Macclesfield-based Forest Distillery are offering a range of tour packages, including corporate sponsorship events for up to 20 people, as part of their crowdfunding campaign to expand their distillery and take over management of the Robinsons Brewery’s Cat and Fiddle pub.
The crowdfunding campaign has so far raised over £33,000 of the £50,000 needed to complete the renovation. In exchange for support, Forest Distillery are offering tours and tasting sessions when the pub reopens in Spring 2020.
Packages on offer include tours of around two hours, including drinks, which can be gifted to the gin or whisky lover in your life in time for Christmas.
A corporate sponsorship package is also being offered, which will include a A4-sized space on the pub’s sponsor wall, and a private three-hour event for teams of up to 20.
Packages, starting at £15, can be bought through the project’s crowdfunding page.
The move to the Cat and Fiddle will make Forest Distillery the highest distillery in the UK at 1600 feet above sea level, and provide the cellar space for ageing its English Single Malt Whisky. The partnership with Forest Distillery aims to add an onsite shop to the pub, selling locally produced food and drink, as well as converting the cellars into a whisky distillery.
However, the pub closed in winter 2015 as its remote location on the A537 between Buxton and Macclesfield made it economically unviable as a simple pub, meaning significant investment will be needed to bring the building back into use.
William Robinson, Managing Director (Pub Division) of Robinsons Brewery, said of the project:
Forest Distillery are a wonderful local family business and exactly the right people to take The Cat and Fiddle into its next chapter. Their vision to create a local, authentic Whisky Distillery with an on-site shop, tours AND a pub has real potential and would transform The Cat and Fiddle into a destination venue the whole community could be proud of. We hope the community really gets behind this project. It’s exciting times for the pub and the local area.”
Forest Distillery’s Lindsay Bond said:
We are excited, and a little terrified in taking on such a big project. However, we are confident, that with local support, we can create something very special up there.”