The English Whisky Revival

By Richard Thomas

When Penderyn opened in 2000, returning whisky distilling to Wales for this first time since 1894, most observers I know of reckoned it was an appropriate development. The Welsh, after all, were just as Celtic as the Irish and the Scots.

But England getting into the whisky-making game was an odder development, provoking slight bewilderment. The English, after all, are more associated with gin than whisky, yet that hasn’t stopped England from enjoying its own mini-boom in new whisky distillery openings.

England Is No Stranger To Whisky-Making
According to the 1887 book The Whisky Distilleries Of The United Kingdom, there were then five whisky-making distilleries in England, and two of these had dated to the 18th and 17th Centuries. These two ancient distilleries, Bristol and Vauxhall, cannot therefore be described as products of the successes of the Irish and Scotch whisky industries spreading into the land of St. George.

However, it was the fall of the Scottish whisky industry after the Pattison’s Crash of 1899 that dragged the English whisky industry down. Just as the Welsh industry was shuttered at the end of the 19th Century, so to the Lea Valley Distillery closed its doors in 1905 and brought English whisky-making to a close.

Or so it was until the modern world whisky boom. Now England boasts several active distilleries, and some of their English whisky has even found its way to America.

Adnams Southwold Brewstillery
A regional brewery located in Suffolk, Adnams got into distilling in 2010. Initially this was focused on vodka and gin, following a model familiar to any observer of new distilleries around the world. In 2014 they released Adnams Southwold Single Malt No. 1, a four year old aged in new French oak. This was followed in 2016 by the Adnams Triple Grain No. 2, made from malted wheat, barley and oats and aged in American oak.

Bimber Distillery
This London company started construction in 2015, and the next year they were operational and producing vodka. Reportedly they have laid down malt whisky stock in ex-Bourbon, -Port and -Sherry casks, as well as new American oak. Whisky from all these cask types is currently available for pre-sale, but since it is a year old at most, none has been released as of yet.

Cotswolds Distillery
Sitting in one of those picture postcard districts of rural England, Cotswolds Distillery has its first batch of three year old single malt due out in October 2017. Priced at a fairly reasonable £45 a bottle (it may be a three year old, but it’s a craft whisky, and many an American consumer can tell you what that means for the pricing!), this first run will consist of 2,500 bottles. A fifth of those bottles were put up for pre-sale and have already sold out.

East London Liquor Company
Taking an offbeat path is this London East End distillery. Instead of producing a single malt, their initial whisky release in late 2018 will be their London Rye, which is intended to be their cornerstone whisky.

English Whisky Company
Also known by the name of their Norfolk distillery, St. George’s, the English Whisky Company dates to 2006 and is consequently it’s not just the name that gets this outfit most identified with the term “English whisky.” They release batches of English single malt dubbed “Chapters,” some limited editions and some in regular production and most recently reached Chapters 16. Some are peated, some unpeated, and a variety of cask types are used in aging, creating a diverse line that is small only in terms of the size of individual production runs.

Hicks & Healey
Preceding the English Whisky Company by some three years as the ones to bring back whisky-making back to England for first time since 1905, Hicks & Healey are a joint effort by a Cornish brewery and a Cornish cider-maker. On top of being the first English whisky distillers in almost a century, they also bill themselves as the first Cornish whisky-makers in three centuries. Compared to fellow English old timers at St. George’s, their products tend to be older, but also much pricer, commanding three figures and appearing in 50 cl bottles.

Lakes Distillery
Opened in 2014 the outdoorsy Lakes District of Cumbria by Paul Currie, son of the man who founded Isle of Arran, thus far the distillery has released The One, a line of all-British blended whiskies. However, it should be noted that The One is blended by Lakes Distillery from sourced stock. They do not clearly specify this, but a quick look at the dates tell you that the oldest whisky stock they could have had at the time of release would have been two years, not the minimum three required by law. Lakes Distillery has some malt whisky aging, and intends to do a single malt release in 2018.

London Distillery Company
This outfit started malt whisky production in 2013, and their initial production run went into 109 20-liter ex-bourbon barrels coming from American craft whiskey distillers. The 109 was chosen to represent the 109 years since London last had a whisky distillery to call its own. In a gimmicky move, London Distillery Company is selling each of these casks whole for £495.