The English whisky distilleries ruffling Scottish feathers
These 20-year-old upstarts are taking on centuries of northern tradition in a war of the whiskies – and even have conflicting views on what makes a single malt.
A robin perches on the gates of The Lakes Distillery, watching a funnel of steam drifting lazily into the unseasonably blue winter sky. It flits away with a chirp, and the gates – decorated with barley husks and juniper berries in wrought iron – swing open.
Once a dairy farm, this 18th-century building had stood empty until 2011, when the current owners moved in, removing the local slate walls to bring in the traditional copper still, before painstakingly rebuilding them, not a stone out of place.
