The Isle of Wight is also home to pockets of hops, which escaped from commercial hop fields, back when they used to be an important local industry, and now can be found in hedgerows. ‘The Isle of Wight at one time was the sixth largest hop-growing county in the country’, Xavier explained. He recommends stuffing them in pillows, as their fragrance is said to help with insomnia, or hanging up clusters of the vines as decoration.

Xavier’s gin, Mermaid Gin, gets its name from another foraged ingredient: rock samphire, also known as mermaid’s kiss. This lesser known samphire (marsh samphire being the kind that’s mostly eaten in the UK) grows on the Isle of Wight’s coastline. Xavier has had a soft spot for the stuff since before he learnt to make gin. As a young brewer he was asked to produce a beer for the Institute of Brewing and Distilling, and had the idea to incorporate rock samphire, as a nod to the Isle of Wight’s history.

‘I heard a gentleman talking about it years ago. It used to be harvested on the cliffs on the south side of the island by women, and there’s old pictures of women with wicker baskets on the back, and they’ll be holding a baby, scrambling over rocks. I thought that sounded interesting, so I thought I’d go and explore.’

The beer went down a storm, and it’s no surprise Xavier thought to use it again when he co-founded Mermaid Gin. Despite the fact that rock samphire and marsh samphire share part of their name, they’re very different ingredients. Rock samphire has thick leaves and a very strong smell, similar to carrot greens, and unlike marsh samphire grows above the high tide line, and in clumps between cracks in rock rather than in waterlogged sand. In fact, it’s this placement above the high tide line that lends rock samphire its nickname.

‘As the legend or myth goes, if you’re kissed by a mermaid you’re saved from drowning. Although mermaids try and call you into the sea, if you’re kissed by a mermaid you’re safe.’ It’s said that sailors who survived shipwrecks knew that, if they could swim to shore and clamber to where the rock samphire grew, they were safely above the waterline, and so had received a ‘mermaid’s kiss’

Using foraged ingredients requires knowing not only what to harvest, but how to harvest sustainably. The team at Mermaid Gin, which is a certified B-Corp, takes the sustainable sourcing of their ingredients very seriously. They harvest the rock samphire after it has rained, and forage mindfully, only taking so much that it won’t harm local stocks. They also use local ingredients taken through gleaning – or collecting leftover crops that would otherwise be left to rot.

‘At Osborne House there’s a walled garden – it was Victoria’s old summer residence – and there’s a lemon tree and a bergamot tree. For years the bergamots and lemons have just fallen to the ground and rotted, and so we got chatting away and [now] we use the lemons and the bergamots in our zest gin.’

If, like Xavier, you’ve been lucky enough to grow up with friends or family members who’ve taught you how to forage, it can feel effortless to tell the difference between delicious and dangerous plants. However, for a beginner, mistakes can range from mildly unpleasant to fatal. Foraging safely requires expertise, and you should never eat anything unless you are 100% sure you know what it is.

Luckily, the Isle of Wight is not only full of beginner-friendly things to forage (like blackberries) it is also home to a host of educational foraging walks. You can hunt for sea spinach and alexanders along the coast, or pick wild garlic and sorrel in the spring. These walks can teach you how to forage safely and sustainably, and are a great way to see the island (and have a delicious lunch made from foraged ingredients to boot). Once you know what you’re looking for, you’ll be amazed how much there is to eat!

Even if you have some foraging skills already – maybe you make blackberry jam from wild blackberries growing at the back of a field, or brew elderflower cordial from a tree you pass on the way home from work – a foraging course can teach you how to take things to the next level safely and sustainably.

However, if you want to sample the Isle of Wight’s best foraged ingredients during your stay, you definitely don’t have to be the one doing the foraging. The Isle of Wight Distillery, home of Mermaid Gin serves cocktails made with local ingredients, and Xavier recommends trying out some of the brilliant restaurants on the island such as The Taverner’s Inn, The Heron or The Garden.

So whether you prefer picking plants for yourself – or enjoying them infused in a cocktail – there’s no excuse not to give some wonderful wild food a go.