John’s Blog – the journey into distillation

This is the first of many blog articles I’ll be writing over the coming year, as Adnams adds distilling to its grand drinks portfolio.

John McCarthy, Adnams Head Distiller

As this is such an important, and historic, new project for Adnams, I’m really keen to document the whole process from the start.

So, here’s where the journey from brewing to distilling begins.

In 2008, our Chairman, Jonathan Adnams, started exploring the possibilities of creating hand-crafted spirits alongside our brewing activities. Jonathan, as a Brewing Engineer, has always found the production of high-quality artisan spirits fascinating, and with the complete modernisation of our brewery complete, we found ourselves not only with the space, but also the resources to turn Jonathan’s innovative vision into reality.

After months of research and studying the feasibility and practically of incorporating a distillery into our brewery, Jonathan and I travelled to Michighan State University to undertake a course on Distilling. We already knew that we have access to some of the finest raw materials from East Anglia, and with our engineering expertise could commission the finest hand-made tanks, distillation and rectifying equipment. In line with our brewing philosophy, we always aim for the highest quality. Many commodity spirits are made by re-distilling neutral grain spirit, but with top quality malted wheat, barley and oats growing locally in East Anglia, we could start off with the best possible base product.

So, we knew what we wanted to achieve, it was just a matter of getting everything planned, designed and implemented! The old Coppers were removed recently, leaving a perfectly formed space for a distillery. At the moment, as many Southwold residents and visitors can attest, the Adnams Copper House Distillery is merely a shell. We’re pulling out the remains of the old brewing equipment, and stripping everything down to start afresh. Once all the equipment is installed, we’re going to have one of the finest views in Southwold! Here’s what it looks like now.

This is the stills room. There will be plate glass windows here soon.

Empty now, but these rooms will soon be transformed to the filtration and bottling rooms

The Adnams Copper House Distillery will command one of the best views of Southwold

Next month, we’re having the alcohol storage vessels delivered, and in September we’ll have the pot still, two rectifying columns and a beer stripping column delivered. I’ll explain more about these hand-made engineering wonders later on – there’s lots to say! Next-door to the Stills room, we’re creating a chilling and filtering plant, plus a bottling room where we’ll hand-bottle gin, vodka, and eventually whisky. We’re not planning on releasing the whisky for a while, as it needs to be matured in oak casks until it develops the required colour, aromas and flavour. We’ve already bought some French oak barrels, which will be stored in the brewery’s ancient underground cellars – perfect conditions for maturation.

Some of the many botanicals used in the Gin trials

I’ve spent the last few months experimenting in the brewery laboratory re-distilling vodka with a variety of different botanicals. Like any recipe, we’ve taken many attempts to get it right. We’ve held many blind tastings, and combined different botanicals in varying quantities until we’ve come up with something our tasting panel all love. The recipe will no doubt be tweaked further when we begin to create our own spirit from local raw materials, but through research, experimentation and tasting, we now know the flavour profile we wish to achieve.

John McCarthy working on an experimental trial in the Adnams Brewery laboratory

One of the many gin trials

I’ll keep this blog updated with all new developments, and over the next few months will help to explain in greater detail what we’re doing, and more about the equipment and the processes we’ll be using to create our Adnams Copper House Distillery vodka, gin and whisky.