Shipston-on-Stour’s Cotswolds Distillery showcased its products to an audience of key US influencers, media and opinion-formers in New York City as part of the British Spirits and Sparkling Wine Week.

The trip, which was organised as part of the Government’s Food is GREAT campaign in collaboration with the Wine & Spirit Trade Association (WSTA), was designed to increase awareness of the quality and diversity of British spirits and English sparkling wines to US consumers.

The Cotswolds Distillery – which produces an English whisky, a gin and a cream liqueur – currently sells its products through bars and retailers in 10 US states but has its sights set on growing the volume of its US sales.

During the British Spirits and Sparkling Wine Week, more than 80 US influencers, mixologists and sommeliers, along with media titles such as Forbes Life and USA Today, were treated to an exclusive ‘Evening of GREAT British Spirit’.

The Cotswolds Distillery’s spirits were showcased alongside household name brands like Hendricks in cocktail demonstrations.

The evening also included the final of the GREAT British gin cocktail competition, which featured the ‘Great Dixter’ cocktail created by master mixologist Chris Lockwood of New York bar Straylight, made using the Cotswold’s Distillery’s Cotswolds Dry Gin.

Guests were also given a sneak taste of ‘Butterscotch Devil’s delight’ – a flavoured doughnut infused with Cotswolds Distillery’s ‘Cotswolds Single Malt Whisky’. The doughnut will be launched in the US market later this year in collaboration with New York City’s The Doughnut Project, and will be available to buy in the bakery’s two stores in Manhattan.

The Cotswolds Distillery began exporting in early 2015 as its US-born founder Dan Szor was keen for his friends and family back home to sample his products. Since then, it has seen its global annual export sales grow by 350 per cent.

It now ships its gin to 28 markets worldwide including Australia and Hong Kong, with its whisky, which launched at the end of last year, currently sold in 14 markets.