How it began
Langley & Hart was founded in early 2021 by James Langley and Tom Hart - two friends who met while working in hospitality across East London. James had spent a decade managing bars and wine programmes in Hackney and Dalston, developing an obsession with fermentation that started with a shelf of kombucha jars in his flat and quickly took over his kitchen. Tom came from the food side - six years as a buyer for independent delis and food halls, sourcing small-batch producers across the UK and Europe.
They’d talked for years about the gap they kept noticing: there was nothing between sugary soft drinks and alcohol that felt genuinely crafted. Nothing with the complexity of a good natural wine or the care of a single-origin coffee. So they started experimenting - evenings and weekends in James’s kitchen in Clapton, then in a borrowed corner of a friend’s brewery in Bermondsey.
The first batch worth drinking took four months. The first batch worth sharing took seven.
Our approach
We work with a small network of growers and foragers across the British Isles. Every botanical is selected for character, not convenience. Our water is drawn from the chalk aquifers of the South Downs - naturally filtered over centuries through layers of chalk and flint.
Each recipe is developed over months of iteration. We ferment in small batches, taste obsessively, and bottle only when the balance is right. Our workshop is a railway arch in SE1 - nothing fancy, but it’s ours, and every bottle that leaves it has been through our hands.
What we believe
We believe drinks should be made with the same rigour and reverence as food. That flavour should come from ingredients, not additives. That effervescence should be earned through fermentation, not forced through carbonation.
We’re not trying to build a drinks empire. We want to make a small number of things, make them exceptionally well, and put them in the hands of people who care about what they drink. That’s it.