OUR STILLS
Where alchemy and science meet.
At Time Anchor Distillery, our distillation process is distinctively artisanal, founded in tradition, with a modern twist.
Life at the Distillery began with Charlotte and her baby sister Molly. Charlotte affectionately nicknamed “Shark”, is an American designed, Still Dragon with intricately designed copper distillation plates and has a 200-litre capacity. Molly, is a much smaller version of Charlotte, with a 50-litre capacity, and is affectionately known as the “kitchen”. Molly is mostly used for the creation of all of our new recipes and we often test experimental spirits with her.
After four years of single handedly distilling all of our spirits, Charlotte gained a big sister, Emmeline. Emmeline was handcrafted at the Kothe Destillationstechnik workshop in Germany and was the first of her kind commissioned in South Africa. It took nearly a year to build Emmeline, and she is made from both copper and stainless steel. Apart from the visual appeal, copper plays an essential role in the gin-making process, by reacting with the gin during distillation, removing impurities from the base spirit and botanicals. Emmeline was made specially for a variety of our spirits, and has a 500 litre capacity, an elongated whiskey helmet, specially built distillation column (that further refines the spirit) and a botanical basket, used for vapour infusion in the making of our Gins.
Emmeline, Charlotte and Molly are at the very heart of what we do and perform an essential role in our distilling process – allowing heat to be dispersed evenly and efficiently while stripping out any unwanted flavours and aromas, creating the bright and balanced, smooth flavour of our gins and distinctly flavourful and aromatic rums and whiskies.