How has it been a year already!?
A year since the Crowdfunder, a year since we somehow ended up moving a distillery during one of the busiest seasons of our yet!

When we first stepped into this space, it felt enormous. Your voice echoed. Every sound clanged off the walls. It was cavernous and empty, and it was hard to picture how it would ever feel like home. I remember the day that changed the day the sound panels went up. James had insisted on them, swearing he’d help build the whole thing so long as we promised to install them. He was right, of course. The echo softened, and suddenly it started to sound like us.

Everything arrived on pallets from storage or from the old site, truck load, by truck load: stock, packaging, furniture, paperwork, and endless boxes marked ‘misc’. We must’ve moved those pallets a dozen times each, playing this ridiculous game of musical chairs with it all- shifting and reshifting until the place started to take shape and we worked out where things should live.

And then there was the table. The enormous, seats-twelve, antique pine table, the very first thing we ever bought when we started the distillery. (I don’t know what we were thinking- it must have made sense at the time!) Back in the old site, it lived a much humbler life: buried under bottles, cardboard boxes, and labels, doubling as our bottling and packing station. But even then, I think we had this quiet hope that one day it would sit at the heart of something bigger. A place where people could gather for tastings and dinners, where conversations could stretch late into the night. And now, somehow, here it is- exactly where it was always meant to be.

So many people helped us get here. Friends and family rolled up their sleeves, shifted boxes, painted walls, and poured coffee when we needed a breather. When we first moved in, the building felt intimidatingly large. too big for us, almost. But now it’s full to the brim with our equipment, and a rather lovely taproom. Sometimes I stand behind the bar and wonder how on earth we ever fit everything into our old unit, which was barely a quarter of the size.

There have been so many moments that make me love this place. Our first Open House felt like the warmest housewarming party imaginable - familiar faces from Penryn spilling through the doors as well as stockists, friends and family. I think we always knew that having a proper tasting space and shop attached to the distillery made logical sense, but we didn’t quite realise how much more it would add to Loveday. It’s become an extension of everything we built the distillery on: warmth, hospitality, good drinks shared with good people.

If I could tell last-year-us anything, it would be: hold tight. It’ll feel scary and chaotic. You’ll have doubts. But this space will start feeling like home sooner than you think.

Now, a year on, I feel proud and humbled every time I walk through the door. The Taproom is still growing, still finding its rhythm. We have so many plans for it: new ideas, new events, new ways to share what we do: but we’re taking it step by step. Living in it first. Letting it, and all of you, show us how it'll evolve next. New shelves over there? More tables? Move the barrels to that corner? Aaaaaallll in good time. :)

I have no grand takeaway here to wrap up this all up- it's just nice to take a mo to think about how far it’s come, and how much it already feels like home!