Region & History

Anyone travelling through north Wales in the 19th century could hardly miss Frongoch. Richard John Lloyd-Price and Robert Willis came up with the idea for their own distillery near Bala in 1887, and shortly afterwards one of the largest operations of its time stood there, complete with maltings, kiln and its own offices. Around thirty people worked for the Welsh Whisky Distillery Company, and the casks presented to Queen Victoria and later the Prince of Wales already carried a royal warrant.

The success didn't last long. Wales was in the middle of a chapel-building boom at the time, and the nonconformist churches preached against alcohol, which dried up demand at home. In 1900 the distillery was sold to William Owen of Bala for £5,000, and the company was dissolved in 1910. For nearly a century afterwards, no whisky was distilled in Wales.

The idea for a comeback took shape in a pub in Hirwaun, where a few friends asked themselves in the late nineties why Wales didn't have a single distillery left. Penderyn began production in 2000 at the foot of the Brecon Beacons, and the first bottle was unveiled on St David's Day 2004 in the presence of Prince Charles. It was the first whisky distilled in Wales in over a hundred years.

It didn't stop at one distillery. Aber Falls began production in 2017 at the foot of the Rhaeadr Fawr waterfall in north Wales, followed a year later by In the Welsh Wind on the Ceredigion coast. Coles in Llanddarog near Carmarthen joined the scene next, with its first whisky going into the bottle in 2019.

Since July 2023, the name has been protected: only whisky made entirely from Welsh barley and Welsh water, with every step from mashing to bottling carried out within the country, may be labelled "Welsh Whisky." By that point, Welsh whisky was already being exported to 45 countries, with an estimated export value of £23 million.