Today, we’re shifting our focus from the amber liquid we all adore to something equally essential, yet often overlooked – water.
In the world of whisky, barley and water are the dynamic duo that make the magic happen. We’re blessed to source our own water directly from our farm, a crucial element in our unique field-to-bottle process that sets us apart from other distilleries around the globe. We draw it up from the ground through chalk aquifers below the farm, which sits on top of the chalky Yorkshire Wolds. The farm has never been supplied with mains water – the original source, sunk in 1937 is located in the farm’s picturesque dale and is still in use. However, since 1995 most of our water has been drawn through a less pretty, but more practical, purpose-built borehole ‘chamber’ located in the small wood behind the brewery. The water is pumped up from the ground, run through a basic filtration system (to comply with regulation), and is then directed around to both the brewery (where it is used to make the wash for the whisky) and the farmhouse.
Even though the distillery isn’t situated on the farm, we still use ‘our’ water for the whole distilling process, bringing down a thousand litres from the farm to the distillery every week for production purposes.
Having our own water source has three main benefits:
1. Independence: We’re not dependent on a river or reservoir. We only take what we use, safeguarding us against climate issues. Boreholes, dug by machinery, delve deeper into the ground, offering extra protection against drought.
2. Control: Unlike many distilleries that rely on mains or river water and need to continually test and treat it, we have much more control over our water from the start.
3. Quality: The water‘s quality and consistency are paramount to the final whisky product. It’s introduced to the spirit during cask filling when diluting from still strength to cask strength, and again before bottling to reduce the spirit to bottling strength.
We believe our water is incredibly special, and the difference is notable when you compare it to tap water in a town or city. Whilst we’re not convinced that the flavour of the water will hugely impact the flavour of the whisky, there’s no doubting that putting in water that is pure and untreated with chlorine or fluoride can only have a positive outcome on the quality of the whisky.
So, here’s to water – the unsung hero in our whisky production process!
