For us it’s about doing things properly. That’s why we're obsessed with every step of the distilling process, from grain to glass. Mentored by renowned whisky expert Dr. Jim Swan, our instinctive approach is to create a whisky that doesn’t just replicate Scotch. That doesn’t mean we rely on blind luck – we take the best of tradition and apply new thinking to create something unique.
All our barley is grown here in Hunmanby, on our family farm, and we get our water from two sources, sunk deep into the chalk. We're in control of every stage of the growing and distilling process, from choosing the variety of barley and how it is grown, right through to bottling ourselves at the distillery. Very few other distilleries in the UK can claim this and it's something we're exceptionally proud of.
For more about our farm, have a look at the 'Growing' section of our blog.
We’ve invested in two of the largest Forsyth pot stills operating in the UK outside of Scotland. We've also added a four-plate copper column into our process that works in tandem with our spirit still which adds to the variance of the Spirit of Yorkshire distillery. It’s all part of our commitment to combining tradition with new thinking to create something out of the ordinary. Our stills were fired up for the first time in May 2016 and we have thousands of various cask types – including sherry butts and bourbon casks, all of which will help create the subtle, complex flavours of our unique spirit.
You can explore the whole story on a distillery tour – there’s so much to discover about our approach.
You might be wondering what on earth a gannet has to do with making our whisky. Along with these fearless, precise, graceful and purposeful birds, we’ve prospered here for many years. Similar to their characteristics, we have a homing instinct, so wherever we travel to explore new ideas, we always return to this special place, a stone's throw away from Bempton Cliffs, home to the largest gannet colony on the UK mainland. This is where we live and work, most importantly where our whisky was born. That’s why we chose the gannet as our talisman. If you have time, we recommend a detour to see the colony in Bempton for yourself.
