Cat and Fiddle offers Forest Gin tours to reach funding goal

A range of tour packages and corporate events are on offer from Forest Gin as they strive for funding goal to renovate the Cat and Fiddle pub.

So far, over £33,000 of the £50,000 target has been raised to renovate the building and add a whisky distillery and shop to the pub between Macclesfield and Buxton. In exchange for support for their crowdfunding campaign, Forest Distillery are offering tours and tasting sessions for contributors, with dates available from 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 Cat and Fiddle’s sponsor wall, and a private three-hour event for teams of up to 20.

Packages can be bought through the project’s crowdfunding page.

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. The move will make it the highest distillery in the UK at 1600 feet above sea level, and provide the cellar space for ageing its English Single Malt Whisky. 

However, the pub has been closed since 2015, as its remote location on the A537 between Buxton and Macclesfield has 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 landlords 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.”