireman. It seemed obvious to me that my love for the county would be built into Hooting Owl’s gin recipes and I experimented a lot to get the right balance of flavours. There’s a reason behind each of the ingredients we include, and our South Yorkshire gin is heavily influenced by the local landscape.”

Hooting Owl have created four new gins inspired by South Yorkshire, West Yorkshire, North Yorkshire and the East Riding of Yorkshire. Each starts with the distillery's Signature Gin, before adding local ingredients - the South Yorkshire Gin contains a blend of 18 different botanicals.

Dom said: "Yorkshire is so good there’s four of them! It’s the same with our range of Yorkshire gins.

"With all my gins I have tried to capture the character of the specific area. With our South Yorkshire gin there’s a bit of Sheffield in every glass.

"I was struck by the fact that Sheffield has 180 woodland sites, 80 of which are ancient woodland. I also discovered that in Ecclesall Woods there’s a veteran mountain ash tree, that was all the inspiration I needed to include mountain ash in the ingredients.”

The Hooting Owl Distillery was founded in 2018 and has been producing small batch Yorkshire spirits ever since, including rums, gins and vodkas.