The Pennington’s family joke that Mike Pennington is known by three-quarters of Kendal as he owned one of the most popular wine bars in the town for nearly three decades before leaving to focus on spirits production.

It was during his time behind the bar in the early 90’s that he started creating unique liqueurs for his patrons. And in 2014, he was asked if he had anything to sell at Kendal’s Christmas Markets – this was when he first bottled Kendal Mint Cake Liqueur and Bakewell Gin Liqueur to sell off the premises.

It was purely a business-by-accident but the family business has been growing since and at the start of 2023, they moved into their new distillery on the outskirts of Kendal in the Lake District National Park, using solar and wind power to drive down the environmental impact of the distillery.