Cotswolds 2016 - Odyssey Barley

The Cotswolds Distillery was founded in 2014 in Stourton in Warwickshire, and has become one of the more prominent of the English malt whisky distilleries. Ironically, much of the credit for this should go to the distillery’s excellent gins, which began as a side project while waiting for the distillery’s malt whisky to mature, but are now a supermarket staple. 

Cotswolds Distillery’s first single malt whisky appeared in 2017, and the distillery also produces liqueurs and experimental spirits including rye whiskey and rum. Following an expansion in 2022 the Cotswolds distillery now has two pairs of pot stills and a Holstein pot and column hybrid still for gin production, and has become England’s largest single malt whisky distillery with a capacity around 500,000 litres per year.

Distillery bottlings are, as the name suggests, bottled by or for the distillery from which the whisky has originated and are thus often referred to as Official Bottlings or OBs. Distillery bottlings are generally more desirable for collectors and usually fetch higher prices at auction than independent bottlings. They are officially-endorsed versions of the whisky from a particular distillery and are therefore considered the truest expression of the distillery’s character.

This ideal of the distillery character is regarded so seriously by the distilleries and brand owners that casks of whisky that are considered to vary too far from the archetype are frequently sold on to whisky brokers and independent bottlers. When this happens, it is often with the proviso that the distillery’s name is not allowed to be used when the cask is bottled for fear of diminishing or damaging the distillery’s character and status.