Starting in April 2024 we opened the Grasmere Whisky Founders Club – and it has sold out already, for all three years of initial production.
No sherry casks, and no bourbon casks! Grasmere Distillery exists to explore something different: the flavours of malted barley itself, rather than how this mixes with the flavours of sweet Spanish wine, or American sweetcorn liquor. We want to make a single malt whisky that tastes just of the barley. We are a grain-to-glass, experimental, tiny, craft, English distillery, making the drinks that we love from scratch. Our finished output of English single malt will be 1,000 numbered bottles per year, launching in late 2027.
We believe that incredible whisky starts with the beer. The beer is where it all begins. Whether it is the huge colour spectrum of heritage malted barley, to the mash temperature and grist / wort ratio, to the yeast type and the fermentation itself – including whether under co2 pressure or with the use of sour bacteria, the original beer is hugely important for the complex flavours of the final whisky.
For us, our favourite beer for single malt is a black sour mash, lightly peated. We co-pitch English ale yeasts, for clean and fruity esters. This is the backbone of our house expression.
We also malt our own local barley on-site, in a tiny floor maltings that can malt 500kg of barley at a time. Our goal is the first 100% Cumbrian whisky, fully made here with entirely local ingredients.
Our cask system is designed to remove any obvious “cask type” influence from our single malt. We are trying to escape the usual industry rubric of “sherry cask finish” or “bourbon barrel”. I understand why other distillers do this: but it is not our thing. We are aiming for something new and different: to show off the English barley, not the barrel. That is why, our new-make spirit will be rested in recharred oak casks, and then matured in our unique solera system – moved through a variety of different 200l and 500l casks, to age the spirit with a focus on retaining the original mash-bill character.
Our solera system has recently been expanded, so our maturing spirit will naturally achieve a minimum age of 10 years before it is released. We will release younger whisky in 2027, but it will steadily get older every year. From 2033, our whisky will always be a minimum of 10 years old.
You can pre-order our first release from our online shop, coming out in late 2027, of 1,000 numbered bottles.
We are proud to have won a Gold Medal for our new-make spirit from the World Whisky Masters 2025.
Founders Club
Now the Founders Club is full, we are no longer selling whole casks of whisky / new make spirit. Our focus in the future will be the bottle trade and on making Grasmere single malt to the highest quality that we can.
However you can still visit for a tour, to see the distillery and meet us, and see our work. Click on the “Tours” section above to learn more.
Grasmere Distillery was founded with a set of five guiding principles. Discover more about the unique character of our whisky and the spirit behind it.
1. At home in Grasmere.
Our distillery is located where we live, in Grasmere village, at the heart of the Lake District National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. We are a family business that has been going for a decade, built around our microbrewery, distillery & tap-room.
2. Small batch.
Our maximum output will be 1,000 bottles of single malt whisky per year, from our copper pot stills. This is a genuinely craft enterprise: small is beautiful. We have no hedge funds or corporate owners to keep happy, meaning we can focus on quality – not volume.
3. Our brewery heritage.
We season our casks in-house with fermenting molasses, which we then distil into rum, and dabinett apple cider, for a unique English aroma in our whisky. We also want to remind people that whisky is distilled beer – that the original beer matters, and that the beer or “wash” is a crucial part of the final distinctive flavour. This is why we experiment so much with the grain bill, using darker and more deeply roasted heritage malts, to marry with the barrel’s oak and tannin / vanilla.
4. Exceptional oak casks.
We source casks with our own unique specifications on char and toasting. Our new-make spirit is rested in STR barrels (shave, toast, and rechar), and then matured in our unique solera system. This means that is moved through a variety of different casks, to age our spirit with a focus on retaining the original mash-bill character.
5. Natural colour.
All the colour in our whisky is natural. We are opposed to putting caramel colouring or food dye into single malt whisky. Our ‘new make’ spirit interacts with the oak casks for a rich and authentic colour. We will never use caramel or other artificial colouring agents.
