The 2020s have brought a boom time for English whisky. Of the country’s 70 distilleries, one-fifth have been established in the past six years, meaning we’re poised for a rush of debuts.
Among those whose spirits are soon to come of age is Witchmark Distillery in Wiltshire. It was co-founded in 2024 by its commercial director Jon Carson, Alistair Munro, who departed as managing director in early 2026, and Alasdair “Eddie” Large, who earned his drinks stripes at his own Stone Daisy brewery and now serves as operations director.
I was invited to a party at the distillery in September to celebrate its second anniversary. The guest list was diverse, encompassing benefactors, cask owners, club members, friends and family, and we were treated to a menu of “summer party experiences” including distillery tours, cask-top new make tastings, and cocktail masterclasses spotlighting its house-made white spirits.
Any good anniversary celebration needs speeches, and the calibre of the speakers here gives some indication of Witchmark’s weight. First up was Mark Riley, a long-serving Edrington exec who took over from co-founder Alistair Munro as managing director in early 2026. Then came James Espey, the drinks marketing shaman behind brands such as Malibu, Baileys and Chivas Regal who is on board as a consultant. Alan Rutherford, former chairman of The Lakes Distillery, and Colin Scott, counted among Scotland’s ‘celebrity’ master blenders, have also lent a professional hand. It takes a serious proposition to get talent like that out of bed.
The Witchmark way
The distillery is based on the 9,000-acre Fonthill estate, in the picture-postcard Wiltshire village of Fonthill Bishop. A mix of new buildings and retrofitted barns house the visitor centre, bar, mash house, whisky distillery and cask storage.
Fonthill Bishop sits on a giant chalk aquifer, from which all the distillery’s process water is sourced. Our tour guide, Joni, calls it “the taste of Wiltshire”. Its barley is estate grown, harvested from the surrounding fields and sent for malting at nearby Warminster (the only time a product used to make the whisky leaves the site).
Joni explains that Witchmark uses Laureate barley, a grade 9 variety, processing about 600 tons annually. I hadn’t heard a distillery mention this grading system before, so went digging. Grading measures the quality and consistency of grain size. Only the top three grades, 7–9, are permitted for whisky production in Scotland; although the English GI mandates the use of UK-grown barley, it doesn’t have an equivalent grading specification.
The stills were built by Italian company Frilli (Eddie approached Speyside staple Forsyths first, but it didn’t have capacity). Designing them wasn’t a straightforward job. The barn housing the washbacks and stills is Grade 2 listed, necessitating a minimal-impact conversion. To fit under the barn’s pitched roof, the copper pot stills are wide and short with very short lyne arms. But the team has taken a glass-half-full approach, turning an architectural frustration into a synchronised selling point. As Joni puts it: “The legacy of farming is affecting the taste of our whisky.”
As well as being a rural distillery, Witchmark is an environmentally conscious one. It’s a registered B Corp, one of 11 English distilleries to hold the status. It operates as a zero-waste facility and works to make its production processes as sustainable as possible. The site is peppered with heat-exchange systems. Fonthill estate cattle are fed on its draff. Biofuel is mentioned twice on our tour — as the power source for the distillery’s boiler, and what its pot ale is recycled into. Its heads are redistilled into Witchmark’s gin and vodka, making it one of only a dozen UK distilleries to produce its own neutral grain spirit. I’m of the belief that environmental sustainability should be normalised within the whisky industry, not framed as exceptional, but a B Corp score of 124 (second only to Nc’nean among UK distilleries) is genuinely something to shout about.
A taste of Witchmark
Having commenced production in late 2024, Witchmark is prepping for an inaugural single malt release in 2027. This is a spirit designed for younger release; Joni explains that a narrow spirit cut is taken (between 75%-65% ABV) “so that the wood does not have to work as hard.”
Ex-bourbon, new American oak and STR (shaved, toasted and recharred) red wine casks will be the cornerstones of Witchmark’s single malts; its first release will feature a combination of the three.
I tried samples from each cask type at the anniversary open day: the bourbon had lots of sweet vanilla notes with apple, honey, gentle spice and shredded wheat cereal; the new oak was packed with cherry, mint, ginger, milk chocolate and pears; and the STR was all fruit and spice with red berries and apples, sloes, cinnamon, clove and caramel. We also tried the new make, light and herbaceous with fresh apple and banana bread notes.
I attended a press tasting with Witchmark back in April, where we were treated to an array of single malt spirit samples. The level of maturity they’d achieved in under two years was staggering. Happily, it’s something I’m seeing more frequently across the industry, particularly but not exclusively in England.
A big factor in this is spirit design. Many new distillers are focused on honing what goes into the cask, rather than leaning on wood to clean things up. This level of analysis is not new, but as in environmental sustainability, the minimum expected level of effort has been raised. That is how you make a (Witch)mark.