Five Welsh whisky distilleries are operational, and Davies is spearheading plans for a GI for single malt Welsh whisky, with plans for it to be formally launched this summer.
Welsh whisky is coming of age, and Davies has been instrumental in that. Penderyn has also flourished during the challenging trading conditions of the past month. “It’s been a challenging time for everybody, but in the context of things we’ve been thriving,” says Davies, chief executive at the distillery.
He’s not exaggerating – despite hospitality closures, Penderyn whisky is now available in 45 countries and 38 US states. It is growing volume and value sales, and as Davies says, “looking to accelerate that growth”.
Back at home, Penderyn is celebrating 21 years since barrels were first laid down by going nationwide, expanding to Llandudno in North Wales, with a city-centre distillery site in Swansea given the green light to open next year.
The Llandudno site, in a 19th century former Grade II listed boarding school, will not only serve as a new working facility but, given its location as a seaside resort town, as a centre for tourism.
“Strategically as a business, we wanted to have a presence in North Wales, we have always had fantastic support from people in North Wales, we are a Welsh brand, we’re not seen as north or south, so we wanted to have a presence more locally there,” says Davies.
“We can bring in visitors in larger numbers than we can in the Brecon Beacons where transport is a bit limited – it’s a fabulous location but you have to drive to get here. We get about 40,000 visitors a year. In Llandudno, because we’ve got a lot of hotel bedrooms in the town, a lot of holiday resorts all around us, we’ll probably get double that number in the fullness of time.”
And for a brand that owes so much of its success to word-of-mouth, the prospect of more visitors is a game-changer.
“The idea of getting 80,000 people through Llandudno and visiting the shop there and doing a tour or masterclass and then going away as brand ambassadors, that’s a key to our success. We don’t have the marketing budgets of some of the big companies, it’s all done by talking, tasting, and getting people to try what we’ve got.”
The new Llandudno distillery is just 30-odd miles from the site where the last operational Welsh distillery before Penderyn closed its doors in 1910, and while the new Llandudno range will tip its cap to legacy, Davies insists that they’re not feeling mawkish.
“It would’ve been a nonsense to say that we’ll make it the same way they did a hundred years ago because frankly, I don’t think that whisky a hundred years ago would’ve tasted that good!
“We own a bottle from the last distillery in Wales, which was in the north in a place called in Frongoch and we do know that that whiskey was lightly smoked and lightly peated in style. So, what we’re creating in Llandudno will relate to that heritage because the whisky will be in a smoky, peaty style. We’re not trying to emulate the old exactly, but it will take a couple of cues from that whisky. We’re going to take smoked barley at the start of the process and distil that through which is a different way of doing it. Probably a more traditional and more normal way of doing it in many ways. But the combination of that with Penderyn Faraday still hasn’t been done before.
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“I would say that Penderyn doesn’t lean heavily on tradition. We’re quite an innovative brand in terms of malt whisky because of the Penderyn Faraday still that we use.”
Davies credits a lot of Penderyn’s distinct style to the single copper-pot Faraday still. Designed by Dr David Faraday – a descendent of the father of electricity, Michael Faraday – it produces a pure and strong spirit, lighter and less oily than traditional Scotch, and as Davies points out, “we didn’t ever want people to think that we were copying Scotch whisky.”
The Llandudno facility in itself is striking, from the old stone school building is now extends a glass atrium, blending heritage and modernity in much the same way as the brand it houses.
The Swansea site too will reimagine a historic building, the Hafod Morfa copperworks, a building that according to Davies hasn’t had a roof since the 1980s, when a fire broke out in the building after locals kids broke in and had a rave.
The plan is to install a distillery in the main building next to a three-storey visitor centre. Given the facility’s location, next to Swansea’s Liberty Stadium, it’s perfect for visitors.
“We’ll never move from the Brecon Beacons, this is our home here but both new sites will benefit from better communication links, better local transport, I think we should see more activity. We have the football, the rugby, there’s a lot of opportunity for corporate hospitality on both sites. On all three sites, you’ll be able to buy the full range of what we can produce. The opportunity to sample more of the limited bottlings and casks tends to attract a lot of people.”
“[The Swansea site] will complete our footprint in Wales. It will be a productive, working site too, and we’ll look at doing other types of whiskies, and not necessarily single malts, we might look at other grains as well.”
As a new milestone is reached by the distillery, Davies is demonstrative in his praise for those who helped to establish Penderyn as the brand it has become, and no one was more fundamental than whisky guru Dr Jim Swan.
A legendary whisky consultant who sadly passed in 2017, Dr Jim Swan was dubbed the ‘Einstein of Whisky’ and his legacy is far-reaching having helped to establish the Kavalan distillery in Taiwan, Amrut in India, Victoria Caledonian Canada, Milk & Honey in Israel, as well as many more in Scotland, Ireland and England. His influence is such that Davies believes that some of the recent success of the world whisky category can be attributed to him.
“Working with Dr Jim Swan, gave me a very solid education over a number of years about the detail. One thing you find at any distillery that worked with Dr Swan is that they have a really good level of attention to detail at all parts of the process. Working with Jim, I quickly managed to get my mind around that. We worked with him for 15 years on our board of directors and I don’t think we would’ve achieved our success without him.
“There’s been a recognition of world whisky, whiskies from Wales, England, Sweden, Taiwan, and Penderyn was the first of those. Now we’ve been around for 21 years, people are starting to pay attention. I don’t think it’s to do with the pandemic, I think it’s due to the success of the world whisky category, even Diageo is now promoting the category to the wider public and that’s been great for us.
“When I came in 2004, they’d been making whisky for a few years, I came in with an enthusiastic appreciation which I gained a bit from my father and a bit from appreciating whiskies over the years. I’ve been very lucky to work with some exceptional people.”
