Newer Distilleries : Henstone

This is the latest in an occasional series about newer distilleries, this entry is about the Henstone Distillery.

Including a look at one of their early batches.
Location

The @HenstoneDistill is located within the @stonehousebeer Brewery here.

History

Henstone Distillery was established in Oswestry, Shropshire, United Kingdom in 2017 by Chris and Alexandra Toller in the Stonehouse Brewery owned by their business partners Shane and Alison Parr.

The name Henstone originates from the family homes of the co-founders. Chris and Alex live in an ex-public house called “The Hen and Chickens”, whilst Shane and Alison live in “Stone House”. 

Production

The brewery produces nearly 30,000 pints of beer each week. Like Adnams, the unhopped wash is used to distil their whisky. They also produce a range of gins and a vodka.

 A German Kother 1000 litre pot/column hybrid, known as Hilda. does the batch distillation.

Maturation

Their first cask was filled in January 2018

Whisky

Henstone released their first whisky in January 2021, they provide loads of geeky information about each release:

Handwritten label batch number: 1

Date on label: 15/1/21

Cask Number: HDC0001

Wash made: Comprised 2 washes made 8/12/17 & 14/12/17

Distillations: Comprised 3 distillations which took place over 2 days – 16/12/17 & 23/12/17

ABV into cask: 65.4%

Wood type: ex-bourbon (Jack Daniels), 200 litre American Standard

Into wood date: 10/1/18

Removed from wood: 12/1/21

Bottling ABV: 43.8%

Number of bottles in batch: 370 x 70cl and 12 x 5cl

Website
Link to the distillery website


Visit
Tours usually run on a Saturday - visit the website to book.

 

Review:

Henstone have released a number of batches, most single casks. For this review I tried Batch 3 released in Jun '21

Distillery notes:

Handwritten label batch number: 3

Date on label: 2/8/21

Cask Number: HDC0003

Wash made: Comprised two washes made 26/1/18 and 15/2/18

Distillations: Comprised four distillations which took place on 2/2/18 and 25/2/18

ABV into cask: 65.3%

Wood type: ex-bourbon (Jack Daniels), 200 litre American Standard

Into wood date: 28/2/18

Removed from wood: 8/6/21

Bottling ABV: 43.8%

Number of bottles from in batch: 342 x 70cl and 138 x 5cl

My thoughts:

Appearance: Pale gold in the glass, swirls cling as a thin line, take an age to bead up before falling as slow thin legs.

 

Nose: fruit notes jump out of the glass to start with - both orchard and tropical: stewed apples, pears, apricots and pineapple; there's a little honey and a hint of brown sugar. A little time and air offers some toffee, milk chocolate, vanilla and malt.

Palate: thin spicy arrival, the fruit from the nose is here with a big bite of lip tingling ginger spice. It might only be 43.8% but it packs a bit of a punch. After the first few sips it does calm down a bit - more fruit: pear and melon come to the fore - there's a little sweet honey, buttered popcorn and some vanilla.

Finish: medium length fruit, sweet honey and gentle spice notes.

Overall: from what I can gather from the website all of these releases are single casks - diluted down to a sweet spot of 43.8% natural colour and non-chill filtered. Only just 3 years old but no hints of new make - it's a lovely Speyside type dram, in the style of Glenmorangie 10yo. It's not as complex as some recent 3yo releases but that's down to it's simple use of ex-bourbon casks. Keep it simple and it turns out good!