The Spirit Specialist reviews The English Distillery Cask 001 - the FIRST English whisky

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The English Distillery was originally named the St. George’s Distillery and is based in Roudham, Norfolk, about 30 minute South-West of Norwich.

The first whisky distillery sited in England for 100 years – the Lea Valley Distillery in London was the last to operate in the country until it’s closure in 1905 - it was founded in 2006 by father and son James and Andrew Nelstrop, who were part of generations of arable farmers but were looking to diversify their operations due to concerns with the future of the industry they had spent years working in.

Initially Iain Henderson, previously the Master Distiller of Laphroiag and already enjoying semi-retirement, was brought on board to oversee operations, before being joined in 2018 and eventually replaced by David Fitt, who had previously been a master brewer with Greene King and mentored with Iain for 6 months until he fully took over the reins.

James Nelstrop sadly passed away in September 2014, but Andrew continues to honour his father by driving the business forward with unbridled passion and enthusiasm.

Early bottlings were released as ‘Chapters’ to denote the story progression of the distillery but in 2016 a rebranding took place to introduce a core range of an unpeated Original and a heavily peated Smoky edition, as well as various peated and unpeated bottlings that have spent time in a variety of cask types. In 2023 a Sherry Cask Matured bottling joined the core range and was awarded ‘World’s Best Single Malt’ at the World Whisky Awards the following year.

Although distillation commenced in August of 2006 the distillery wasn’t officially opened until March 2007 by Prince Charles – as such 2025 is considered the 18th anniversary of operation and in celebration three special bottlings have been released to the public. Chapter 18 has been reviewed previously on this channel and is a marriage of ages up to and including 18 years. A single rum-cask matured 18 year old from the Founder’s Private Cellar collection soon followed before a one-of-a-kind release launched on September 25th using stock from Cask 001 – the very first cask filled at the distillery by James Nelstrop himself.

At one point the spirit within was transferred to a combination Pedro Ximenez and Oloroso Sherry cask for nearly 18 months to assist with maturation development but it was then returned back to its original American Standard Barrel ex-Bourbon cask sourced from Jim Beam, until bottling took place at a natural cask strength of 54.1% ABV. Only 60 decanters were made available, each one hand-blown and engraved by a local glassworks before being packaged in a wooden case featuring an individually numbered certificate of authenticity.

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