English Whisky

K

kevin heatherington

Location
Leicestershire
I’ve just started trying a few of these. Apparently there are currently 18 distilleries in operation in England. The oldest available whisky is an 11 year old bottling from the St George’s distillery in Norfolk. They started in 2006. I have a bottle of it but not yet tried it. I have had their no age statement The English Original which is very decent.

Some are already acquiring cult status and batches sell out fast ( ie Bimber based in London). My personal favourite so far is Cotswolds Distillery who have batch released 4 year old whisky now for the last three years. They also make a fine gin too.

The good thing about many of these distilleries is that they are bottling at higher strength and are avoiding chill filtration and are going for a quality, artisan product.

This is a craft whisky scene worth watching, especially as the whiskies start to take on some age in cask.
 
Thanks for sharing. I have never had an English whisky yet, however I am very much pro-artisinal production - and almost exclusively buy 46% or greater whisky and do my best to avoid artificial colouring and chill filtration.
 
Information update: It would appear that there are now 33 whisky distilleries in England. Not all have yet released a whisky as they have only been set up in the last 2-3 years and whisky, to be called whisky, needs to have been aged in barrels for a minimum of 3 years.

Clearly this is a rapidly developing scene.
 
Just visited Spirit of Yorkshire distillery near Filey. They’ve been distilling since 2016 and sell their whiskies under the Filey Bay brand. All their standard whiskies are made using local barley grown on their own farm and are bottled at 46% non chill filtered and natural colour. We tasted their bourbon cask Flagship (light, fresh and floral with vanilla). They also use this as a base for other limited release batches with different cask finishes. We tried IPA cask finished- very floral from the hops but no bitterness, STR finished - light and red fruited, Moscatel finished, slightly sweeter and light sherry character, and finally double cask batch 1- finished in virgin oak casks. Limited to 2000 bottles and only 100 left at the distillery. This was the pick of them with more depth and fine character. I bought 2 bottles. Recommend- all are worth a try.
 
i enjoy the Penderyn. Nice drop. I visited the St George distillery earlier this year and was very impressed. I bought their Smokey whisky and some of a special cask they had found - they thought it was at least 8years old. Also got a bottle of their oloroso sherry with whisky in it.
 
I got it wrong - it is a PX rather than Oloroso. They reckon it is good with deserts (or sipping). The "Special cask" was a parcel they were selling at the distillery; not online.
 
I'm resurrecting an older thread I know, but the Cotswolds Signature Single Malt is well worth a look at around £40 if you like STR casks.

Funnily enough I was talking to one of the team at the upcoming Wiltshire Whisky Company last year who made a comment that really struck with me. He said "The Scots will tell you that they have the perfect environment for maturing whisky But that's because it's the only one they have". That kind of struck a chord with me and as a result I've become far more open to buying whiskies from places other than Scotland and Japan.
 
After dinner last night, whisky was proposed. The bar had shut but from somewhere in the kitchen someone managed to procure a bottle of Johnnie Walker Red. As magnificently filthy as ever and would have suited me fine in the circumstances but not good enough for our host who went back to her office and returned with a bottle of Wire Works LBV Port Finish. From the White Peak distillery between Belper and Matlock.

Allowing for the fact that my palate may well have been rogered by the preceding JW, I was impressed. Lightly peated and smoky to smell, in the mouth the impression is of satisfying gentle sweetness, white pepper, mince pie, nuts and mandarin zest. Reasonably complex stuff, very suited to early autumnal contemplation, an interesting alternative to Highland Park, say. Non chill filtered, 53.3%.
 
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