It is that time of year again when I get told I am to sit and write a newsletter and begrudgingly I start, wondering how I am going to fill the page, only to find that I have so much to tell you that space becomes a rare commodity rather than a problem.

In some ways this has been the longest year ever and in others it has gone in the blink of an eye. Let’s start at the beginning; after another cracking Christmas period and a rather good Jan / Feb, suddenly the brakes slammed on and it seemed the public of Britain simply stopped shopping. Luckily, you kept visiting the distillery, so no harm done. Slowly over the summer, you all appeared to realise your drinks cupboards were empty and life has returned to normal just in time for us to be able to turn on the heating – so thank you to all of you for your continued shopping habits!

The distillery has seen lots of changes. The first change this year was the building of Bond 3, which is our latest maturation warehouse. This extra space should allow us to mature over 4000 casks on site – which if you were to bottle them all at once would be well over a million bottles of whisky! Quite extraordinary really. Sadly we will never get to see all that whisky for a couple of reasons; the Angels in Norfolk are rather greedier than their northern relatives, taking nearly 3 times as much and some of the whisky will be in the sheds for 50 years, which may be beyond my expiration date. We have also put a little extension onto Warehouse 1 to allow a lovely covered doorway that you, our customers, can use. This is a great change to our distillery tours, the old video has been retired and in its place is a visit to Bond 1. A great improvement and appears to have been a good decision judging by the feedback from those of you who have done the new and improved tour. Bond 1 has even had some cool lighting installed to give a lovely atmospheric feeling to the area.

New arrivals at the distillery… lets start with the most fun and sometimes most annoying arrival – George. When George first arrived in Norfolk, he was adorable, a bit goofy and gangly but spent most of his time dozing or eating; somehow since July he has turned into a rather large, very handsome Labrador. He is the new distillery dog! We are still undertaking his training and he adores seeing people at the distillery, but he appears to have decided that the best way to welcome people to the distillery is with a very loud woof. Slightly intimidating for those who aren’t sure about dogs – so I am working on this. Also he hasn’t worked out that the coffee shop is a perpetual source of food – which worries me as I am taking this as an indication of slightly below average Labrador IQ!

We have been fairly restrained with new releases this year with just 2 new batches of chapter 13 and a chapter 16. The autumn Chapter 13 is fantastic and allows us to support the poppy appeal which seemed appropriate this year. We have also re-launched our Norfolk Nog after a brief absence. It is much improved as it is now made with full matured single malt and is a slightly gentler 21%, well worth trying.

By the time you get this newsletter – we will have a brand new swanky website up and running. It should make life easier for you to find out what is going on and to buy stuff. Please email or call us when you find a bit that doesn’t work or the obligatory spelling mistake. I will write and tell you all about the new website in the new year. It has some very cool new features.

The English Whisky Co. was a lifelong dream of my father James and having built the distillery in 2006, he watched with great pride as our whisky found market places around the world and picked up award after award. He was also very proud of the fact that we appear to have spearheaded a revival of the English whisky industry, with a potential 5 distilleries in the pipeline at present. Perhaps the thing he loved most though was the fact that a lot of you visited the distillery and he had a chance to meet you and say hello. James Nelstrop sadly passed away in September but will be immortalised by his whisky and his founding role in the emergence of an English whisky industry. He would have been incredibly chuffed to know that Chapter 14 has been awarded ‘Best European Whisky 2015’ beating our friends from Scotland and Ireland!

On a lighter note… I hope you have all had a great 2014, are looking forward to Christmas – hopefully to be spent in good company, with good food and good drink. We are very proud to have you as our customers and obviously hope you find time to enjoy a little English Whisky over the hols or even better – come and visit us. We are having a half day on Christmas Eve, will be shut Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Years day, but any other time we will be open and delighted to see you.

Andrew Nelstrop

Managing Director
English Whisky Co. Ltd
St George’s Distillery
Harling Road Roudham
Norfolk NR16 2QW

www.englishwhisky.co.uk