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BIMBER DISTILLERY LONDON’S HOT PROPERTY
BIMBER DISTILLERY I do think that Bimber came onto the market just at the right time” Matt McKay, Bimber Distillery 28 | WINTER 2021
THE HOTTEST TICKET IN TOWN
IN THE TWO SHORT YEARS SINCE RELEASING THEIR FIRST EXPRESSIONS, LONDON-BASED BIMBER HAS BECOME ONE OF THE MOST TALKED-ABOUT NAMES IN WHISKY. FROM RELEASES SELLING OUT IN MINUTES TO THE SOUGHT-AFTER SPIRIT OF THE UNDERGROUND COLLABORATION WITH TRANSPORT FOR LONDON, THE DISTILLERY GOES FROM STRENGTH-TO-STRENGTH.
Time flies when you’re having fun. Like putting out a top-selling debut album, or making your mark for acting or directing your first film. If you’re good enough, you’re good enough. It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been about.
And this applies to London-based distillery Bimber, too. They laid their first casks down on the 26th of May 2016 and went on to release their inaugural single malt whisky three years later, in September of 2019. The limited release of 1200 numbered bottles sold out in three hours, and they’ve carried that momentum with them as the distillery has grown in the years that followed.
But let’s take a step back. The whisky world is markedly different than it was some 20 years ago. You can argue it is more welcoming, more accepting of different ideas, different perspectives and different expressions. And because of this shift, distilleries such as Bimber, founded by Ewelina Chruszczyk and Dariusz Plazewski, have not only been able to launch onto the market, but thrive in it as well.
Matt McKay is the head of marketing and communications at Bimber. A distillery with a journey that started in Poland and one that has seen it embrace and flourish in England’s capital.
Dariusz Plazewski is both the co-founder of Bimber and its master distiller. And owing to his background, you could argue that opening a distillery was his true calling. Both his father and grandfather had a history of moonshining, with ‘Bimber’ the Polish translation for moonshine.
“His father and grandfather were illicit distillers in communist-era Poland,” says McKay. “You’re talking about effectively
distilling using very basic equipment. You’re using your sense of smell, touch and taste. There were no automation or computers back then in the 1920s!”
It was from these family members Plazewski would learn those fundamental skills around distillation, particularly how you can utilise your senses to help make a quality spirit. And upon moving to London with wife and co-founder Ewelina Chruszczyk, Plazewski would soon make this passion professional.
Starting his own carpentry engineering firm enabled him to develop his love for building, and taking apart things, skills that would later prove invaluable in a distillery build. Upon moving to the UK, Plazewski would soon discover another love in the form of Scotch whisky, and what better way to combine these passions than to have a go at doing it yourself? So that’s exactly what they did.
The Bimber brand was initially established in 2015 before those first casks were laid down in May of the following year. Being such a young distillery, the Bimber team knew that in order to make their name, their whisky had to impress. But despite a level of trepidation, they had faith in the spirit they had produced. “There’s always trepidation from the distillery side, because you don’t know how any product is going to be received,” says McKay. “I do think however that Bimber came onto the market just at the right time. I think if the distillery launched 20 years ago, the whisky market was a very different place. “Then people were a little bit more boxed in with what they wanted to experience. But what we’ve seen across all of whisky, not just scotch, not just English whisky, but across the whole world is a real increased love of the spirit, a love of the stories behind it, its development, its variability, its characteristics and as a result, massive growth.”
Whisky, as McKay explains, has grown in measurably as an industry over the past 20 years and a distillery like Bimber is right at the top of that wave He adds: “I think we were very fortunate to be founded at a point when seasoned whisky drinkers, veterans or however you want to describe them, are of a mindset that they do want to explore new spirit styles. They want to see what’s coming down the pipe, they want to broaden their palates and broaden their tastes out. And yes, I think we’ve been riding, riding that wave ever since over the last five years.”
For many, buying habits have changed over the last 18 months. When it comes to beverages such as beer, wine and whisky, people have been buying a better quality product when they’ve not been spending their money elsewhere. And McKay says he’s observed that in the demand for Bimber, with consumers continue to desire high quality spirits, regardless of the age of the distillery.
“Bimber launched its first whisky in the autumn of 2019, so we’re not a distillery that has hundreds of years of history where we can compare it with the pandemic period,” he says. “But during these last 18 months, we spent more time bottling during lockdown than not. Our whiskies invariably sell out in mere minutes, thanks to strong interest from very passionate fans and that demand continued during lockdown.”
What did change over the last year though was the distillery’s production supply line, resulting in some bottling being pushed back due to supply issue. That, along with Bimber being closed to visitors like all of their peers. McKay recalls: “The bottom line is we are all passionate whisky nerds, and we love sharing our whisky with other people. “So from an emotional standpoint, not being able to invite people into the distillery to share what we’re doing and to show them how our processes are different from others, that was pretty tough.” One such project that has been incredibly popular for Bimber is The Spirit of the Underground Collection. A collaboration between Transport for London and Bimber celebrating one of the great engineering projects of the past 200 years. Just don’t expect the distillery to be able to celebrate each of the capital’s underground stops. “The Spirit of the Underground is very much a team effort from the production team, making that amazing liquid of which we’ve selected, and we’ll select, what we think are our best and most interesting casks through to the design team, and then myself on looking at, what stations are we going to pick,” says McKay.
The project started with co-founder Plazewski looking for a way to celebrate London, an idea McKay carried into a dialogue with TFL. “I reached out to TFL and explained our idea. To be honest, there wasn’t much expectation seeing as the links between alcohol and transport are a little bit fraught. But they were actually super receptive and it surprised us that nobody had done it before,” he says. “It took nearly a year to get to the point of releasing those first whiskies and there are certain rules to operate under. It’s not like we can do promo shots of someone enjoying a dram on an underground train!”
The initial releases to emerge from the Spirit of The Underground project, each aged in American oak ex-Bourbon casks were Waterloo (58.3% abv), Baker Street (58.1% abv), Kings Cross St Pancras (58.5% abv) and Oxford Circus (58.8% abv). McKay smiles: “These whiskies reflect the history and the significance of those particular stations. But let’s be clear on one thing. There are a lot of stations on the tube line and we have absolutely no intention of doing them all. At the rate we’re producing them, by my calculation, that would take 16 and a half years. That’s a bit much, so for anyone interested in that series, there’s definitely quite a lot more to come but it won’t be anywhere near every single tube station, least of all, because while some tube stations are fascinating, some of them aren’t!” The expressions created for that project, like all of which Bimber produce, are the result of the distillery’s in-house process. And that’s one that focus on quality, and to focus on quality takes time.
This journey starts in Hampshire at a farm called Fordham & Allen. Fordham & Allen, as McKay says, provide all of Bimber’s
barley needs. They’re growing Concerto and Laureate, and while Bimber has been distilling using Concerto so far they, like a lot of distilleries, will shortly be moving over to Laureate as the Concerto strain loses its efficacy.
From there the barley is moved over to Warminster Maltings. It’s Britain’s oldest maltser, who hold two floors, dedicated to malting all of Bimber’s grains. He explains: “The grains are specified to our needs and everything about the production process at Bimber really eschews, and takes a different route to a lot of distilleries that you’re going to see that have been founded a long time where yield is their primary concern. A lot of our concern, and our focus is on on quality. “And we believe that quality takes time. So rather than milling that grain, we don’t mill it at all. Instead, the grain is cracked. And we do that to preserve the husk of the grain, which brings with it cereal character. “But then it also ensures that we’re only unlocking as much of the convertible starch as we need, we don’t want our wort to be too floury, we want it to be just right for our production process.”
Fordham & Allen delivers to the distillery once a week. As Bimber don’t have any silos, they can’t store it for any length of time. So that relationship is based around the quality of the grain from that particular region of England, but also that relationship that they have, they can keep supplying everything Bimber need, if and when they grow. Just on a weekly basis. The next part of the process, is mashing, the Bimber way. Mashing is fairly standard to a lot of distilleries, but they have one distinction in that they only sparge the grain twice. A lot of distilleries will do a final particularly hot sparge to get the last of the locked in convertible sugars out of the grain bed, but Bimber don’t do that. “The reason that we don’t do that is we simply do not need that additional convertible sugar to make the wash that we require,” says McKay. “And we’re all about not pushing yield at the expense of flavour. So we only apply as much water as we need to create the flavour base that we’re looking from those grains.” Out of the mash tun, that water is then cooled down because otherwise it would be too hot to apply yeast to inoculate it. Bimber pump it across the distillery floor of the distillery is really quite small. And so unlike a lot of Scottish distilleries, where your tour guide might say hey, follow this pipe work and you go down a corridor and then round into a room and then up a ceiling and around.
At Bimber if you stand the middle of a distillery floor, you can rotate 360 and see everything. There is pipe that they bend over the top of the roof and then pump that with cooled wash into seven, custom-made fermenters. He says: “Those were installed a few years ago. We were originally using don’t completely clean it down. And because they are open topped, that promotes a secondary malolactic fermentation from the bacteria and wild yeast in the air.”
Bimber really eschews and takes a different route to a lot of distilleries” Matt McKay, Bimber Distillery
steel as our fermenters. But we’re quite fortunate that our master distiller owns a carpentry firm. And so what we did was we use the skills those carpenters to build seven, one for each day of the week, American oak, lightly toasted open-topped washbacks. That’s quite a mouthful.
“But effectively what we’re talking about is we’re running our ferment for 168 hours, a seven-day firm. Once the initial yeast, which is a combination of distiller’s and baker’s yeast, has died down after four days, because those wash backs are a little bit dirty frankly. “The oak inside is lightly toasted, so it will have bacteria in it and we deliberately The reason Bimber does this is to further develop esters within that wash. Their fundamental belief with distilling is that the actual distillation is simply reinforcing the flavours that you’ve created in fermentation. “That’s our belief,” he says. “So it’s not something to rush, we could easily do twice as many ferments if we cut that down. But then the profile of that wash would be completely different.”
The one thing that they are very concerned about and keep a watchful eye on though whilst running fermenters that have a bit dirty and open top is temperature. If you let your temperature variate to wildly, at best, you’re going to end up with inconsistency and at worst, you’re just going to end up with a massive infection. A temperature control unit for each of those seven washbacks, which runs down a plate on the inside of each of the vessels, and it keeps them to a constant 26 to 28 degrees at all times. “Whether it’s cold, we need to heat them up, or wherever it’s bloody hot in the summer, we need to cool them down,” says McKay. So that ferment is always kept within those confines to ensure both consistency and that it doesn’t go over the edge.”
From there Bimber run two Portuguese Alembic stills at 1000 litres, which were constructed by Porto-based Hoga. McKay explains: “They’re really fantastic, if you’re making small craft whisky and they’ve been converted to our spec. So what we’ve done because effectively, we’re making a slightly dirty wash. And because we’re using direct fire on those stills, which burns in the heavier compounds into the bottom of the steel creating texture. “Because that spirit is naturally heavier. we’ve converted the stills to promote an even larger volume of copper for reflux, which will strip out some of those compounds that are not necessarily either desirable or tasty in your whisky.
“The Bimber spirit is a product of a long, fruity but dirty fermentation, a long but fairly ferocious, direct fire burn producing texture, but then some really sharp cut points. We throw away of heads, so you end up with this juxtaposition spirit that has an awful lot of body, an awful lot of fruity character and depth, but is naturally quite clean and sharp.” And it’s only through the combination of those processes, McKay explains, on the one side using direct fire, running a long ferment firm and but on the other side, ensuring really tight cuts, all of which are done by hand as there’s no computerization in the distillery at all. It’s simply done on taste smell, and they’re measuring the ABV of that spirit to ensure that it’s within the confines.
And now, we’re nearly at the point of starting to make the whisky. The spirit runs off the stills, once it’s been through the wash and then a second distillation in the spirit, which comes off at 72% ABV. They then rectify it downwards to 63.5%, a fairly standard filling strength for much of the industry although some, McKay adds, play with that upwards and downwards. Something they don’t.
Bimber fill into a growing variety of cask types, mainly American white oak exbourbon casks. A lot of those originally were first fill but as they’re now growing and developing, they empty barrels out to make whisky and then refill them, ending up with barrels that are second fill, also known as refill, where the level of the activity in the barrel is lower, but that means the distiller can leave that whisky for longer.
Resulting in a rather different profile between the sort of spicy wood-forward first fill, and then the calmer, longer and slower refill, McKay tells us. When it comes to casks, the distillery have a selection of different Sherrys which is growing. Starting initially with Oloroso and PX but expanded to include Fino, Amontillado and Manzanilla among other more oxidative Sherry such as Moscatel. But it’s not just sherry producers Bimber is working with. “We are increasingly experimenting with things such as beer casks, working with London-based Brew By Numbers, where we’re doing a cask exchange in which we send them whisky casks and they fill them with, at the moment, stout and then they disgorge, send the barrels back,” he says. “And then we have some of those barrels that we filled with new make spirit for a full-term Imperial stout finish and some that we’re just using for finishing effectively for moving, probably exbourbon whisky in and then imparting that imperial stout flavour over four to six months to to give that whisky that originally had a defined ex-bourbon profile, some of those more dark malt, chocolate malt, sweet and heavier flavours.”
Through such partnerships, McKay considers Bimber as something of a “strange” distillery, one that is fullyfocused on traditional methods that take a lot of time but also one that isn’t afraid
Bimber Distillery in London has made its name early on through a committment to quality, even if that takes longer to acheive it
to experiment both with their casking, and finishing, but also with their brand propositions and they work with. “We want to be seen as an innovative, forward-looking and a fairly-open distillery,” he says. “You know, there’s no secrets, you can come and visit. I encourage you to do so, and unlike a lot of distilleries, you can ask us anything, and you can take photos of whatever you like.”
Depending on when you visit, there’s a good chance Bimber will have upgraded and updated its kit to further enhance production. But the one constant, McKay explains, is the commitment to utilising the highest quality ingredients. That, and a refusal to compromise on the distillery’s values. “Grain is super important. The quality and the properties of that grain, and where it’s grown, are all fundamentally going to affect the eventual flavour of that whisky, he says. “It’s really, really important, particularly for a small distillery, a lot of big distilleries, they’re reliant on the volume of grain, you know, how much can you get me, we’re not. “And so because we’re not, that allows us to be really specific in exactly that spec of the grain that we want. And by working with that farm, and by processing it in the way we do on the malting floor, only crushing it, not milling it, that is what defines that early stage of that Bimber process.”
He adds: “Equally, in addition to that, if we changed any part of our whisky making process be that the spec of the grain, how long we sparge for, how long we ferment with, the type of yeast, the still set up any part if you change any part of your plant, the profile of your whisky will change. And we’ve certainly found that Bimber has not rested on his laurels. The mash tun is not the original mash tun, the fermenters were not the original fermenters, the way the stills have operated has slightly been changed over the years.
And for you know, big distilleries who are making, and using quite a lot of skill I’ll add, a product that has consistency across hundreds of thousands of bottles, potentially over decades. That’s impressive, but we’re not about that. That’s not what we’re doing.” Instead Bimber, as McKay explains, is about creating the best whisky they can using traditional methods and the team’s passion for whisky.
“So the fact that the distillery does change, and you will see those changes if you try a bottle that’s cask number before 110 that would have been made on the old washbacks if you try them now, the profile similar but the fruitiness from those wooden washbacks is quite different,” he says.
“And not only are we okay with that we look for that. We feel that we are on a journey and we are still learning. Any distillery that says ‘we’ve mastered it all’ then I don’t think so. You know, we’re always learning, always looking for the next thing and asking how can we make this better?”
McKay concludes: “That’s not change for change sake, but the more that we can refine our whisky-making process, the more the more we can surprise people and say, ‘Wow, I thought I knew Bimber but now I’ve just tried this’ is a good thing. “We just love to raise eyebrows and as long as the quality is great then yes, change is good.”
HARD SELTZER THE BEVERAGE TREND WITH A FIZZ THE RETURN TO NORMALITY POST LOCKDOWN IN THE UK IS BRINGING A NEW TREND IN THE ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGE CATEGORY. AS HARD SELTZER SALES CONTINUE TO CLIMB IN THE UK, YOU MAY HAVE NOTICED THAT THEY ARE EVEN GETTING THEIR OWN SECTION ON SUPERMARKET SHELVES MAKING NOW A GREAT TIME TO TAP IN ON THIS TREND, EXPLAINS DR STEPHANIE BRINDLEY FROM MURPHY & SON.
The benefits of hard seltzer are not only restricted to the low calories option it offers to the consumers. The global hard seltzer sales already valued to be in the region of US$4.4Bn in 2019 is projected to increase between 2020 to 2027 at a 16.2% compound annual growth rate. This suggests a lucrative option for craft and large scale brewers looking to capitalise on this demand. WHAT IS HARD SELTZER? Hard seltzer also known as alcoholic seltzer or hard sparkling water, is simply carbonated water, alcohol and flavouring. The rapid growth of hard seltzer emanates from its wide variety of flavours coupled with the publics’ impression of a healthier alcoholic beverage (usually around 100 calories per can). The flavouring depends on the seltzer brand and can cater for a wide range of preferences. Different strategies are adopted during hard seltzer production. This can depend on the manufacturers preference. Some may choose to spike carbonated water with a distilled alcohol such as vodka, while others are looking to craft their own from scratch with sugar fermentations. Similar to other alcoholic beverages such as beer, wine, cider etc, the fundamental distinguishing property of the latter version of these hard seltzers is the fermentation process. Hard seltzer fermentation process involves the fermentation of sugar to produce a neutral alcohol base. The wide range of sugar available as yeast food in the production of hard seltzer contributes to the differences between each hard seltzer variety. Cane sugar, honey, agave, dextrose, sucrose,
and invert sugar are some of the sources of sugar used in hard seltzer production. In contrast to a malt wort fermentation, a sugar fermentation lacks the nutrients (particularly free amino nitrogen), which helps strengthen yeast cell wall and prepare them for the fermentation process. The absence of certain vitamins, minerals and amino acids also contribute to the relatively slow, sluggish or stuck fermentation. The occurrence of off flavours and sulfuric aromas can also be associated with this process if it were to run into issues associated with nutrient deficiency. Hence, the choice of an external nutrient source is pivotal in the hard seltzer fermentation process. The choice of yeast also depends on the brewer’s preference. EC1118 remains the most preferred due to the fast fermentation rate, high ethanol tolerance and the clean, clear organoleptic profile it produces. Some distilling yeasts also make for a good choice if aiming for higher ethanol yields. It is worth experimenting with other strains, especially when producing seltzers around the 4-5% ABV mark, to see what flavours can be achieved. ENABLING THE TREND The Murphy and Son Just Add Sugar kit is a combination of nitrogen, vitamins, amino acids, yeast extract, and trace elements optimised to aid yeast growth during the fermentation of sugar solutions. Just Add Sugar is formulated to provide the building blocks required for healthy yeast. The Just Add Sugar kit also comes with a buffer adapted to maintain a constant intracellular pH in yeast during sugar fermentation whilst decreasing the inhibitory effect of organic acids on yeast growth. 36 | WINTER 2021 DISTILLERS JOURNAL
The salt magnesium sulphate (MagSul) forms the 3rd component of the Just Add Sugar kit. This provides the essential cofactor needed for glycolysis. The combination of each Murphy and Son Just Add Sugar kit component in the advised doses provide all the necessary elements for a successful sugar fermentation. Following laboratory trials, Just Add Sugar formulation was prepared for a commercial production trial at a brewery. The initial sugar wash was carried out using granulated cane sugar (50kg) and water (600litre).
Gravity of sugar wash was constantly monitored to ensure target OG was met (1.30-1.35). The sugar solution was boiled for ≈15 minutes and allowed to cool slightly before Just Add Sugar nutrients were added (an important step to avoid the denaturing of the product). The sugar solution was cooled further before transfer to the fermentation vessel (FV). Yeast was added following the transfer of sugar wash to FV.
PRODUCTION RESULTS
Graphs of fermentation 1 and 2 above show the pH, ABV and Gravity readings for the completed 5.12 and 5.25 % ABV hard seltzers, respectively. Both fermentations attenuated with a pH above 4.0. (Fermentation 1 ended at 4.23, and Fermentation 2 ended at 4.23).
The final gravity was 0.995 and 0.994, respectively. The fermentation progressed well and created a base with the required properties. This pH allows for both an optimum
Left top and bottom, Lab trial fermentation plot showing pH, ABV and gravity across the five days of fermentation.
range for yeast fermentation but also allows for the addition of acidic flavours further down the process without the final product getting too acidic. Based on the data from the trials, the fermentations were fully attenuated after five days. The gravity dropped significantly upon the utilisation of sugar by the yeast throughout the fermentation process.
The phases of yeast growth could be spotted on the graph with a lag phase in the first two days and a steady log phase between day 2 and day 4. The stationary phase of yeast growth, as seen, is preceded by attenuation in fermentation resulting in the clean alcoholic produce at the target ABV.
Based on the result, it can be concluded that the nutrient had good properties for fermenting a nutrient-poor media such as that used for the hard seltzer fermentation.
Murphy and Son Just Add Sugar nutrient can also successfully achieve a fermented sugar base for higher %ABV targets so that a more concentrated version can be made and liquored back later. This ability to successfully ferment high gravity sugar washes will also appeal to sugar-based spirits and other sugarbased alcoholic beverages.
RUM IS NOT THE NEW GIN
UK CRAFT RUM PRODUCERS FROM JERSEY TO SCOTLAND ARE CREATING PREMIUM SPIRITS THAT CAN RIVAL THE BEST OF THE CARIBBEAN IN TASTE AND QUALITY. BEATING THEM IN VOLUME, HOWEVER, IS A VERY DIFFERENT STORY. VELO MITROVICH REPORTS
RUM distillersjournal.info
In looking back over the past two years, if you were holding your breath waiting for all rum predictions to come true, you’d be long dead. Forget gin, they said, everyone was going to be drinking rum. All those 400+ gin distilleries in the UK? Craft gin folks would be switching over to rum if they were smart. It was going to be a rum-rum world with the only question being: Is it going to be white, gold, dark, aged, or spiced rum the world is drinking? According to a 2020 report by Sainsbury’s, rum was pegged to take over gin as the UK’s new spirits favourite, based on the supermarket seeing an impressive 39% increase in sales compared to all other spirits sales. Sainsbury’s external Spirits expert, Tom Sandham, said: “Gin lured countless drinkers away from vodka, with notorious classics like the Negroni flourishing as drinkers craved punchy new botanical flavours. Now gin drinkers are turning towards rum for the same reason, as it’s the ideal stepping-stone drink into aged spirits: not too bitter, and lovely mixed or neat.” Miles Beale, CEO of the Wine & Spirit Trade Association (WSTA), crowned rum the “drink of lockdown”, as WSTA’s figures showed that rum enjoyed the biggest growth across all spirits during lockdown. In the three months from April to June 2020, 38% more rum was sold than in the same period in 2019, equating to an extra 1.3 million bottles sold. Total rum sales were worth £119 million in the quarter alone.
Over the last 12 months rum has enjoyed 8% volume gains and is now worth £430 million, placing it behind only whiskies, vodkas and gins in value terms. And rising upwards with this trend are UK rum distillers – oh…if only it was that simple. When comparing rum to gin, it’s like comparing chalk to cheese, apples to oranges, or to any other similar expressions out there. They’re not the same spirit; they’re not even close to being the same spirit.
With UK gin, there has never been serious competition from imports. UK drinkers drink UK-produced gin, be it made-to-the-standards London Dry Gin or cotton candy flavoured gin liquor. As frustrating as some find the UK’s Gin Guild, its demand for exact standards have helped make British gin a world export leader. With rum, there are more competitors than you might imagine. Worldwide there are at least 62 countries with rum
Rum has always been an imported spirit and will continue to be so for the conceivable future
production and in the USA, 25 states make rum. While you would think that a rum from the Caribbean region – such as Bacardi – would be the world’s leader in far as volume, it’s actually Tanduay rum made in the Philippines. In 2017 it knocked Bacardi off its top-dog spot and hasn’t looked back. In examining the world’s top 12 rum producers and growth from over the last five years, by far this brand has shown the strongest, consistent growth.
Where can you buy this orangish coloured rum? Tanduay says that it is the best kept secret in Asia. That might be true. You actually have a better chance finding it in North Korea than in the UK. However, the company says that starting this year it will be starting an aggressive expansion campaign. Currently in Europe, Tanduay can only be found in Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. This will soon be changing.
For craft distillers, gin was always going to be easier to make than rum. While pubs, hotels and even cruise liners now have their own gin distilleries, that will never happen with rum. Gin drinkers don’t bat an eye at the idea that the base spirit was not only bought from someone else, but that it could be made of anything from grains to potatoes to even dairy whey. And almost every gin distiller – including most medium-sized players and above – buy in their base spirit.
Rum has always been an imported spirit and will continue to be so for the conceivable future. On this grey, cold, wet island we call home, rum sings to us of warm seas, palm trees, and tropical nights. The second you put ‘Made in the UK’ on your bottle of rum, you’re starting to fight an uphill battle. And the fight begins within the ranks of UK rum distillers. While some bring in basic white rum from the Caribbean, redistill it with their own flavourings and call it British rum, this is not a popular decision with those British rum distillers who do all the steps starting with either molasses or cane sugar.
There have been several attempts by regional rum distillers to have standards associated with the name. For example, if you call your rum ‘Scottish rum’, you will have to distil it in Scotland from molasses. Creating these standards, however, have yet to pan out. As far as HMRC regulations go, as long as you don’t make your base spirit, getting a gin re-distillers license is fairly easy as is the same for rum. If, however, you do all the distilling processes in rum production, get ready for requirements that could be an extra chapter in Joseph Heller’s ‘Catch-22’. And, perhaps one of the biggest hurdles rum production has to contend with in the UK, there is not a tradition of making rum here. In fact, it’s only been about 10-years since the first bottle of 100% UK-produced rum was bottled by English Spirit in the north Essex countryside.
Dr John Walters got a crazy idea in 2009 when looking at some grapes on his property, he thought: “I bet I could distil these.” After two years of climbing a Mt Everest of HMRC regulations, he launched English Spirit in 2011. It was the first-time rum was distilled here completely from scratch.
Today, English Spirit is the UK’s largest craft rum distiller and getting ready to become ever larger with a new distillery and visitors’ centre opening in Cornwall. Besides looking at English Spirit’s new developments, we’ll also be looking at Scotland’s Old Mother Hunt Rum distillery, which is at the opposite end of the spectrum when it comes to physical size. How small is this commercial rum distillery? Rebecca Hunt tells Distillers that she is looking into getting official Guinness Records recognition as the smallest UK rum distiller.
ENGLISH SPIRIT GROWING A RUM DISTILLERY THE FATHER OF ENGLISH RUM IS GETTING READY TO OPEN A SECOND DISTILLERY IN CORNWALL. FASTEN YOUR SEAT BELT CAUSE THINGS ARE GOING TO GET A BIT CRAZY. VELO MITROVICH REPORTS
It was a different world when we last talked to Dr John Walters at the UK’s first and largest rum craft distillery, English Spirit. It was 2019 – just a month before Christmas – and the distillery was going full speed – like a Santa’s workshop for adults. A long row of 20 200-litre copper alembic stills – all designed by biochemist and master distiller Walters – were bubbling and gurgling away inside a 200-year-old structure called the Black Barn. Despite it being a cold day outside and there were holes everywhere in the barn’s roof and sides, inside the Black Barn it was warm, and the air was filled with the smell of molasses and spiced rum. If you could say that Christmas was in the air, it was there at Great Yeldham Hall in the north Essex countryside. Walters was leaving later that day to drive to Cornwall to check specifics for the new distillery that was being built at historic Treguddick Manor, near Launceston. At that stage there was a considerable amount of work remaining and final permits had not yet been approved. Still, how could anything derail this state-ofart distillery. In fact, according to one local press, there was even talk of a very optimistic opening of Spring 2020, just four months away. WHAT COULD GO WRONG? For many UK distilleries, breweries and those working in the hospitality industry, it’s now almost hard remembering what pre-pandemic days were like. While before punters were willing to experiment with different brands in a pub, now faced with spending £30 or more for an unknown bottle at a supermarket or online, they went with much cheaper major players who, even if their
offerings were bland, at least they were consistently bland. If your niche was craft and quality with the accompanying expense, you were about to face a tough time. For most, growth and expansion plans were put on hold or discarded completely. For English Spirit, however, it was like those words didn’t exist. In 2011, English Spirit was desperately trying to produce 120 bottles of spirits a week. In January 2020, the team was producing just shy of 2 million bottles annually – with about 65% of that going to contract distilling for a variety of clients. It had around 14 core lines – such as gin, vodka, rum, brandy, eau-de-vie, single malt spirit, liqueurs, English sambuca and cucumber spirit – and was doing 10 to 20 special editions a year, such as the popular Strawberry Rum Liqueur. But, English Spirit figured it could move double the amount of spirits, if there was only a way to produce it. It was decided that the existing distillery would be kept in Essex, while a new distillery would be built somewhere in England. In scouting out locations, Treguddick Manor ticked all the boxes. Although it sits in the heart of the rolling Cornish countryside, it is less than a minute’s drive from the A30. In a normal year, more than 15 million visitors pass this way going into North Cornwall. There was room for a 2,500-litre copper still – that was to be engineered by Walters – proper aging warehouses, a restaurant, a visitors’ centre, geodesic domes to grow botanicals for gin and other spirits – everything. For Walters, there was a manor house dating back to around 1500, with part of 44 | WINTER 2021 DISTILLERS JOURNAL
it going back to 1250. This made the 16th century manor house at Great Yeldham Hall seem like a new-build. Then in March, all things changed. “Even though we didn’t have complete exposure to the license, trade and hospitality industries, we had significant contract customers who did. As a result of that, things went on pause,” says Walters. English Spirt started producing the base liquid used for hand sanitiser, making around 120,000 litres of it, which was a rapid – but good shift – for the distillery, says Walters, who adds that it was this time that internet sales shot up as people were remaining indoors. “We found previously, we’d done okay online, but it was not great asset. Then it developed into a totally different world for us,” he says. While going online helped to keep the lights on at numerous distilleries and breweries, it was more work than many imagine. If before you had one individual buying thousands of litres from you, you now had to sell to a lot of individuals to get anywhere near the same volumes. Each of those individual orders, too, takes time from the second they arrive online, to packaging and shipping as the product leaves. Online sales helped English Spirit stay
profitable and keep staff on a minimum furlough. But, according to Walters, there was a side benefit as well. At Yeldham – and what is expected at Treguddick – it is planned that the distilleries will have much more direct contact with the end consumer and direct sales. The pandemic forced the distillery to take steps that it wanted to take all along. In speaking with Walters, you soon realise that opening up Treguddick never turned into an ‘if’ situation. Even at the height of the pandemic, there was never any question about it not opening, the project just slowed down. “We managed to keep the whole development of the project at Treguddick going forward, which was quite taxing, it took a lot of resources and a lot of focus,” says Walters. “We intended to open in July of this year, but because it was so uncertain, that we decided to go for a gentle opening in October, one where we still got quite a vibrant tourist trade down in Cornwall.” But suddenly there was a threat to that date and indeed, a threat to the distillery ever opening. With what had seemed like a done-deal, there were now problems with the last planning stage, leaving Walters wondering if final approval was really going through.
Walters says it became very apparent that there was local opposition, based not on the idea of a distillery opening, but because “you’re not from around these parts”. “There is a lot of that here, a hell of a lot of that. There’s no thought for jobs, for the local economy, and what you’re going to be contributing. It’s just that you’re not from around here,” says Walters. He had no idea what the outcome would be until the planning officer got up to address the crowd. “I just like to tell y’all, you don’t have a legal position to object to this application. And if you turn it down, he’ll take it to court, we will pay the costs, and it’ll still go through.” The application passed.
BECOMING A CONTRACTOR
Because English Spirit is not a big distillery, Walters says they couldn’t afford large contractors; it would have come in twice or even two-and-ahalf-times the total amount of money planned. “We had to take it over, manage it, and we’ve built every piece of woodwork in the building, it’s all been done by us. It’s been quite exciting, we’ve been a commercial developer for 18 months, as well as radically growing and changing the way that we approach our delivery business. Yes, it’s been very exciting.”
Would he do it again?
“It was quite a fascinating experience, but no, I wouldn’t want to be doing that again,” he says. What gets Walters excited is the potential of what the space of Treguddick will bring to English Spirit. “At Yeldham we had very, very tight space constraints. So, the idea of ‘where do we put 5,000 barrels’ wasn’t going to happen. On one side we’ve got the village, the other side we’ve got the church, we’ve got the lake, and then we’ve got a farmer,” he says. “Here at Treguddick, we’ve got two separate titles. The manor house has its own ground and then we have a separate three-and-a-half-acre distillery site. We can happily put maturation units at different temperatures, different humidity, and start storing spirits and moving them between each of those storage units.
“It’s going to mean some amazing things. The first is that we’re going to have more capacity, which is great. One of the reasons why we need to overproduce is, in thinking long term business growth, we are going into the maturation of dark spirits – because we are the father of British rum.” With that thought in mind, English Spirit will start laying down significant stocks of cask rum to start its aging programme. While Walters believes he is too far south to say the ‘W’ word, aged English whisky is also in the works.
UK RUM STANDARDS
Walters believes at the end of the day if a consumer is going to spend 30,40 or 50 pounds on a bottle of your rum, it should stand for something. One of those is, if it says UK, British, Scottish, English or Welsh rum on the bottle, it needs to be actually made here, just not blended. “If it’s British or it claims to be coming from somewhere in the in the UK Isles, can we please do the whole job. Let’s ferment; let’s distil; let’s mature; and let’s bottle here.” Bringing in someone else’s rum, blending it here and adding some local botanicals does not make it British rum, he says. “I don’t think it does anybody any good because, come on guys, you’d get a lot more satisfaction out of fermenting it. You don’t know how that rum’s been made, where its coming from, there are just so many questions you don’t know the answer to,” says Walters. “There may be a really strong rationale for it because you love those flavours and there is nothing wrong with that. But don’t say what it isn’t.”
Back in the 1950s through 1980s in the States, big department stores that no longer exist would put out Christmas catalogues, some like from Sears could easily be 150-200 pages. Kids would stare endlessly at them, writing down Santa lists, crossing things out, and adding others. When asked about the future of English Spirit and in particular what the new distillery will bring, John Waters eyes light up the same as these kids thinking about Christmas. The bar at Treguddick Manor will have over 40 spirits for people to try, spirits not available online or in shops. This will include aperitifs, different fruit brandies, whiskies, gins, and a course, rums, all experiments that the biochemist is just dying to experiment with and try. “If you use this sort of wine cask to age the rum in and them move it into this one, while all the while changing the warehouse temperature….” As you say goodbye, you don’t have the heart to tell Dr John that a day only has 24 hours.
For more on English Spirit, be sure to listen to Distillers Journal podcast.
ASK A BARTENDERASK A BARTENDER ABOUT: RUM IN TRYING TO FIGURE OUT THE NEXT BIG THING, YOU CAN TALK TO DISTILLERS OR YOU CAN TALK TO THOSE POURING FOR CUSTOMERS, BARTENDERS. PICK A QUIET NIGHT, PULL UP A STOOL, AND FIND OUT WHAT PEOPLE ARE DRINKING. THIS ROUND, WE ASK AWARD-WINNING BARTENDER CARL ANTHONY BROWN ABOUT RUM
We talk about different drinks having their moment and being on trend, but in my opinion, rum isn’t going to be the next big thing for this reason,” says Carl Anthony Brown, award winning bartender. “Rum is simply not a fad that will fade in popularity, it’s something that is a staple and it’s a staple for a reason. “Compared to other spirits such as vodka or gin, rum has a depth of flavour and intensity, which means it’s not going to be suitable for all palates. “If I was pushed towards a rum trend, I would say that perhaps a derivative could break away and become a stand-alone drink – for example, botanical rums. But I can’t see this being long term. “If I was going to see a change in direction with rum consumption it would be in terms of quality. I think gone are the days when people go to the supermarket
and pick up a cheap, poor quality rum – people are so much more aware. People are starting to care more and are taking more time to pick something special. “It’s funny, we assume we have become more sophisticated with our drink choices. But, if we go back to the 1930s, people were a lot savvier with spirits. People understand where drinks came from, but this education has been lost. There is the classic Burke’s cocktail book from 1936 that features rums from specific regions. “Rum can taste very different depending on where it is made, a Barbados rum will be different to a Cuban rum,” he says. As many bartenders say, their choice for a rum drink is a daiquiri cocktail. Not what a daiquiri has become in the eyes of most, but what a daiquiri used to be. The daiquiri was supposedly invented by an American mining engineer named Jennings Cox, who was in Cuba at the time of the Spanish–American War in 1898. distillersjournal.info WINTER 2021 | 51
Originally the drink was served in a tall glass packed with cracked ice. A teaspoon of sugar was poured over the ice and the juice of one or two limes was squeezed over the sugar. Two or three ounces of white rum completed the mixture. The glass was then frosted by stirring with a long-handled spoon. Later the daiquiri evolved to be mixed in a shaker with the same ingredients but with shaved ice. After a thorough shaking, it was poured into a chilled coupe glass.
Consumption of the drink remained localized until 1909, when a US Navy medical officer tried Cox’s drink and introduced it to the States where it became a favourite over the space of a few decades. It was one of the favourite drinks of writer Ernest Hemingway – who is rumoured to have put away 15 at one sitting – and US President John F. Kennedy.
Somehow in the 1960s and 70s, the classic daiquiri lost its way and became an adult frozen smoothie for those thinking they are always on holiday. But, thanks to proper bartenders and fans, the daiquiri is making a strong comeback.
“If I’m drinking rum, I’m drinking a daiquiri – I like a classic. I’d use El Dorado rum, it’s heaven, made on the banks of the Demerara River in Guyana where they’ve been making rum for over 300-years. I mix the rum with a little lime juice and Demerara sugar syrup. Perfect.” Carl Anthony Brown, is an award-winning bartender, mixologist and TV drink’s expert. Some of Carl’s accolades include winner of ‘The Young British Foodies’, IMBIBE ‘Drinks List of the Year and many more. He’s worked for 17 years in the bar and drinks industry, including creating the drinks concept across the Dishoom group. His latest venture has been launching the alcohol-free spirit, Crossip in 2020.
He is best described as a man who is seldom without an opinion.
