January 11, 2014 – London hadn’t had a whisky distillery for nearly 100 years until Darren Rook and his partners opened the London Distillery Company in early 2013. They’re focusing on gin production, but received a license to start making whisky in late 2013 and immediately started producing whisky in “Matilda”, their 650-litre pot still. The goal is to revive some of the heritage of London whisky production that went away when the last distillery closed in 1905.
In Episode 460 of WhiskyCast, Darren explained his reasons for moving from selling whisky to making it, and the process for studying the old-school ways that his predecessors used. He also explained the process they used for getting regulatory approval — no small feat, since UK Customs & Revenue officials traditionally refused to license small stills for decades. While Episode 460 has an edited version of the interview, you can hear the entire interview here.
