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England’s largest whisky distillery seeks £5m
Princetown Distillers, England’s largest whisky distillery, is aiming to raise up to £5 million (US$6.5m) to start production.
Plans to build Princetown Distillers in Devon were submitted to Dartmoor National Park in January 2017 and granted a year later.
The project, which is the brainchild of engineer Rowan Maule, is located within the Dartmoor National Park on the Duchy of Cornwall estate (owned by Prince William).
It is described as the largest whisky distillery in England with an annual production capacity of 1.5 million litres of pure alcohol and room to scale up.
Princetown is also the highest distillery in the UK at 440 metres, according to Maule, with the next highest distillery being Dalwhinnie in Scotland.
Princetown’s distillery has been built with its equipment in place, and a temporary visitor centre has been created while a permanent one is currently in construction. Plumbing and wiring implementation are among the final steps to completing the site.
The facility will also house a whisky shop, café and a barrel warehouse with space for 1,300 casks. Princetown would predominantly use ex-Bourbon first-fill casks for production.
Christopher Rourke, director of Princetown Distillers, says the funds would be used to finalise construction and start whisky production. It would also provide working capital for the distillery for the first few years.
“We would be very comfortable at this stage to bring in a strategic partner, such as a drinks group,” Rourke explains.
The aim is to develop Princetown as a flagship English whisky producer as the category starts to grow in popularity.
The company is planning to produce third-party brands, as well as its own flagship whisky brand in the future.
According to the English Whisky Guild, the volume of spirit produced by the country’s distilleries is predicted to soar by 189% from 2019 to 2023, and the number of bottles sold is expected to rise by 418% over the same period.
Rourke cited the US as an important market for export, alongside India and China.
Rourke also highlighted the high levels of tourism that the distillery’s location attracts, with the southwest of England being the most visited region in the UK. “It already gets substantial footfall to begin with and Dartmoor is one of the most popular places to visit within the southwest,” he says. “We’re also next to two major cities, Plymouth and Exeter, and Bristol is not too far away.”
The company is planning to soon begin selling a co-pack of whisky produced by a third party and blended with local water. It is hoped that tours at the site will start next year.
The project is estimated to be completed in mid-2025 and would create around 22 full-time jobs.
Princetown previously launched a cask sale scheme in 2019 to secure funding.
Earlier this year, Nyetimber completed its acquisition of The Lakes Distillery in a deal that values the English whisky maker at £71m (US$89m).
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