I have officially arrived home after the conclusion of my 2025 British Distillery Grand Tour. After all is said and done, I’ve managed to visit 14 different distilleries and travel to 9 different areas of the country to do it. Now that I’m back in Derby, what do I have to show for it? Well, I did promise to do a round up of all the bottles I collected from each place I visited! So let’s run through my haul, shall I?
From Forest Distillery I took their “Earl Grey Gin”. As someone who’s normally not overly keen on either gin or tea, the idea of an earl grey flavoured gin just didn’t seem appealing. However whilst I was there I tried a sip and really enjoyed it! I had to get myself a bottle to take home for “further analysis”.
From Port of Leith I took their “Table Whisky”, a rather unique offering born out of necessity due to them currently not having any single malt spirit old enough to be classified as whisky. Table Whisky is a single grain spirit, which is a very rare category to find nowadays, and it was sourced from a third party distillery (so that Port of Leith had some whisky to sell whilst waiting for their own spirit to mature fully).
From Holyrood I took their “Elizabeth Yard Blended Rum – Sherry Cask”. I truly love the way Holyrood tackles their whisky production, so seeing that they also sold rum really made me curious about how they go about one of the most experimental spirits on the market today with their mad scientist approach! The sherry cask offering just seemed the most interesting to me!
From Ad Gefrin I took nothing, however my partner did buy something. They grabbed Ad Gefrin’s “Flýte Whisky Cream Liqueur”, mainly for their own use in cooking and dessert making. I admit I did really enjoy Flýte when I tried it, but wanted to wait for Ad Gefrin’s single malt to be ready before taking a proper gander at their line-up. However, since I have access to it, I’ll take a look at Flýte while I can!
From The Lakes I took their “The One Blended Whisky – Sherry Cask Finish”. I was very tempted to not take anything from The Lakes as I planned to do a review of their Signature Single Malt down the line anyway, however I figured if I also tried their blended whisky offering then I would have a clear perspective on all the spirits they have on offer. The sherry cask finish was simply the safest bet for me; I do have a bit of a soft spot for spicy dark fruits.
From The Spirit of Yorkshire I took their “Filey Bay Single Malt – IPA Cask Finish”. This offering really perplexed me at first sight, as I’m sure it did to others also. However, after trying all the samples that day, this one stood out as my favourite, and it wasn’t really close to be honest. I really wanted to dive deeper into this whisky, so I grabbed a bottle for myself!
From Whittaker’s I took their “Rosy Old Tom Gin”. That day, it was easily the gin that grabbed my attention the most and I thought deserved a really good look, especially for being an old tom gin, a spirit type I really want to learn more about! Not only that though, as I was also afforded a small bottle of their “Summer Solstice Gin” to take with me as part of the tour. So hey, two gins for the price of one!
From The Salford Rum Company I took their “Dark Spice Rum”. This was probably one of the toughest decisions I had to make on this tour, as their “Coffee Rum” was also immaculate. However, my love of deep, intense flavours won out in the end, so I grabbed their navy-style offering.
From the Midlands Whisky Festival I took two drams home: “Paul John Single Malt Whisky – Bold” and “Sagamore Spirit Rye Whiskey – Signature”. Paul John is a whisky brand I’ve only gotten to try once, and I tasted their fantastic “Classic Select Cask” expression. Indian whisky in general has captivated me for the better part of a year and I desperately wanted to own a bottle, and now I finally got my chance!
Sagamore Rye has a similar story, as I really want to explore rye whisky more, but it’s simply not sold much over here. Originally I wanted to buy their “Double Oak” expression, however they had sold out by the time I went to purchase it, so I went for the signature expression instead, which was still great!
From DropWorks I took their “Barrel Drop Rum”. Full disclosure, I was given this bottle for free, however I will still remain neutral when I talk about it. Amongst all the standard offerings we were given that day this one stood out as not only the most complex, but also the softest of the rums. Given that the distinct flavour double retort stills provide to rums can be a bit hit or miss with me, and that DropWorks have really run with that style with all their expression (not just the double retort rums) I decided the bottle that took that edge off would be ideal for me!
From White Peak I took their “Wireworks Single Malt – Port Wine LBV”. This does mean I now have two White Peak bottles on the backburner to review now; however I took this bottle for two reasons. First, it really did catch me off guard how nice this expression is compared to the rest, especially how comparatively complex yet delicate it is. Secondly, this was one of the last bottles they had left of this expression, and since most of the Wireworks expressions are limited release, this wouldn’t be coming back.
From The Cotswolds I took their “Signature Single Malt Whisky”. This may seem like a bland choice, but as far as signature whiskies went on this tour, Cotswolds easily comes top of the class. This bottle just fits my taste in whisky so nicely and makes me want to explore their other offerings even more (which I will, don’t you worry). It only made sense to snag a bottle on the way out!
From Retribution I took their “Signature Single Malt Whisky – Batch PR003”. While the batch number seems irrelevant, with a distillery this small it really matters, as the aging process between batch PR002 and PR003 was completely different. I tasted batch 02 whilst at Retribution, but have yet to try batch 03 so it will be a surprise for all of us!
From Wylye I took nothing, not for lack of wanting, but simply because they currently don’t have anything to sell! As soon as they do, I’ll be grabbing something ASAP!
Finally, from Witchmark I took their brand new “Single Origin New Make Spirit”. As I mentioned in my Witchmark Distillery Tour, the bottle I received was bottle number one, quite literally the first one sold. I’m incredibly excited to try it and although, yes, I will be cracking this puppy open and drinking the whole thing, I will keep the bottle itself as an important memento.
However, as well as this bottle I was also given the extremely kind gift of small samples of all the spirits Witchmark currently sells! This means I’ll be doing full reviews on Witchmark’s full line of spirits in future!
Right, that’s all of them! All of the bottles mentioned here will be receiving their own in depth reviews in future (even the tiny ones). I will also still be doing variety posts such as Buyer’s Advice and the Guillotine (which I’ve learnt on this trip is surprisingly popular)! Regular posts start up again next Monday, though there might still be a post or two between now and then.
As a small side note, along this trip I decided to track it all on an app so that I can share the experience with all of you! The app is called Polarsteps, and if you’re interested I’ll pop the link below. It contains bonus images for many of the stops, including some small bonus side activities I got up to while in certain locations!
Thank you all for the support through this trip, both online and off. It’s been an incredible journey, and I plan to keep doing these trips in future (though not any time soon). Have a lovely day, I’ll see you again soon. Cheers!
If you want to see my full trip on Polarsteps:
CLICK HERE
This post’s recommended song is: “The Future Is A Foreign Land” – Ghost
