AT the sparsely inhabited north end of the Isle of Jura lies Ardlussa estate. It is separated from the nearest settlement of Craighouse by 16 miles of in places dilapidated single-track road. It’s not the most obvious place to set up a business, but local neighbours Alicia MacInnes, Claire Fletcher and Georgina Kitching did just that when they established Lussa Gin in 2015.

“The opportunities for work are limited on Jura, and so the three of us got together,” says Claire Fletcher, who handles marketing at Lussa Gin.

Since then Lussa Gin has almost doubled its production, moved to new premises and installed a new gin still. At a time when craft gins are booming, it’s important to have a story to tell, and the women’s objective was to express their love for Jura by putting it in a bottle.

“We’re all neighbours, and we all share a love of the place and of plants,” says Ms Fletcher.

The 15 botanicals in Lussa Gin, which include lemon thyme, bog myrtle, honeysuckle and orris root, either grow or can be grown on Jura. Where they cannot yet be cropped on the island, the women are planting them out. Juniper grows on Jura’s uninhabited west coast but cannot practically be gathered there, and so five hundred seed-certified Argyll juniper cones have been planted in Lussa Glen, with more to come.

The botanicals create the gin’s unique flavour. They also influence capacity. The still could be run harder, but creating more botanicals takes time. The distillery uses “kilos of rose petals”. These come from locally grown sturdy varieties supplied by David Austin Roses. Local gardeners and the garden at Islay House have also been pressed into service as botanical growers.

Despite these constraints, Lussa Gin recently labelled its ten thousandth bottle. Production in the first year was 4,000 bottles and in the second 7,500. Target annual production is 10,000 bottles.

The business may have started very small – the first still had a capacity of just 10 litres, and the premises were Ms Fletcher’s kitchen at Ardlussa House – but the intention was always to grow.

“We always had the ambition to be a successful business,” says Mrs Fletcher. “We managed to reinvest everything into buildings and equipment, and we’re now paying ourselves a wage.”

For now, additional employment is on an ad hoc basis, but, says Ms Fletcher, “We’re almost at that tipping point.” Lussa Gin has moved into converted stables at Ardlussa House and installed a new 200 litre still, which is named Hamish. Sealed with traditional rye flour paste, Hamish was designed to cope with the distillery’s single-phase electricity by Copper Brothers of Portugal.

Eccentric electricity is one of many challenges Lussa Gin’s location brings. These affect the price tag, and while consumers are prepared to pay for authenticity and provenance, in the case of island gins, Ms Fletcher feels the waters are muddied by an absence of standards.

“Loads of island gins have their gin distilled on the mainland,” she says. “Whisky is very tightly regulated. We’re getting to a point where we need that for gin.”

At Lussa Gin, the distillation process starts with neutral spirit, which is brought in from Langley Distillery and mixed with spring water. The spring water travels to the distillery in porcelain-lined cast-iron Victorian pipes installed by a previous estate owner who was a beer brewer. The mixture is then distilled with the botanicals.

Seventy-five percent of Lussa Gin’s sales are direct, and distribution is mainly in Scotland. However, the distillery is now branching out into other markets. This July, it was on the Scottish pavilion for Imbibe Live at London Olympia, and it recently completed its first export to Sweden.

It’s now eyeing Germany, France and Asia – and considering “doing something with brambles”. However, the best place to buy Lussa Gin remains the community shop on the Isle of Jura, which has sold 2,000 bottles since production began.

“We’ll keep the price lowest on the island,” says Ms Fletcher.