The Pembrokeshire Producers Trail: Vineyards, Gin, Rum and Seaweed

Pembrokeshire's food story used to be told entirely in fish and early potatoes. Quietly, over the last decade, the county has grown a proper makers' scene — vineyards on south-facing slopes, spirits that taste deliberately of this coast, and the first regenerative seaweed farm in Wales. None of it is big; all of it is visitable or buyable, and it threads neatly into days you were probably taking anyway.

Two vineyards, twenty minutes apart

Cwm Deri Vineyard, at Martletwy in the wooded middle of the county near Lawrenny, is the established one — vines since the 1980s, a shop and restaurant, and estate wines, fruit wines and spirits to taste. It's the easiest "are we really in Wales?" afternoon the county offers, and it pairs naturally with a creekside detour to the Cresselly Arms at Cresswell Quay.

Velfrey Vineyard, outside Narberth, is the newer wave: a family-planted vineyard making Welsh sparkling wine, with tours and tastings in season. Booking details for both are on their own sites — visits are seasonal and small-scale, which is rather the point.

Do either after a Narberth morning — the county's food-town — and lunch is already solved.

The brewery in the valley that time skipped

Gwaun Valley Brewery brews small-batch ales at the top of the Gwaun — the deep, oakwood valley behind Fishguard that famously still marks the old-calendar New Year in January. Taste where they're poured best: the Dyffryn Arms ("Bessie's"), the front-room pub down the valley where beer still arrives by jug. Between brewery and pub you have the most time-capsule afternoon in Wales, and the Gwaun Valley woodland walk to earn it.

Spirits that taste of the coast

Barti Rum — named for Barti Ddu, Black Bart Roberts, the most successful pirate of the golden age and a Pembrokeshire man — spices its rum with laver seaweed from this coastline, which sounds like marketing until you taste the faint sea-note that makes it work. Made in the county, poured in its pubs, and the right bottle to leave a Pembrokeshire holiday with.

Golden Road Gin takes its name from the ancient trackway along the spine of the Preseli Hills — county botanicals, county story. Find both behind the bars of the best pubs and in the county's farm shops and delis.

The seaweed farm at the end of Wales

Câr-y-Môr ("For the Love of the Sea"), off the St Davids peninsula, is Wales's first regenerative ocean farm — a community-owned venture growing seaweed and shellfish with no feed, no fertiliser and no freshwater, supplying restaurants and making seaweed products from butter to salt. It's a working farm rather than a visitor attraction, but its story is told locally, its produce is buyable, and its laver links straight back to that rum. Watch for their produce on menus around St Davids — including the tasting menus at Blas and the county's more ambitious kitchens.

Chocolate made by monks

The Cistercian brothers of Caldey Island fund their monastery partly on chocolate and lavender perfume made on the island — buyable at the island shop after the twenty-minute crossing from Tenby, or in Tenby itself. As provenance stories go, "made by monks on a tidal island" is unbeatable, and the shortbread is better than it needs to be.

The originals: earlies, crab and the farm gate

Before any of the above, Pembrokeshire meant Pembrokeshire Earlies — the county's new potatoes, grown in the mild coastal soil and good enough to hold EU-style protected status — and crab and lobster landed at the little harbours. The earlies turn up everywhere in June and July (buy them from honesty boxes and farm shops and cook them the day you buy); crab sandwiches reach their platonic form on the quay at Dale and in Porthgain.

For where all this gets cooked: the best pubs guide, where to eat in Tenby, and the county's butchers, bakers and fishmongers for self-catering that beats most restaurants.