Today, production has moved out of the kitchen and down to the fruit farm. Mary’s son Pev Manners now oversees production of 15 cordial varieties (including that very same elderflower recipe) and 8 pressé selling over 8 million bottles a year, to the best delicatessens, food halls, farm shops and major supermarkets across the UK.

The cordial range includes organic and non-organic varieties and both are 100% natural and free from artificial flavours, sweeteners, colours, preservatives or any other ‘nasties’. Fruit is hand-pressed on the farm and then to make sure every drink is as fresh as possible, it is bottled, pasteurised and ready for sale within 24 hours.

Still a family business, Belvoir have remained true to their recipes and roots, and all the drinks are still made on the same premises by the hand of one lady - Phyllis.

Once the fruit is pressed, Phyllis weighs out the other ingredients on giant scales and then sets about the making. This can range from boiling up giant kettles of lemon, ginger or mint water, to hand filtering juice or stirring giant vats filled with delicious infusions.

Finding the right ingredients for the products is critical. Belvoir Fruit Farms are unique in that they grow their own elderflowers in 90 acres of organic plantations. With the high demand for elderflower cordial, the local villagers all lend a hand picking the flowers during the harvest. Pev also scours the world to find the best suppliers for the rest of the ingredients - be it apples from a friend’s farm in Suffolk or rose infusion from Turkey, or lemons from Spain.

One ingredient is key to the magic of Belvoir and that’s the spring water at the heart of all its drinks. The farm has use of the local Woolsthorpe spring which provides crystal clear water that is naturally filtered through limestone for centuries. This is pumped directly to the Belvoir estate including the pressing shed, where it is used in its purest form without the addition of chemicals.

According to Pev, what sets Belvoir apart “Is the integrity of the product. Authenticity is our ethos; we do not cut corners. All our bottles simply contain real fruit, flowers or spices. We do not compromise on quality or taste, choosing only the finest ingredients to ensure our drinks are the best they can possibly be.”

There is a grand range of Belvoir cordials and pressés; from the traditional, including Elderflower (of course), Ginger, and Apple & Blackberry, to more unusual combinations such as Gooseberry & Mint and Raspberry & Rose. They are so refreshing and really fruity. My personal favourite is Raspberry & Rose which has a perfect fruity/floral balance, I just can’t get enough of it!

The Organic Blood Orange & Mandarin cordial was a GOLD AWARD winner at the Great Taste Awards 2008 and most deservedly so! A refreshing blend of Sicilian pressed blood orange juice and real mandarin juice gives this cordial a crisp refreshing taste and is wonderfully original as you can clearly taste both fruits at once, a very grown-up orange squash!

One of the best things about the cordials is that they are so versatile, you can use them as toppings for ice cream, as mixers for ‘grown-up’ drinks, in cocktails and as the base for sorbets and desserts, they are a multi-tasking dream!

For a full list of the range and for more information about Belvoir Fruit Farms, take a look at the website www.belvoirfruitfarms.co.uk.

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