The English Distillery was based in 2006 by James Nelstrop and his son, Andrew.
An English whisky distillery isn’t peculiar as of late. There are over 60 of them. Open a whisky distillery in England in 2026 and also you’ll barely get a headline past the native paper.
However in 2006, it was all so totally different. There wasn’t one other registered English whisky distillery*. From a quiet nook of Norfolk, the Nelstrops helped kickstart a complete class.
Final week, Andrew and his spouse Katy (advertising director), plus gross sales director Mike Fisher, hosted a bunch of whisky writers at the attractive website close to Roudham to find out about a coming age of story that isn’t simply marked with new releases, however with a reminder: England’s whisky future started right here.
We visited The English Distillery final week. Right here’s what we thought.
The approaching of age of English whisky
It’s arduous to think about now that initially of the twenty first century, English whisky was extra museum piece than motion. The final identified whisky distillery, Lea Valley, switched from whisky to gin manufacturing in 1901 earlier than being destroyed by a hearth 4 years later.
England remained silent on the topic for over a century till The English Distillery lit the stills as soon as extra. James Nelstrop’s lifelong dream of turning his crop into whisky owes one thing to a throwaway remark by his father that caught with him: “It’s a disgrace all this barley has to go to Scotland to be become whisky.”
We’re the primary press invited right here since 2009. Andrew’s mum made sandwiches then. His dad, who sadly handed in 2011, didn’t actually care about advertising, PR, all that nonsense. He simply wished to make world-class whisky to share along with his mates. That mentality was taken ahead by Andrew, who leads the distillery right this moment.
The English Distillery staff within the stillhouse
St George’s Distillery and never liking whisky
After a lifetime in agriculture, from Lincolnshire to Australia to Norfolk, James knew all concerning the best English-grown malt. The household can hint their lineage again to 1335, when William Nelstroppe was recorded as farming in Yorkshire. However branding? Much less so. You would possibly recall for a time, this firm was identified to many as St George’s Distillery. Andrew explains that St George was merely meant to be a enjoyable identify for the deal with.
However merchants, brokers, consumers, and retailers got here to know the distillery by the identify and that put the model on a collision course with a Californian outfit of some reputation. The primary letter from an American legislation agency was ignored, however the fourth wasn’t. The distillery deal with was formally modified 4 years in the past.
Andrew, in the meantime, didn’t even like whisky when The English Distillery began. A turning level got here from a persistent bartender who poured him an 18-month-aged spirit in a wine cask. He inspired including water. It opened up the drink and Andrew’s perspective. The person now main the primary trendy English whisky by no means regarded again.
How The English Distillery makes whisky
The secret right here at The English Distillery is popping native components into whisky utilizing gradual processes and conventional tools.
Let’s stroll by way of how English whisky is made right here
Native components: water and barley (peated and unpeated)
All of it begins with pure water drawn from the Breckland Aquifer, a permeable rock that shops groundwater instantly beneath the distillery. This chalk aquifer pumps out arduous water all yr spherical, wealthy in minerals like calcium and magnesium. These qualities are sometimes credited with including character to whisky, as the best way these minerals work together throughout fermentation and distillation can intensify the sweetness and improve the feel of the spirit.
As for grain, The English Distillery is spoiled. Norfolk is the UK’s premier barley-growing area, and there’s lots grown regionally in Suffolk too. The distillery has beforehand used barley from Nelstrop household farms in Lincolnshire as nicely. Wherever the grain comes from, The English Distillery insists on having full traceability. You’ll see that turns into an actual theme.
The malting course of is the one factor that doesn’t occur on website, and that’s as a result of famend maltsters, Crisps, are a brief drive away in Fakenham. It offers each peated and unpeated malt right here, the previous to 50-65ppm and peated whisky makes up a few quarter of manufacturing right here.
The English Distillery goes by way of one tonne of Laureate barley a day in its tremendous sturdy mash tun and runs usually 4 to 5 days every week. Andrew tells us that 11 years of analysis had gone right into a barley pressure that might enhance on Laureate, however the spring barley fell sufferer to mill rot. A very good reminder that whisky begins with agriculture…
The stillhouse
Sluggish processes and conventional tools
The stillhouse was constructed by Forsyths, with 26 folks working over six and a half weeks to arrange your complete factor. It’s clear, sensible, environment friendly and has all the pieces you want. There was no compromise over any of the tools because the Nelstrops knew they had been solely enthusiastic about making whisky, not gap-year white label spirits.
On one facet of the mash tun are two 750-litre washbacks, which ferment for a median of about 104 hours, however usually they goal for 96 hours. Basic Fermentis SafSpirit™ M-1 yeast is used now, however The English Distillery’s first whisky maker, Iain Henderson (of Laphroaig fame), had favoured a dwell bread-making yeast that was used till the corporate stopped delivering that pressure.
Stroll the opposite facet of the mash tun, and two gleaming copper pot stills greet you, a 2,750-litre wash nonetheless and an 1,800-litre spirit nonetheless. The form is in the direction of the dumpy facet reasonably than tall, and the lyne arms descend to intensify the oiliness and weight of the spirit. After the second distillation, they’ll have a brand new make spirit round 72% ABV. It’s very cereal-led in character with brilliant fruitiness and lacks the peppery abrasives of others I’ve tasted.
The cooling water used throughout distillation runs in a closed-loop system, returning to the bottom after use and making the method over 90% extra environment friendly than conventional strategies, whereas slashing groundwater utilization by 94%. Spent grains (draff) are despatched to feed native dairy herds, and leftover liquids are used as fertiliser on neighbouring farms. Even the land works arduous. The ten-acre website is planted with cricket bat willows, which assist seize carbon, gradual rain run-off, and create habitats for native wildlife.
Peated and unpeated whisky is produced right here
Casks and maturation at The English Distillery
Roughly 6,000 casks of whisky are maturing on website. Nearly all of barrels listed below are American oak Jim Beam casks, favoured for his or her consistency. They’re shipped instantly after use, and whereas they might get as a lot as 10x extra in a container if the casks had been damaged down, this technique lacks the traceability and integrity of barrel high quality that the staff are striving for.
There’s a raft of various wine casks seen within the warehouse too, from sherry (from Miguel Martin’s tremendous cooperage) to Madeira, and Burgundy. Even native vineyard Burn Valley has supplied three casks. However The English Distillery doesn’t actually do finishes. The overwhelming majority of casks listed below are for full-term maturation. If a cask is reused, it tends to be for a extra complete secondary maturation. Andrew says he’s not a fan of the splash-in and empty technique.
Over the previous few years, the staff has labored arduous to make sure that it is aware of the total lifespan of every cask they use. A lesson discovered after buying rum casks of unknown origins early on. They may season casks on website themselves. We see a row of rum barrels, stuffed with a mix of 4 totally different rums from Jamaica (one excessive ester) which have been maturing right here for a decade. Maybe they’ll promote that rum sooner or later, however its goal is to present them a seasoned cask with full traceability.
They actually do love that phrase. Andrew tells us about producing a ginger liqueur with Bodrum ginger equipped by a good friend. He is aware of which farmer grew the ginger and which area it got here from.
Do go to the birthplace of England’s whisky renaissance if you get an opportunity
New warehousing, personal cask desire, and tasting the Angel’s Share…
The English Distillery additionally maintain casks for different firms. Roughly one in 5 casks on website belong to a different English whisky distillery. A brand new warehouse (in Suffolk) will see all of that transfer, so all the pieces right here is do-it-yourself.
We begin in Warehouse 1, the place conventional pallet racking is used. Casks listed below are saved upright on wood pallets, the old-school manner that works, however does restrict flexibility. That system is slowly being changed, as seen in Warehouse 4, by a mixture of “Diageo-style pallets,” which may maintain six bourbon barrels horizontally on a rack (nice for airflow and entry), and a brand new in-house innovation: brilliant pink metallic racks that may maintain numerous cask sizes and permit them to be saved on their sides**.
Delivery containers maintain casks for some time and turn out to be extraordinary hotboxes of whisky vapour. Stroll in and you may bodily style the Angel’s Share within the air. That was some expertise. I additionally loved listening to Andrew discuss personal casks, which there are only a few of, attributable to his displeasure with folks shopping for casks for funding functions. He says he reckons he talks 9 out of 10 folks from buying.
World’s Finest Single Malt Whisky on the World Whiskies Awards 2024
How England’s oldest whisky distillery is main its new period
That’s very a lot a mirrored image of the best way issues are completed right here. The dedication to high quality extends to the distillery’s sustainable power method, with photo voltaic panels offering about 90% of the manufacturing energy, or 30% of your complete website (which additionally features a charming restaurant, The Grain). These photo voltaic panels aren’t on the roof. Andrew is fastidious about upkeep and prefers them to be ground-mounted for simpler cleansing.
The distillery not too long ago took residence the award for World’s Finest Single Malt Whisky on the 2024 World Whiskies Awards for The English Sherry Cask. It’s vindication, if it was wanted, that England’s oldest whisky distillery is heading in the right direction.
“We stay a household enterprise with the goal to construct a legacy, not an exit technique,” we’re instructed. “We’re proud to have breathed new life into English whisky distilling, and we are going to proceed to set the usual for generations to return”.
The keenness for English whisky and what goes into its manufacturing is palpable right here. Giving a shit is the bedrock of integrity. It offers you a platform for good whisky since you care about getting each a part of the method proper, and also you care concerning the folks ingesting it, not simply that individuals are ingesting it. It is a distillery working arduous to make nice whiskies that aren’t arduous work. No gimmicks. No hopping on developments. Nothing dumbed down. They care about the place issues come from. How they’re maintained. And that the whisky can converse for itself.
An method which displays within the high quality of mentioned whisky, three of which we tasted. Let’s wrap issues up with some critiques.
The brand new period of The English Distillery releases
The English Chapter 18 is a really tremendous whisky, and we rated it extremely
The English Chapter 18 18th Anniversary Launch Whisky
Chapter 18 is a mix of single malts aged between 10 and 18 years (a reasonably even break up between 10, 12, 14, 16, and 18 yr outdated) drawn from bourbon, sherry, and new oak casks, together with each unpeated and flippantly peated spirit. It was launched on 7 June, which might have been James’s eightieth birthday.
Fisher explains they might have priced it increased, as a lot as £110, however they’re eager for folks to truly drink their whisky. They used to do pattern bottles with The English Founders’ Personal Cellars vary so folks might style the liquid they had been gathering. They then turned collectables, and folks stopped ingesting them. You do what you’ll be able to.
Nostril: Pear drops, custard, bonfire smoke, dried mango, gingerbread, orange peel, soda bread, and dates.
Palate: Fruitcake, vanilla, nutmeg, tropical fruit, banoffee pie, spent match, oak char, juicy barley, and marzipan.
End: Oaky, creamy, elegant and with extra tropical fruitiness and faint hints of fragrant spice.
Final yr’s Founders Personal Cellar version
English Founder’s Personal Cellar 18 Yr Outdated
The newest launch from The English Founders’ Personal Cellars vary, aged in rum casks. The primary 6-8 years had been in a rum cask that didn’t dwell as much as traceability requirements, so it was moved into rum casks that the distillery fills themselves for 10-12 years. The launch is 11 September.
ABV: 55.4% ABV
Nostril: Caramel over vanilla ice cream, estery tropical fruit (guava, passionfruit, pineapple, melon, banana), cake batter, cinnamon, pennies, melted milk chocolate, and dried grass.
Palate: Rum and raisin ice cream, custard, nutmeg, tropical fruit salad, buttery toffee, marmalade, a contact of anise, and toasted almonds.
End: Settles with fragrant spices, banana, coconut, and clove.
The English Cask 001 with Nelstrop
The English Cask 001
The spotlight was the long-awaited launch of Cask 001. Distilled in 2006, the cask was the inaugural filling. The primary English whisky in additional than 100 years. Norfolk’s personal Langham Glass hand-blown decanters add to every bottle’s worth as a collector’s piece. It weighs 4kg. Sure, I used to be terrified I might drop it.
There’s about 180 bottles within the cask, a 3rd of which will probably be launched. It was just about all aged in a first-fill Jim Beam bourbon cask, save for one yr it spent in an a sherry cask from Miguel Martin, a hogshead mix of PX and oloroso. Andrew is open about the truth that this gained’t be immediately recognisable to followers of the distillery right this moment, explaining that the primary whisky a distillery makes displays your early days of experimenting and discovering.
The launch is on 25 September and the RRP is £3,000.
ABV: 54.1%
Nostril: Brandy snaps, firewood, stewed plum, toffee apples, soy sauce, rose, oak tannins, and chocolate (generally mint, generally orange, generally Bounty). With time, it’s very sticky toffee pudding with dates.
Palate: Cherries, nearly root beer, marble cake, ginger, toasted nuts, mocha, tinned pear and peaches… It’s an attention-grabbing mix of bourbon and sherry and feels a lot older than it’s.
End: Bonfire smoke, treacle, oak char, and sticky dates.
Norfolk is the house of the primary English whisky
*Hicks and Healey made whisky in 2003. This collaborative effort between Healey’s Cider Farm and St. Austell Brewery was launched after The English Distillery’s first launch, nonetheless.
**Storing casks sideways is alleged to assist maintain the bung (lid) moist, cut back the danger of evaporation and leakage, and may promote higher interplay between the spirit and the wooden.
