Norfolk Whisky Goes Global
Andrew Nelstrop, managing director of the English Whisky Company at St George’s Distillery.
31 July 2009
THE global reputation of a Norfolk-made spirit is continuing to gather pace after spreading its reach to more European and Far Eastern countries.
Officials from the English Whisky Company spoke of their delight earlier this year after getting orders to ship their produce to Japan – one of the world’s main hubs of whisky production.
The managing director of St George’s Distillery at Roudham, near Thetford, last week said that the company was now distributing its 18-month-old whisky spirit by the pallet load to Singapore, France, Holland, Belgium, and Luxemburg.
Andrew Nelstrop said that the distillery’s 40pc spirit could also be found in the bar of the famous luxury Raffles Hotel in Singapore and was available at the British Embassy in Paris on the Queen’s birthday.
England’s only whisky company is also in negotiations with distributors to export to Germany, Switzerland, and Canada with the hope of beginning new deliveries later in the summer.
The £1m distillery, visitor centre, café, shop and conference centre was officially opened in 2007. Its first produce is set to officially become whisky at the end of the year.
“The 18-month-old spirit has had a good response, but everyone is waiting for the three year old to come out. The pre-sales have been really busy and we won’t be able to get it out quick enough,” said Mr Nelstrop.
Mr Nelstrop added that the company had recently brought its bottling operation in-house and work was set to start in the autumn on creating a second warehouse capable of storing 400,000 extra bottles of whisky and liquors.
“Once we have got that we should be able to store nearly one million bottles, which we will need because some of them will be there for 25 years as part of our maturation program,” he said.
