A GIN produced in a tiny market town has gone global after being declared world class in an international competition.

Masons Yorkshire Gin was set up just two years ago by a dedicated couple from Bedale. Now it can mix with the best in the world after carrying off a silver medal in one of the top two competitions for wines and spirits on earth, the San Francisco World Spirits Competition.

What makes the award so amazing is Karl and Cathy Mason don’t sell their gin outside Britain.

“We do sell bottles through the new P&O Cruise liner the Britannia, but other than that you can’t buy our gin anywhere in America or elsewhere in the world, at the moment that is, you never know,” said Mr Mason.

He’s a gin expert but only set up the distillery two years ago after becoming more and more concerned about the lack of top quality gin around.

Working to a special secret recipe and using water from North Yorkshire he set up the business with wife Cathy in their home town of Bedale. They’re now supplying over 100 bars, restaurants and shops and expect this year to produce 20,000 bottles of Masons Yorkshire Gin, three times more than when they started.

“We have been astonished at how this has taken off and to win the silver medal at San Francisco is really mind blowing, there were over 1,700 entries from all over the world.

“We feel we produce an amazing gin, you could say it is full of Yorkshire spirit. Gin production has really taken off in the past few years there are a lot more around, but we are determined to keep our high quality ingredients and the copper still we had specially made makes the difference,” added Mr Mason.

As a special tonic for gin lovers the couple are now planning to let people into the distillery to see for themselves how it’s done.

Mr Mason said: “We have been so unbelievably busy we don’t have a visitor centre or anything but if people are passing and are really interested that is fine, they just need to contact us beforehand to make sure we are around.”

But the predicament for the couple is if it will ever be possible to expand from Bedale to Boston and beyond .