Whisky Business: City AM’s monthly look at the world of whisky.
Since the early 2000s, around 100 new whisky distilleries have opened in the UK (exact numbers are difficult to confirm).
The boom has been particularly notable outside Scotland, where producers, unencumbered by the rules governing Scotch whisky, have been able to set up experiments with different styles.
The Penderyn distillery in Wales could be considered one of the early movers in this recent boom.
The story begins, as it often does, in a pub. This particular pub was in Wales, where a group of friends decided it was time to rekindle the country’s love of whisky.
Wales had a rich history as a Whisky drinking nation, but the rise of Irish and then Scotch whisk(e)y throughout the 1900s squashed this nascent sector.
The friends went on to create the first whisky distillery in Wales for over a century in the late 1990s. The village of Penderyn in the Brecon Beacons was chosen for its clean water, a vital component for any whisky.
Penderyn’s tough beginnings
The formative years weren’t easy. Whisky, even when it’s not governed by the rules that govern Scotch, takes time, and time takes money. The founders discovered this the hard way and had to turn to friends, families and locals to help keep the lights on.
The distillery was eventually saved by local businessman Nigel Short, who’d recently sold his family business in the steel industry, located in and around Port Talbot. On St David’s Day 2004, Penderyn whisky was launched in the presence of HRH Prince Charles.
Shortly after, Short installed a new CEO in the form of Stephen Davis, who brought much-needed stability to the business. Today, there are over sixty individual shareholders in Penderyn, a legacy of its early days.
The Penderyn distillery was “a tin shed when I arrived, but we had a small stock of matured whisky,” Davis says. This stock included the original Madeira finish bottling, produced by the legendary Dr Jim Swan, once described as the “Einstein of whisky.”
The “tin shed” also contained a unique copper single-pot still designed by Dr David Faraday, a relative of the great 19th-century scientist Michael Faraday.
Installed in 2000, Penderyn’s original Faraday still enabled the young distillery to create something entirely unique. The Faraday still has two copper columns, each with a series of perforated metal plates inside.
The still is charged with malted barley wash and heated. As the steam heats the liquid, it bubbles and sends vapour into the first copper column above the still. The vapour condenses on the first plate before falling back, where it’s heated again and rises to the second plate.
The process repeats itself through the seventh plate in the second column. It’s then piped into the glass spirit safe. Each stage of the process builds a smoother, softer spirit that removes many of the chemical compounds usually left behind in the traditional pot still distilling method.
The spirit arrives in the spirit safe at 92 per cent ABV, vs around 70 per cent in conventional methods.
Welsh whisky style
With the major chemical compounds removed in the distilling process, the ageing process becomes all the more important in imparting flavour.
The Penderyn house-style derives from the use of two types of casks: hand-selected bourbon barrels, a high proportion of which come from the Buffalo Trace distilleries, are used for initial maturation and the whisky is then transferred to Portuguese barriques that have previously nurtured a rich Madeira wine.
The distillery’s flagship product, the Madeira finish whisky, is matured for about three to four years in that ex-bourbon cask and then finished for about six to eight months in the ex-Madeira barrels.
Penderyn has generated a cult-following with its unique and one-off special editions, such as the Icons of Wales series. “Storytelling is a huge part of malt whisky and we have the opportunity to tell many Welsh stories,” says Davis. And some of these one-off bottlings have become collector’s items.
The first Icon, Penderyn Red Flag, commemorates the first time that a red flag was raised as a symbol of social protest, during the 1831 Merthyr Rising. Released in 2012 at £40, bottles have since changed hands for around £1,200 at auction.
Total bottle sales have grown from 50,000 bottles in the first year of business to 650,000 in 2025. Awards have rolled in at the same time. Penderyn has won over 100 Double Gold/Gold/Masters awards and exports to a total of 50 countries.
Penderyn: Going for growth
Davis and his team now oversee three distilleries: the original in Penderyn, one in the historic town of Llandudno on the north coast of Wales, and the Swansea Copperworks. The latter has been a labour of love for the business.
Penderyn has invested millions of pounds in reviving the old copperworks and its surrounding buildings, thanks to grants from the government and the National Lottery Heritage Fund.
The lovingly restored building is a monument to both the history of copper smelting in Swansea (at one point, 95 per cent of the UK’s copper was smelted in the region) and the role copper plays in the distillation of whisky, as well as Penderyn’s unique association with copper and the region.
“In capacity terms, we have gone from 60,000 lpa to a full capacity of 900,000 lpa over three distillery sites since 2023,” says Davis.
The new facilities have not only added capacity, but also “world-class visitor facilities.” He adds: “We use our three sites for tours, tastings and masterclasses, which helps to showcase our single malts to our established following and also to new customers.”
The competitive whisky market
Cultivating that following is all the more important in an increasingly competitive market.
Davis welcomes the competition, but acknowledges “the marketplace is getting very crowded as well at the moment.” That means it’s all the more important for Penderyn to stick to its roots and unique distilling process to stand out in the market. “It’s all about passion and energy and the ability to tell stories well,” says Davis.
“You need world-class single malt and best in category packaging to convey your stories and unique brand character,” he adds. There are further plans to build Penderyn’s brand over the next few years, including the launch of aged expressions, the first batches from the new distilleries (both of which opened after 2020), and a renewed focus on distillery tours and experiences.
Today, Penderyn is a Welsh success story with a global following. It’s a brand built on good whisky and a national identity.
However, it has required a significant amount of hard work, energy, and financial investment to get here.
It’s both an inspiration and a warning to young distilleries. To succeed in this business requires a high-quality product, a dedicated management team and patient investors.