Nestled next to the bustling River Derwent in the heart of the English county of Derbyshire there is a quiet whisky revolution going on. This is where the White Peak distillery is located, close to the small town of Ambergate near Matlock.
They have wasted no time in joining the English whisky elite and have already won several awards despite only releasing their first whisky just over a year ago. Matt took a trip to the Peak District to take a look for ourselves.
Several years ago, Max and Claire Vaughan had a dream. That dream was to open an English whisky distillery in their home county of Derbyshire. This became a reality in 2015 and White Peak was born. In doing so, it would become Derbyshire’s first ever single malt and join the ever-expanding English whisky scene.
The husband and wife team sought inspiration and advice from around the whisky world to point them in the right direction. Both had no experience in the spirits industry other than enjoying a glass of whisky or two from time to time. Chip Tate, former co-founder of the Balcones distillery in Texas, is pinpointed as a major influence and proved particularly helpful with a mantra of ‘plan for success’. That proactive approach appears to be serving Max and Claire well.
A site for the distillery was found – a former wire and cable factory with over a century of active manufacturing, previously owned by Johnson & Nephew. The Victorian factory, which itself was built on the site of an old forge, operated from 1876 before finally closing down in 1996 after years of financial trouble. The buildings had laid derelict for 20 years.
White Peak is housed within part of the former factory buildings and sits on the bank of the River Derwent. The wider site is part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site. They are also one of the founding members of the English Whisky Guild – an organisation founded in 2022 and currently consisting of 15 distilleries. The aim is to represent the interests of English whisky makers in a wider whisky world.
Our tour was given by Dave Symes, the Distillery Manager, who has been with White Peak since day one. First stop was the barley store where Dave explained that the majority of their malt was supplied by Crisp Malt, a family company who have been supplying the brewing and distilling industries since 1870. This is lightly peated, which is unusual for English single malt production, and to a level of 10ppm (Phenol Parts per Million) in the barley.
However, for much of February and March they are in production with unpeated malt. This was grown in Derbyshire and then malted at the renowned Warminster floor maltings. The spirit distilled from this is earmarked for a heritage collection celebrating local produce and will be released somewhere down the track.
Once the malted barley has been milled then it is loaded to the stainless steel mash tun. This is completed in 670kg batches. Warm water is added at increasing temperature to extract the maximum amount of soluble sugar from the barley. This is drained and recirculated to create a cloudy wort, which gives more cereal notes in the final spirit.
There are eight stainless steel washbacks, each with a capacity of 3,000 litres. White Peak practices a long 144 hour fermentation. With the fermentation process completed after just 48 hours, the additional time allows deeper flavour compounds to form within the wash. Orchard and tropical fruit notes develop as the yeast cells die and fall to the bottom of the washback. When completed the wash is 8% ABV.
The first distillation through the wash still takes the wash to 24% ABV. Both stills were manufactured by McMillan in Scotland and are currently producing 60,000 litres of new make spirit each year. The plan, following the installation of additional washbacks recently, is to double this to 120,000 litres in the near future. The wash still is run as slowly as possible so as to increase the copper contact of the alcohol vapours. This purifies and creates esters, adding to the fruity flavour profile of the spirit.
The spirit still is again run slowly and takes seven and a half hours. Each batch distills 350 litres of new make spirit at 72% ABV. The spirit style is light and fruity with the lyne arm having a slight 3° incline, which means the vapours have to work harder to make it to the condenser. The condensers are cooled with water from the River Derwent which flows just a few metres away. This harks back to the days when Johnson & Nephew used water from the river to power the cable factory.
The new make spirit is cut with water to bring the alcohol strength down prior to filling to cask. The filling ABV changes depending on the cask type – standard strength is 63.5% with ex-bourbon casks filled at 60% and STR (shaved, toasted and re-charred) barrels at 70%. These were established after trials with differing ABVs.
Inside the main warehouse
All casks are matured on site, but in three different areas of the old cable factory buildings. Core cask types include ex-bourbon, ex-sherry and virgin American oak. However, there are several more unorthodox cask types that were spotted such as ex-Port, ex-Calvados, ex-rum and a variety of ex-wine barrels. These included ex-Amarone, ex-Madeira and ex-Moscatel. It is going to make for some very interesting bottlings down the track.
The final part of the tour was a tasting in the lovely tasting room with Max. This included sampling some of the range of whiskies released to date, plus the new Caduro expression which was not released at the time of the visit. At the time of writing, this had just been announced as winning a Gold Medal at the recent IWSC (International Wine & Spirits Challenge) Awards – the only English single malt to achieve it in this year’s judging.
In summary, the White Peak distillery and their Wire Works whiskies are highly impressive. The attention to detail coupled with controlled experimentation has created a great set up. That early advice from Chip Tate and others to aim high is paying dividends. More awards and plaudits will surely follow and we wish everyone there well. We will watch the progress with much interest.
We would like to thank Max, Claire, Dave and everyone at White Peak for their hospitality and Emily Harris of MayFox PR for arranging the visit.
Visitor Information
Distillery Tour & Tasting run on Thursdays (11am & 2pm), Fridays (11am) and Saturdays (11am & 12.30pm). Price / £15 per head. Whisky Warehouse Tours are available Friday & Saturday (2pm). Tours on other dates are available by pre-arranged appointment only – visit www.whitepeakdistillery.co.uk for information and booking.
Distillery Shop opening hours / Monday – Thursday 10am – 5pm, Friday 10am – 4pm and Saturday 10am – 5pm. Sunday – closed.
