New Make Spirit

New Make Spirit, what is it and what makes ours so special?

New Make Spirit is unaged Spirit, the name often given to what Whisky Distilleries produce prior to it being aged in any wooden cask. As such, it is completely clear and has had no influence from the cask but showcases the true profile of that distillery.

Firstly, we make a range of New Make Spirits tailoring each one to best suit the characteristics of the cask it will be aged in.

We use 100% Malted Barley, using varied proportions of different heritage malts to create our desired base flavour profile. Manipulating our brewing conditions with mash times, temperatures and yeast strains.

Using Brewers yeasts to maximise the flavour yield but not necessarily the alcohol yield; we ferment for at least 1 week and often much longer.

Our fermentations allow us to create our highlight flavours, be that of: Citrus, Orchard Fruits, Stone Fruit, Leather, Spice and so on, depending on our choices above.

We distill on open flame with a 100% Copper Pot Still. Running super slow for maximum flavour and Copper interaction. Our small head means the distiller has to be on constant watch to make micro adjustments to the flame to keep reflux exactly where we want it and capture the profile we are looking for.

During Distillation we make cuts on both the Wash Run and our Spirit Run and simply throw these away, they do not get reused or recycled.

Why? We are after the full flavour of our fermentation, not just the alcohol produced by it. Looking for a thick, viscous, full bodied Spirit, which showcases our desired flavour profile.

The result is a costly inefficient process which takes far too long, requires massive amounts of labour and limits our output at every turn.

But, since when has efficiency, in any crafted product, not often been at the detriment of quality.

As such our Black and White New Make Spirit has Colour. Like Dorothy waking up in Oz