From hedgefunds to HEDGEROWS
It all started back in 2014, when our founder Dan, a native New Yorker and whisky connoisseur, had moved to the Cotswolds after working in finance in London for many years. Seeking to leave behind that world and spend more time in the picturesque countryside of the Cotswolds with his family, it eventually dawned on him that he could combine his love of whisky with his desire to start a new business. A dedicated whisky fan, Dan saw the fields of golden barley around his house in the Cotswolds and had a brainwave ‘I suddenly thought, there’s barley all over the Cotswolds and nobody’s distilling it, let’s be the first!’
Having found a derelict site near his house, he set about building a distillery and a team to run it, and the doors of the Cotswolds Distillery opened in July 2014.
The making of our GIN
Although Dan's dream was always to make whisky, he also wanted to create a full range of delicious spirits including gins and liqueurs. Our first project was the gin, on which we spent two months researching botanical recipes. We distilled 150 individual botanical spirits in a whole range of different flavours and set about experimenting with different combinations. Our distillers created over 60 individual gin recipes which we whittled down to one finalist, and that became our Cotswolds Dry Gin. It may have started as something of a side-project, but it’s now at the heart of what we do and we’re very proud of what we’ve created.
Launching our WHISKY
After three years of eager anticipation, in October 2017 we released our Cotswolds Signature Single Malt Whisky, the first whisky ever to be distilled in the Cotswolds and the one which remains at the heart of our DNA. In the years since its launch, we have expanded our range of single malt whiskies to include our Cask Collection comprising four unique cask expressions, a yearly limited edition Hearts & Crafts series drawing inspiration from the Arts & Crafts movement, and hand-picked single cask releases.