First English whisky distillery in over 100 years

London - The English Whisky Company claims to have become the first and only registered whisky distilling company in England with the recent opening of its St George’s Distillery at Roundham, near Thetford. Malt for the distillery comes from two locations. One produced locally near Fakenham in Norfolk creates a ‘lowland style whisky’, while a peated malt brought down Berwick-on-Tweed produces the ‘Earthy style’ spirit of Scottish Islands whiskies.

The St George's distillery became operational in December 2006. However, under EU law, the spirit cannot be called “Whisky” until it has been matured for a minimum of 3 years. Master distiller Ian Henderson came out of retirement following a career producing famous Scottish brands such as Glenlivet and Laphroaig to handle the specification of  the hand beaten copper kettles - the shape and size of which are important to the process.

The distillery employs a custom-designed conveyor system from Guttridge to carry malt to the grist mill. “It’s an attractive solution and an unusual one, in that we have very little height to play with,” said English Whisky founder James Nelstrop. “Guttridge managed to create some very small self-emptying bins, using one bucket elevator to do two jobs, filling and emptying.” 

The first drops of Norfolk’s own 'St. George's spirit’ has come off the stills and been put into a range of woods for maturation including the distillery’s standard Jim Beam American Bourbon barrels as well as Sauternes, Muscatel and Sherry. Until it reaches maturation, the St Georges spirit will only be available in the form of blackberry, blueberry, cranberry & raspberry whisky-liqueurs, a cream liqueur and Norfolk Nog.