The Cotswolds Distillery: Defining the brand of English whisky
Whisky Business: City PM’s monthly look at the world of whisky.
There are currently over 60 English Whisky distilleries operating across the country in various stages of evolution.
There are 38 currently producing and selling spirit, with the remainder maturing new-make spirit that’s yet to hit the market.
When the Cotswolds Distillery started out in 2014, the category was much smaller. Indeed, virtually all English distilleries in operation today began production within the last decade, with a handful of exceptions.
English whisky has a long and storied history. Records suggest the country’s whisky producers were active as early as the 1500s, coinciding with the birth of the Scotch whisky sector.
Production really took off in the early 1800s, but by the end of the century, just a handful of producers remained. The last English distillery closed in 1905, and English whisky remained dormant for nearly a century, until The English Whisky Company in Norfolk started production in 2006.
English whisky makes a comeback
The English Whisky Company is widely considered to be the grandfather of the modern English Whisky sector.
However, over the past 10 years, the Cotswolds Distillery has jumped right to the top of the shelf, thanks to its commitment to quality and brand.
Founded in 2014 by Dan Szor, a former New York financier, the Cotswolds Distillery is just as much about the Cotswolds region as it is about the distillery’s whisky and gin.
Located in Stourton, within the heart of the Cotswolds, the distillery was designed to produce high-quality, local spirits using barley grown within 50 miles.
The first project was the Cotswolds Dry Gin, released shortly after founding, while the first Cotswolds Signature Single Malt Whisky was released in 2017.
The Cotswolds Distillery entered the gin market at just the right time. According to the research company IWSR, the UK went from consuming 35m 70cl bottles of gin in 2011 to 96m in 2020. Much of this came from the increase in sales of artisan-brand gins.
Between 2013 and 2019, premium gin sales in the UK increased sharply, with double-digit annual expansion rates at the height of the craze.
In 2018, for example, sales of artisan-brand gins at large grocers were up 167 per cent, compared with a 30 per cent rise in mass-produced gins.
Then, in 2020, as the world went into lockdown to try to control the spread of the coronavirus pandemic, UK spirits sales increased dramatically, rising by more than a fifth.
While much of this boom has now faded, the Cotswolds Distillery’s brand has helped it stand out in an increasingly crowded field.
The Cotswolds brand
Visits to the Cotswolds region have broken records year after year since the pandemic. Numbers now total around 35m per year, with some areas reporting double the number of visitors compared to 2019.
While US and Canadian visitors make up approximately 40 per cent of the tour market, there has been a steady rise in visitors from India, who now comprise four per cent of the customer base.
The Cotswolds brand and international makeup of visitors to the region have undoubtedly helped the Cotswolds Distillery carve out its niche in the increasingly competitive English whisky market.
And the next stage of the company’s expansion is the international market. “We want to move from being a leading craft distillery to becoming the defining brand of English single malt whisky,” says Dan.
“English whisky is still a young category, and the next phase is about building global recognition for it in the same way Irish whiskey or Japanese whisky did over the past two decades,” he adds.
That means breaking down barriers and getting English single malt whisky into the hands of people who would usually reach for Scotch. “Scotch has had hundreds of years to build a reputation, whereas modern English whisky is only just beginning to reach global drinkers,” notes Dan.
The founder is a firm believer that age shouldn’t hold back the whisky. “Age is only one factor — and sometimes not the most important one,” he says. “A younger whisky made with exceptional ingredients and great casks can easily outperform an older one that hasn’t been treated with the same care.”
The Cotswolds Distillery goes international
To increase awareness, the group has been leaning on its surroundings and ‘Englishness’ with collaborations such as the Highgrove Evergreen collaboration.
This whisky is made from barley grown on the Highgrove estate in Gloucestershire, the private residence of King Charles III and Queen Camilla.
The whisky was created in collaboration with the King and the box showcases a painting of Highgrove House, painted by the King himself.
The whisky uses “heritage Plumage Archer barley grown on the Highgrove Estate,” and traditional floor malting, which creates a “very direct link between field and glass,” says Dan. The whisky is designed to show that “ingredients, farming, and place can be just as important in whisky as they are in wine.”
The Highgrove Evergreen whisky is just one of the distillery’s creations. It’s also worked with Blenheim Place and Fortnum and Mason to create highly marketable ‘English’ products. However, product quality is equally important.
The Cotswolds Distillery has won multiple awards for its whiskies, including Gold for their Sherry Cask Single Malt at the 2025 World Whiskies Awards and Gold at the 2023 San Francisco World Spirits Competition for their Bourbon Cask.
As clouds build over the UK whisky sector, the Cotswolds Distillery, with its global brand, is well-placed to weather the storm.