For most of his working life, Ric Dyer spent long days in a white lab coat trying to combat some of the world’s most dangerous viruses. In that pre-Covid era, his main adversaries were HIV and influenza, both implacable killers of millions of people. His job, as part of a huge research team, was to create from scratch the molecules that would lead to drugs and therapies that would save countless lives.
The result of all that ground-breaking work was the drug Tamiflu, used widely throughout the world to treat influenza, and another drug that became the first real treatment to be effective against HIV. “Before then, HIV was a death sentence and lots of people were losing their lives,” he says. “We discovered a treatment for it and now one tablet a day can prevent someone from passing it on to someone else.”
Around 40m HIV-infected people around the world are living normal lives today thanks in no small part to the work carried out in Ric Dyer’s lab.
Fast forward a couple of decades and today Ric is in a different kind of lab. Now he’s a Co Tyrone gin-maker responsible for the novel Symphonia range of spirits, working out of Moy Business Park near Dungannon. It might seem a million miles away from the research facilities of his molecule-building days, but it isn’t really. He’s like the Heston Blumenthal of Irish gin, exploring the effects of the tiniest molecules on his products and constantly experimenting with radical new ideas. The distillery where he works is even called Woodlab — encapsulating the idea of a place where science and nature meet.
Ric (59) is from Halifax in Yorkshire, and from an early age he knew he wanted to be a chemist. “My chemistry teacher as school was inspirational. He captured my attention right from the start and gave me encouragement,” he says.
“After that, my heart was set on entering the pharmaceutical industry. I wanted to use chemistry for the greater good.”
After gaining his degree and and later a PhD, Ric went to Harvard where he worked with one of the top professors in the world. Returning to England, he joined the drug discovery division of pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKlein, where he met his Cumbria-born wife Fiona and immersed himself in a career exploring the microscopic world of anti-virals.
“Once we’d built a molecule and its value was proven we had to produce it on an industrial scale, using the least energy, resources and money to do so,” he says. “That proved to be a valuable experience to draw on later.”
In 2007 Ric took up a post at Almac in Craigavon, joining the company as Vice President of Operations and setting up home with Fiona in Benburb, Co Tyrone. He remained at Almac for 10 successful years but, as he observes, “promotion takes you away from why you started out in a particular field. I was managing people and resources when what I wanted to do was be a chemist.”
And that’s where the gin comes in.
“I really wanted to return to something more creative and was keen to do something in food and drink,” he recalls. “After all, cooking is just chemistry in the kitchen and distilling is one of the basic techniques a chemist would use. Then one night I was having a G&T with Fiona and she suggested I have a go at making my own gin.”
That was practically all the encouragement he needed. Ric left Almac in 2017 to set up the Woodlab Distillery while Fiona continued to work in the pharmaceutical industry. However, his scientific curiosity and passion for those tiny molecules meant that he couldn’t just approach gin-making in a conventional way.
Most gin distillers start by learning something about the processes involved and then purchasing a still and experimenting with recipes. Ric went into it much more deeply, going right back to basics, challenging and rethinking every aspect of conventional spirit production. And what he came up with was nothing short of remarkable.
“I wanted to do something different,” he confesses. “I wanted to use my chemistry and expertise to create a gin using 21st century methods. I wanted to capture a taste of this part of Northern Ireland and showcase our unique microclimate — our peaty soils, our reliable rainfall and mild temperatures.
“If you think of Cabernet Sauvignon grapes, they are grown all over the world, and all of them have the same DNA, yet they taste different depending on the place where they’re grown. What I wanted was for my spirits to taste of here.”
To do achieve that aim, he developed a method he calls vacuum distillation, or more colourfully, the “Ribena effect”. Instead of heating his botanicals with alcohol in the traditional manner to extract their essential oils, he built equipment that draws out the crucial flavourings at much lower temperatures in about the same time as it takes to make a cup of tea. The resulting super-concentrates are then mixed with neutral alcohol to provide the perfect flavour balance.
“Distilling hasn’t changed much in the past 200 years,” says Ric. “It produces great gin but uses technology that is old and wasteful. I looked for a different way to distil and the technique I’ve devised is much more environmentally friendly. My method only uses 2% of the energy consumed in conventional distilling.”
And it only uses about 2% of the space as well. Ric’s entire apparatus for making his gin – capable of producing thousands of litres - will fit comfortably on a table top, which was important in the early days as production started off in his garage before expansion made the move to Moy Business Park essential.
In his quest to make his spirits “taste of here”, Ric was drawn to the uniqueness of Armagh Bramley apples. To add more complex flavours usually provided by exotic ingredients, he had to turn once again to his scientific training.
“I carried out a sophisticated chemical analysis of common gin botanicals and compared them to botanicals that grow around here,” he says. “One botanical that is used in a number of famous gins is cubeb pepper, which mostly grows in Indonesia and brings an interesting peppery note to the drink. I identified the molecule that imparts the flavour from cubeb pepper and found that the same molecule was present in dandelions from my back garden.”
The latest product from the Woodlab Distillery to hit the shelves is not a gin, however, but an apple rum. Ric explains how it came about.
“One day I talked to my juice supplier and asked if he had juice from any other varieties of apple apart from the Armagh Bramley. He told me about Jonagold, an apple developed in the US from a cross between a Jonathan apple and a Golden Delicious. Golden Delicious won’t grow in this climate, but the Jonagold will. It’s a sweet dessert apple not suited to gin, so we hit upon the idea of using it to flavour rum.”
Ric’s search for additional flavourings took him back into the garden. “My late father gave me a cutting that I planted in the garden and when I analysed it I found there were clove and nutmeg molecules present, so we used those.”
However, not everything they tried worked out. “We did have some experiments with cinnamon but they weren’t really successful and the drink ending up tasting like Coca-Cola — I think I may have hit upon the secret recipe by accident!”
In an increasingly crowded market, Woodlab’s Symphonia gin and range has managed to make its presence felt. However, the real validation of Ric’s scientific approach to spirit-making has come from international award judges, who make their determinations on a basis of blind tastings without knowing anything at all about the drink before them. At the 2019 International Wine and Spirit Competition — often thought of as the Olympics of the drinks trade — Woodlab’s dry gin won silver with a score of 93 out of 100, and at the Irish Gin Awards in the same year it was named best gin in Ireland. The apple rum is making its mark too. It won bronze at the World Rum Awards and also at the IWSC Awards.
“For our rum to be placed in the top three in the world is just fantastic,” beams Ric.
After a hiatus caused by Covid, when “things really came to a stop”. Woodlab is now getting back into full swing, with tours resuming at the distillery and plans to hold gin schools where participants can make their own unique blends.
“For a long time it was just myself making the spirits,” says Ric. “I used my science background to get the most out of nature and it was especially important to me to develop products in a sympathetic way that lessens our impact on the planet.”
“When people visit the distillery to see how it’s done they’re amazed. Sometimes it’s hard to believe that something innovative and original can be created on your doorstep, but fantastic things really can come from this part of the world.”
For more, see https://symphoniaspirits.com
