The team at Yorkshire’s first whisky distillery are celebrating the easing of lockdown measures with the release of their second ‘finished’ single malt whisky.
Filey Bay STR Finish is Spirit of Yorkshire Distillery’s fourth whisky and follows the success of Filey Bay First and Second releases in 2019 and Filey Bay Moscatel Finish earlier this year.
Co-founder and MD David Thompson said: “Although we haven’t been open for visitors during lockdown, the distillery has been operating as normal and we have been able to distil, nose and sample our whisky safely.
“Distilled in 2016, Filey Bay STR Finish is a field to bottle single malt that spent years maturing in bourbon casks before transferring to shaved, toasted and re-charred (STR) red wine barriques, which came from Rioja vineyards in Spain, to be finished.”
The distillery’s Whisky Director, Joe Clark added: “Our new whisky is totally different from anything we’ve released so far and takes the citrus and caramel flavours from the bourbon casks and weaves them with the red fruits of the Rioja barriques. It’s a complex whisky with spice and depth that’s underpinned by our light and fruity house-style.”
Launched in 2016 as a collaboration between farmer and brewer, Tom Mellor from Wold Top Brewery and business partner David, the team have also been able to reopen the distillery and shop to the public again this week and resume their popular tours after being closed during lockdown.
David continues: “We’re delighted to be able to share the distillery with visitors again, although we continued distilling during lockdown, it’s not the same without people!
“We’ve introduced lots of special measures to keep people safe, including mandatory booking, limiting the number of people per tour, collecting visitors from their cars and a one-way system that allows us to give a full tour, including tasting samples or ‘Drivers’ Drams’ at the end.”
The new release is limited to 6,000 70cl bottles and costs £60 and available to pre-order from both the distillery shop and online at www.spiritofyorkshire.com where tickets for distillery tours, which are available 7 days a week can also be booked.