Jonathan Lyddon Email & Phone Number

Worldwide

...tweaking new brands and massaging old ones for so many glorious years that I've forgotten what on Earth I really do .....but still vaguely on the lookout for crazy, creative, daft and delightful spirited ventures. Past and present include working closely with oddities such ONEGIN vodka, SATRYNA tequila, BARE BONE vodka, THE PERFECT COCKTAIL, wannabes such as SILENT POOL, CRYSTAL HEAD and a few has-beens on the way but all are epic bevvies run by a people who will ever be friends...

Grasse, Provence-Alpes-Côte D'Azur, France

...a former perfume distillery perched on the edge of the heavenly aromatic town of Grasse which produces some of the world's most wondrous and sublime spirits. A fragrant jewel waiting to be discovered by the discerning. Enough puff....this inspirational, seat-of-the-pants business and it's delightful Inidian owner deserve to succeed despite the stratospheric price of their delicious gin

Somewhere In Poland, Apparently

... a hand-crafted vodka (NOT à la Tito's) and the only one to date that I have really enjoyed drinking neat, aiming to spoil the party for some of the major tasteless and overpriced vodka brands and shake up the category as per gin a few Summers back. Utterly delightful owner whose London-based Polish club and eatery is surely one of the greatest unsung venues in the capital.

Ghemme, Piedmont, Italy

Great friends and fine distillers of an ab-fab mish-mash of Italian specialities produced in the usual cacophony of an Italian family company with uncles, aunts, cousins, nephews and the usual retinue of camp followers stirring the pot. Utterly wonderful and mesmerising watching the whole thing swinging shakily along. How on earth they put up with me for thirteen years I'll never know

Bekaa Valley

Following in the whirlwind footsteps of Lebanon's wackiest wino. Faouzi's ego is as massive as his winemaking skills which is just as well given the financial miasma of this absolutely magnificent country . I definitely couldn't claimed to have lived without this experience.... but was extremely happy to escape with my parts intact

Brussels

...soldiering and soldering under the iron fist of eccentric Georgy Fourcroy. This loud, delightful, gregarious old beast, an early model for Trump, would have enraptured Freud and RL Stevenson with his split personality. Great memories of chatting about the day's Test results only to be blown full-on hair-dryer-style back to Bermuda to monitor miniscule sales of Mandarine Napoleon. Unforgettable and mercifully unrepeatable

La Belle Bourgogne

A bit of flag-waving, handshaking, sipping and dining never comes amiss in Burgundy. Nor does a modicum of kowtowing to a delightful family, although regrettably the self-importance of some members can rather detract from the quality of their wines

Beaune & Algeria

...an intimidating experience running the export team for a company of some 400 poor souls who were obliged to shake the trembling hand of a big chief so far out of his depth as he staggered through his morning rounds. When asked if the company was used to employing foreigners in key managerial positions, the PDG assured me that there were two Portugese gentlemen on the bottling line. A négociant dedicated to making some of the worst wines imaginable in Burgundy but now mercifully in competent hands. Staggered out mercifully before time down a long tunnel leading to the Sidi Larbi entrepôt in Chalon-sur-Saone

Uud - Utterly Useless Diploma, Nul Points

3 Miserable A-Levels. Choice Between Sweeping The Streets Of Sevenoaks Or Joining The Army

Activities and Societies: Last prefect's fag.... mercilessly beaten for burning toast at teatime