We launched the Peak District’s first single malt spirit at White Peak Distillery in Ambergate, nestled in the Derwent Valley Mills World Heritage Site.
For those who have been following our journey, you will know what a momentous day the 28th of September 2019 was for us as a business. We released our first single malt (12-month aged spirit) to a select group of Temperance Club members. This date is also significant for Derbyshire and the Peak District, as we made history in launching the first single malt ever distilled here from the Peak District’s first whisky distillery!
For our first annual Temperance Day celebration we invited members down to the distillery to collect their first bottle (the first of ten bottles for many). The bar was open all afternoon with samples of the bottled spirit, and obviously featuring our Shining Cliff gins along with some of the local beer that has inspired our single malt spirit.
The whole of our distilling team were on hand during the afternoon to give our members unique access to the distillery and the inside track on our whisky-making process, from barley through to casking. We held a series of 20-minute sessions to dive a bit deeper into malting, milling, mashing, fermentation, distilling and maturation. We even had a go at de-constructing and rebuilding one of our casks to show people what a charred cask looks like on the inside. The event finished with a group toast and tasting to close out the day. For some of our members, this was the third time they had met as a group at the distillery and it was a great opportunity to catch-up and share progress and general interest in whisky.
The first single malt spirit in Derbyshire and the Peak District. Lightly-peated, aged for 12-months and bottled exclusively for members of our Temperance Club.
The lightly-peated, single malt spirit for the first Temperance Club bottling was distilled and laid down in mid-2018 and bottled on 19th September 2019. For this 12-month aged spirit, we bottled at 46% abv and selected two different oak cask styles, ex-bourbon and ex-red wine, which are part of our core wood program. We love the taste after such a short time in cask, soft fruits descend into a slightly earthy, nutty and malty note, with hints of apple peel, grass, coconut and vanilla and a good length of finish.
The Peak District’s First Whisky Distillery’s first spirit was well received by all our members on the day with many choosing to purchase an additional bottle so they could keep one and have one to drink! We’re getting excited already for the September 2020 event and our second Temperance Club bottling, the details of which will develop over the coming months.
The 28th of September 2019 marks the first significant step towards a general release of a 3 year-old malt whisky towards the end of 2021. We expect to bottle a limited edition of 5,000 bottles and demand for this yet-to-be-released single malt is already high. Watch this space for pre-orders news, or sign up for our newsletter by entering your details in the form below to be the first to know about it.
If you would like to find out more about what we do at White Peak Distillery, then sign up to join us for a tour of the distillery where alongside our copper whisky stills you will meet ‘Betty’ our 600 litre spirits still used for our award-wining Shining Cliff Gin. You will also learn about the vision that drove us to set up the very first whisky distillery in the Peak District.