Henstone Distillery | Slow Stories | Slow Food Ludlow Marches

If you’ve been fortunate to step inside a whisky distillery in Scotland, a Cognac house in France or a quiet wine estate and wander through its cellars or barrel-lined warehouse where the precious spirits age, you’ll know the heavenly experience that awaits.

As you step into these hallowed storage areas, the first thing to envelop you are the heady, complex aromas seeping from the barrels. This is what distillers and winemakers call ‘the angels share’, the natural evaporation that occurs when spirits and wines mature.

Henstone Distillery lies right on the Shropshire Welsh border in beautiful countryside, lying West of the Long Mynd, Stiperstones and the Bog, lots of rolling hills and sheep, where the hills continue right through to Merioneth and the Welsh coast. On the farm you can stand with one foot in Shropshire and one in Powys, Wales, with part of the Welsh side of the farm holding some very friendly pigs.

I met with Chris Toller who founded Henstone with his wife Alexandra in 2017, located then in Oswestry. To help move the business to the next level, Mike Harris of TNS football club fame, acquired 50% shares in the business and the distillery then moved to a farm on Long Mountain in 2024. The current distillery, packing, storage and offices are all temporary as there are plans to create a purpose built eco-friendly self-sufficient distillery at the farm, not only to produce the Henstone spirits, but to open up for the public to visit.

The process of distillation

Potable distillation can be traced back as far as 800-2100 BCE, however, at this time methods were very primitive. Aristotle also suggested distillation was possible in 300 BCE because seawater, wine and other liquids could be distilled.

The basic process of distillation starts with the ‘Wash’, a low alcohol liquid which is pumped into the still, in Henstone’s case a wonderfully large copper still named Hilda, a 1000 litre pot/column hybrid still brought in from Germany.

A liquid made of two parts is separated through heating to boiling point, some of the Wash then vaporises and condenses. The condensed vapour becomes a new pure liquid which, depending on whether it is Gin, Vodka, Whisky or Brandy, is then filtered, aged or has additional ingredients added before being bottled.

Henstone’s Gin has aromatic botanical added to infuse and create classic gins including London Dry at 44.9% ABV, Navy Gin with added hops and barley spirit punching out a hefty 57.3% ABV. There are also gins flavoured with orange, ginger, an oak aged rosé, strawberry and pink peppercorn and a classic Sloe Gin.

The Vodka is charcoal filtered to give more purity and smoothness, and Henstone’s Whiskies are aged in various oak barrels, from wine, sherry, bourbon and peaty whisky barrels, all which impart suitable flavours from the original liquids aged in the barrels.

I didn’t taste while visiting as I needed to drive home safely, however I did pick up a couple of miniatures of the Whisky aged in red wine barrels and Whisky aged in Oloroso Sherry casks to taste that evening. My preference was the wine barrel aged Whisky as it had a wonderfully soft delicate mouthfeel, no harshness and just a hint of wine giving a touch of sweetness under the delicious whisky flavour. The Whisky aged in Sherry casks was more savoury, very good, but more classically a fiery Whisky.

Total current production at Henstone is approximately 7000 bottles across all spirits. I asked which has the highest volume of sales, expecting it to be Gin, but currently Vodka was top of sales, and Chris’s daughter believes there is a bit of a resurgence in high quality vodka.

Henstone offers their products through an on-line retail site, they also supply many local hotels, pubs, retail outlets and restaurants which, as the term ‘buy local’ is an important part of Slow Food’s ethos, is wonderful for Henstone.

The British craft spirit industry as a market has grown dramatically in the last 10-15 years and just like craft beer the market is very competitive, especially Gin styles. Henstone’s business is growing organically, and hopefully they will continue to share much more to the angels over Shropshire, especially if they continue to win awards for their spirits at home and abroad.

henstonedistillery.com

An angel's share in Shropshire