Alice Pearson, the operations director at Cotswolds Distillery, has a lot of energy (I say this as a person who is often described as having a lot of energy). You get the sense that traditional “rest” wouldn’t be restful for her.
While showing our group around the distillery, she takes us underneath the distilling floor to admire the structural supports and pipework. She gestures to a metal beam and explains she’s frequently used it for pull-up practice on late-night shifts.
Distilling here is manual and labour intensive; most wouldn’t need to supplement it with strength training. There’s typically only a single operator on shift, who sets lines and turns valves and pumps by hand. With processes often needing to be managed simultaneously, a system of egg timers alerts them to when certain flows should be started, stopped or altered.
“As much as it is hard work for one person, it is good for them to have control over everything,” Alice says. She should know — she commissioned this distillery, a purpose-built space which came online in 2022. The building went from empty to operational in two months, with most of the distilling plant arriving assembled and ready to slot in through the dramatic roller door.
Alice commissioned the distillery while she was working full-time as an operator and studying for a distilling diploma, but even this indomitable twentysomething admits the first year of production in the new building was “insane”.
During this period, Alice oversaw strenuous efforts to ensure as complete a synchrony as possible between the “old” and “new” spirits. “The hardest thing about having a new distillery and an old one was getting the flavour to match, because we were very happy with our flavour profile,” she says, explaining it took nine months to achieve a result the team were happy with.
Some processes have been altered. For example, the super-efficient new mash tun led the team to drop their third water — Alice says a three-stage mash milked the barley too hard, producing a “really heavy cereal note” they didn’t want in the wort. Many things remain unchanged, including their four-day fermentations, the use of M1 yeast (originally developed for wine), and the high spirit cut point.
“We are trying to pack esters in early on, and when you try the new make it really does show,” Alice says. “The ‘new’ new make has a slightly thicker texture, which I think will do much better for longer-term ageing, and we are quite excited to see how that goes.”
The original distilling equipment was sold to a new English whisky distillery. Alice likens this kit to toys, “silly and small”. It’s easy to see why when considering the scale of the new equipment: it’s four times the size, pushing the distillery’s maximum annual capacity up to 500,000 litres. The team were previously sprinting to keep up with global demand, producing 24/7, but the new distillery has plenty of breathing space built in.
There’s one warehouse on-site, with additional casks stored in rented accommodation on neighbouring farms within 10 miles of the distillery (Alice says you can generally rely on a farm owner to have a barn or two free). Shaved, toasted and recharred wine casks are a prominent feature in Cotswolds’ range — a signature of Dr Jim Swan, with whom founder Dan Szor consulted in the early days.
The distillery’s 2026 releases reveal the diversity of casks in circulation. Let’s start with the Full English: a three-year-old single malt fully matured in an English oak cask, bottled to celebrate the approval of English whisky’s geographical indication in September (hedgerow fruits, violets, chocolate, fatty ham, cloves and dried mint). This milestone coincided with the launch of Round Hill Harvest, the fifth edition in Cotswolds’ Harvest series, which was part-matured in maple syrup casks (Scotch pancakes with syrup, bright orchard fruits, creamy nutty notes and subtle smoke). Then we have the seventh instalment in its architecturally aligned Hearts and Crafts series, fully matured in Madeira casks (fresh peach and apricot, vanilla sponge cake, orange zest and woody spices).
“Dan can’t be tamed when it comes to casks. Stuff just turns up,” Alice says, her voice carrying that benevolent frustration common in describing a friend’s endearing foibles.