Wales Focus: pioneering Penderyn
There is an apocryphal story that Jack Daniel, the godfather of American whiskey, was Welsh. It is a story told by many but proof is hard to come by, according to Stephen Davies, managing director of the Welsh Whisky Company, makers of Penderyn whisky.
"I'm not sure it's true," he says. "But certainly many of the founding fathers of the Kentucky bourbon industry were Welsh, like Evan Williams. So there is a history and tradition for Welsh whisky and that's something we've built on."
A quiet road on the outskirts of the Brecon Beacons some 30 miles west of Cardiff is not the kind of place you would expect to find one of the more innovative and successful start-up spirits companies in the UK. But it's home to the Welsh Whisky Company's Penderyn Distillery.
Welsh whisky seems, at first glance, to be an oddity, something of a gimmick. But spend an hour with Stephen and you realise how serious he is about establishing Penderyn as one of the world's foremost single malt whiskies.
The brand is now firmly established in pubs across Wales, including the SA Brain estate and almost 40 JD Wetherspoon pubs. It has also been listed in hotels in London such as the Ritz and the Hilton group. In the off-trade it has just achieved national listings with Tesco and Thresher.
And you can add to this its export market, which now stands at 15 countries across the world including 21 states in the US.
Sales are increasing each year. In 2004, 42,000 bottles were sold. In 2005, the figure reached 54,000 and last year it grew again to 75,000. It is a formidable achievement for a product which hadn't even been distilled before the turn of the millennium.
The company was founded in 1998 by two friends - licensee Alan Evans and university lecturer Brian Morgan. Both were fans of whisky and aware that Wales had a distilling heritage, not only through Evan Williams in Kentucky but through Welsh distillers which flourished until the end of the 19th century.
However, one of the driving forces behind their project was to be progressive and not fall into the trap of being obviously Welsh in its imagery.
"Leeks, daffodils and dragons were all off the agenda," says Stephen. "We wanted something that would reflect a contemporary Wales."
The company is inherently proud of its Welsh roots. It uses a Welsh designer for the packaging and has a close relationship with award-winning Welsh brewer SA Brain, which has a nine per cent stake in the business and produces the brewed liquid the distillery uses to make the whisky.
But the company doesn't rely on provenance alone - the quality has to be spot on. "I always say to people we don't want you to buy this product just because it's Welsh, we want you to buy it because it's a world class single malt," says Stephen. "Welshness alone was never going to be enough."
The whisky is distilled in a copper pot still and matured in American whiskey barrels from the Buffalo Trace distillery in Kentucky. Then, for the last six months of maturation, it is put into madeira casks to give it an extra touch of lightness and sweetness. The result is a single malt that tastes very different to its Irish and Scottish cousins.
The road to success for the company has been a long one, however. There have been hard times when it only survived by producing other spirits - Brecon Five vodka, Brecon Special Reserve gin and Merlyn cream liqueur were invaluable assets while the initial batches of whisky laid down in 2000 were maturing.
All three products have been recently redesigned as Stephen and his team look to distribute them on the back of Penderyn's success - and he believes he may have a real winner in Merlyn.
His next project is building a £650,000 visitor centre at the distillery. Welsh or not, Jack Daniel would have been proud.
