Distillery launches its new malt whisky

EXCITEMENT is building at the Cotswolds Distillery in Stourton after the launch of the company’s long-awaited first single malt whisky.

It has been years in the making for the company, with people pre-ordering the first bottles in spring 2014, before the first stills had even been installed.

Many of the inaugural 4,000 bottles will go to those who have pre-ordered, but there are still a few bottles left to buy at the distillery shop.

Daniel Szor, founder and CEO of The Cotswolds Distillery, said: “Our single malt is the culmination of years of hard work, 3 years and 5 days to be exact. It’s been pretty surreal actually seeing our whisky hit the market, surreal and emotional. When we started three years ago we had help from a couple of Scottish whisky legends, Harry Cockburn and Jim Swan. It’s taken incredible hard work but we think we’ve managed to produce something truly remarkable. We couldn’t be prouder of what we’ve achieved.

“We’re over the moon with how it tastes. Obviously, we’re biased, but we knew almost as soon as we started distilling that we would eventually have something world-class. The fruitiness and smoothness of the whisky, the sweet butterscotch notes, they all come together to make something that’s just a joy to drink.

“The first limited release of the whisky is just available in our distillery shop and for Christmas pre-order on our website. Soon it will be on the shelves of local specialist retailers, like Vin Neuf in Stratford, as well as national purveyors of premium spirits such as Majestic Wines, The Whisky Exchange and Master of Malt. We’ll release about 20,000 bottles in total this side of Christmas and they’re all allocated, many for export to Europe and the USA.”

Full story in this week's Herald.