Taff Davies arrived in the Falkland Islands in March 1978 as a Royal Marine, part of Naval Party 8901, transported to the Falklands aboard HMS Endurance. After completing his deployment, he returned to the UK in 1979 to be demobilised, then ventured back to the Falklands later that same year and stayed. Like many who come to the islands, he found something that kept him there.

Life on the islands requires a certain approach. You work with what is available, you adapt when you need to, and you carry on. It’s an ideal way of life for a Marine, and a way of thinking that stayed with him.

Then, in 1982, there was a setback known as the Falklands War. Within a few days of it starting, Taff was taken prisoner and held in the Falklands.

Once the Falklands were reclaimed, he carried on. He had always been interested in home brewing and winemaking, but in the Falklands, where fruit is scarce and expensive, that meant making vegetable wines and working with what could be sourced or improvised.

Distilling came later, and not through any formal route. With the arrival of the internet on the islands, what began as a search for brewing recipes gradually led to genuine progress.

Instructions were pieced together, advice was gathered remotely, and eventually a still was built by hand: a 50-litre stainless-steel beer keg, copper pipework, and a gas ring providing the heat.

Production took place in a garage, and later in a shed behind Taff’s home in Stanley. At the time, it was assumed that distilling without a licence was illegal, as it is in the UK, so the work was kept quiet. Only later did it become clear that it was not illegal in the Falklands.

But in those early years, one thing did become clear: the Falkland Islands, for all their identity and history, had no spirit they could call their own.

That realisation stayed. But there was no obvious way to go about it:

• No established distilling tradition
• No local supply chain
• Limited access to ingredients
• No one else doing it

Advice came from wherever it could be found, often from people thousands of miles away. But there was no substitute for learning by doing. And so that is what happened.