Our PIG Group Bar Manager, Sam Vesey, sits down with the Cotswolds Distillery’s Global Whisky Brand Ambassador, Rob Patchett, to mull over the perks and particularities of building a whisky brand in the English countryside.
SAM Can you explain how the Cotswolds Distillery started? It’s not the first part of the world that you think of when you think of whisky, which is part of what makes the brand interesting to me.
ROB Our distillery was founded by Dan Szor, an American who settled in the UK. He had been working in finance and was well compensated, but he didn’t enjoy it.
He first caught the whisky bug when he visited Islay, and ended up buying a cask. Looking out at the barley fields at the back of his place in the Cotswolds one day, he just thought, “Why isn’t anyone making whisky here?”
Soon he was speaking to longtime experts about the flavour profile he was looking for, finding investors and building the first distillery to make whisky in the Cotswolds. It opened here in 2014. We were the fourth English whisky distillery atthat time – now there are 55!
SAM English whisky might still be a hard sell to some people, but we find at THE PIGs, the people who visit us want to try interesting things and they like seeing it behind our bars. The feedback when they taste Cotswolds Distillery is very, very good. What’s different about producing whisky in England rather than elsewhere?
ROB Environmentally speaking, we are able to have sustainable barley and very low “barley miles” of only 197, from field to final bottle. All our barley is sourced from a single farm nearby, and we only use local water.
We’ve also created a new ecological wetlands system by converting old marshland into a wildflower meadow with five ponds that process more than 100,000 litres of our waste liquid weekly.
SAM I think you tried to show us that meadow the last time we visited for our annual trip with senior PIG bartenders – but it was raining so hard that day we all had to go inside.
ROB Yeah, it rained so much I ended up having to stop my talk and ask if everyone wanted to go inside and drink whisky instead!
Speaking of the weather, we do have warmer summers than Scotland, so our “angel’s share”– the evaporation rate of whisky from a barrel over time – is higher, and we take that into account with our methods. Basically, we lean into being an English whisky and part of a new “world whisky” movement. And we now export to 40 different countries.
SAM We recently began to offer an English version of a Scotch Sour with your whisky, which goes down really well. And, of course, every PIG bar creates its own cocktails inspired by the Kitchen Garden ingredients.
ROB The PIG bar teams always bring something different to the table and offer us different drinks ideas and executions. One that knocked me out recently was when Harvey, the Bar Manager at THE PIG in the New Forest, made a highball with raspberry and basil puree, with a little ginger beer and lemon juice. It looked stunning, too.
SAM Yes, we find whisky highballs work well with the Cotswolds Distillery, as the whisky is a bit more honeyed, delicate and fruity than a big, bold, smoky Scotch whisky.
With drinks and with produce in general, we have lost so many of our traditions and knowledge from the past. My view is that anything we can make in England – well, we should.
ROB Absolutely. English whisky has come a long way, and we are really moving forwards now.
Try Cotswolds Distillery whisky, as well as its gin and more, when you drink with us at any of our PIGs. To find out more or buy online, visit cotswoldsdistillery.com.
