A distillery has revealed it will finally be making its return to the city after a year away.

Piston Gin will be coming back to Worcester and opening a new ‘flagship’ venue after a long-anticipated homecoming was given the green light.

The new base at the ‘Danks 2’ former boathouse at Diglis Basin off Diglis Road will allow Piston to continue to host its popular gin classes, which include cocktail masterclasses and distilling sessions, with a hope of producing small batches of ‘white label’ gins in the future.

Piston manager Grace Stringer said she was delighted to be able to reveal the distillery’s return to its founding city after months of hard work to make sure the move went ahead.

“We’re super excited to be coming back to Worcester but it will slightly be different than last time,” she said.

“We always wanted to come back to Worcester and obviously we still have our Cheltenham distillery, and that is not going away, so we are coming back to the city but it’s bigger and better rather than the small distillery that we were when we left.

“We’ve really worked hard on developing the brand over the last 12 months. We’ll now be able to open more often in the evenings and at weekends as well as offer more than just the gin schools that we were offering in the city before.

“There’s space here for people to use too, so the building can definitely be booked out for corporate meetings and parties.

“The response has been really, really positive and many people have even been saying how great it is that something is finally being done with the building.

“The whole team is Worcester born and bred so it’s a super exciting time for us.”

The distillery opened at the Royal Porcelain Works in 2018 before reopening at a unit in Staverton near Cheltenham last September after a move to Worcester’s Cathedral Square fell through – scuppering the chance to remain in the city, at least for the moment.

The gin maker said it had no intention of leaving Worcester permanently and had continued to search for a suitable base in the city for its new store.

A plan to open a taproom at the former Diglis boathouse, which had been empty for a number of years, was approved by council planners at the end of 2019 but never came to light.

The empty boathouse was intended as a restaurant as part of the regeneration of Diglis Marina approved by the council in 2004.