Ad Gefrin Distillery

Welcome to Whiskey Lore's Whiskey Flights, your weekly home for discovering great craft distillery experiences around the globe. I’m Drew Hannush, best selling author of Experiencing Irish Whiskey and Experiencing Kentucky Bourbon and today, we’re heading for the borderland region of Scotland and England - a place rich with history - but one that has been ignored for centuries as a place of distilling - which seems odd considering it is one of the best areas in either country for growing barley. 

Our first distillery destination is the Ad Gefrin Distillery and Museum in England, so you might think I’d fly into the northern English city of York, but the distillery we are about to visit is actually closer to Edinburgh, Scotland than it is any major airport in England. In fact, the distillery, known as Ad Gefrin, is far enough north, that it is actually north of several Scottish distilleries, including the nearby Borders Distillery, which we’ll visit a week from now. 

Now for those that are nervous about learning how to drive on the left side of the road, our distillery visit could be made via a combination of train and bus, but since we have three distilleries to visit and they are somewhat spread out, I’ve decided it’s best to rent a car (or get a car hire as they say here in the UK) and make the drive in an hour and a half, rather than the 2.5 to 3 hour train and bus ride.

And, as I wait for my agent to secure my car, let’s take a moment to learn a little bit about the Borderlands and what we can expect to find over the next 10 days.

The Borderlands

The Borderlands region, straddling northern England and southern Scotland, is a treasure trove of history, rugged landscapes, and cultural charm. This area is famed for its rolling hills, sweeping valleys, and ancient ruins, offering a picturesque backdrop for any traveler. The dramatic scenery is perfect for outdoor enthusiasts, with opportunities for hiking along Hadrian's Wall, exploring the Cheviot Hills, or taking scenic drives through the Northumberland National Park.

The region's history is deeply intertwined with tales of border conflicts and reivers (REE-vers)—legendary raiders who once roamed these lands. Visitors can immerse themselves in this rich past by visiting iconic castles like Alnwick (ANN-ick) and Bamburgh, or exploring the atmospheric abbeys of Melrose and Jedburgh.

Cultural experiences abound, from traditional Scottish music and dance at local festivals to sampling regional delicacies like haggis and stottie cakes. Whisky lovers can indulge in the local distilleries, such as the Borders Distillery in Hawick (HOY-K), where they can learn about the unique distilling traditions of the area.

In addition to its historical and cultural allure, the Borderlands offer charming villages like Kelso and Berwick-upon-Tweed, where cobbled streets and quaint shops invite leisurely exploration. Whether you're tracing the steps of ancient warriors, savoring local flavors, or simply soaking in the serene beauty, the Borderlands region promises a captivating and memorable journey.

So, for the whisky traveler, there might be good reason to stay in Edinburgh for a day or so, to catch some of the new distilleries in the area - Holyrood or Port of Leith. Or, since we’re in a car, driving down A697, there is always Diageo’s Glenkinchie Distillery, along the way. And usually these corporate run distilleries in Scotland go 7 days a week, so that can make them easy to plan around. 

But I’m a man on a craft distillery mission - and to be honest, after hearing about the unique nature of the Ad Gefrin Distillery, I knew this would need to be the first and most important distillery visit of the day. Why? Because this isn’t just a distillery, it is a historical museum that tells the story of the Golden Age of Northumbria - a name fans of the shows The Vikings and The Last Kingdom are well acquainted with. The distillery itself is located on the site of an archeological dig, where the remnants of a royal Northumbrian palace was discovered in the middle of the last century. But this isn’t a museum that repeats the stories you’ve heard on those two historically based shows, instead, it goes back a couple of centuries before that, to the time of the Anglo-Saxons.

And our host today is part of the family of founders and the Director for the Visitor’s Experience Dr. Chris Ferguson. This is such a unique idea, building a distillery into a museum. So as Chris and I start our chat, I was curious as to the origins of this idea.

The Interview

Chris (01:02.464)
it's twofold. So I mean I am passionately interested in Anglo -Saxon archaeology. I mean so as a young kid, right nearby here there's the site of Yevring, my girlfriend, and my grandma and grandad and I would go walking on that site, particularly over the years ago with my grandma. And I always wanted to know more about it. And so I really got interested in Anglo -Saxon archaeology, came across the site again doing a degree in it. Not something, it's not a site that's widely known about or wasn't.

it's time even though it should have been. And then as a family we're a family business so as a family we were we were sat around a dinner table me my dad my step -mom and my sisters and talking about this site we've had a long family business here where we built the museum and the distillery as a haulage company transport company doing logistics warehousing and hadn't used this site and

had wanted to come up with something that helped the area again. Something that employed people, something that created jobs, something that celebrated what the best in Northumberland is. And combining the cultural story, the history of the area with the whisky and telling that story in the whisky product as we're selling it, kind of just felt like the right thing to do. It just felt really exciting. It was how we went from there.

Drew Hannush (02:24.114)
Very nice. So when we're talking about the Anglo -Saxons, I think a lot of people get their history probably too much from television and different, you know, movies that have been around. And of course they always Hollywoodize those as much as possible. People have probably seen the Vikings, the last kingdom, those kinds of shows. But what you're talking about is a time period that's actually before that.

Chris (02:49.76)
Yeah, I mean this is it. This is the thing. So we are, you are walking through the footsteps of this kingdom and the foundations of the kingdom of Northumbria. So the Anglo -Saxon period that we're talking about is 200 and so years before the last kingdom. It's right about there where we're about, we tell the story from about 575 AD to about 675. That's the time period we're in.

it's 1400 years ago, it's a long time ago but you walk on those bits of land where people from that kingdom were and and you can connect to it in a way that that is really interesting that it feels real it's tangible it's nearby and you can walk from Adgephrine from the archaeological palace at Yevering.

the other palace at Bambur on the coast which people may know if they've seen the last kingdom and they can experience all of that and they can they can connect all of that together and that just feel there's something really special in the landscape that's here and so to make it an Anglo -Saxon thing, sorry the phone's ringing and I'm trying to stop it ringing and I can't stop it from here.

Drew Hannush (04:12.242)
That's all right.

Chris (04:13.248)
There should be a mute button that's on this and I can't find it.

Chris (04:20.96)
Sorry, done that.

Drew Hannush (04:21.874)
That's all you get.

Chris (04:24.512)
Beth, apologies.

Drew Hannush (04:25.586)
Very good. no problem at all. Easy edit.

Chris (04:29.44)
Yeah, that's right. So yes, so that Anglo -Saxon story is the bit that's really, really central to who we are and trying to understand what this kingdom was that in that period in those hundred years from 575 to 675 is the Golden Age of Northumbria. It's right at the point that this kingdom in the northeast of England, the southeast of Scotland is at the center of not only the British Isles, but Western Europe. And the cultural reach here is enormous.

Drew Hannush (04:56.274)
So how do you go about painting a picture of what that society was like, what the palace was like? How do you figure all of that out?

Chris (05:06.08)
So it's a, so Ad Geffrin itself, and it's well worth visiting the archaeological site as well as a museum here. It's unique in some ways. So these Anglo -Saxon early medieval palace sites, it was the first one to be archaeologically discovered. There's been a couple since then of these palaces, but it's still pretty much the only one that we also have a bit of written history. So this is right at the period between oral tradition and written history. So the Venerable Bede, the great scholar of

English history wrote about the people who were there. So when the site was rediscovered in the 1950s by Brian Huck Taylor, who was the archaeologist who identified it, he spent 10 years excavating and wove the story together with the history. So when we've then created the museum to show both some of the material that Brian Huck Taylor found and why they're contextual material, we can reconstruct what the interior of the Great Hall might have been like.

Drew Hannush (05:38.45)
Mmm.

Chris (06:02.784)
and introduce some of the characters that may have been there. So we can talk about King Edwin, Queen Ethelbur, Paulinus, King Oswald. These are all great characters from Northumbrian history. We have story from Bede about them and about this being the site of the first conversions to Christianity for the kingdom and back and forth and this sort of Game of Thrones -esque kind of vibe going on. But we can also put all those people in the space. So you come into the Great Hall and you meet those people and you meet everybody from

Drew Hannush (06:25.106)
Mm -hmm.

Chris (06:31.936)
From the King and the Queen down to the sort of the Thane, the Warrior, the Weaver, the Bard, the slave that was there and that sort of all of the different levels of society so you can get a feeling for the type of society that it was.

Drew Hannush (06:47.698)
So the Anglo -Saxons, I'm sure a lot of people probably have heard that all their lives, but they're kind of maybe lost as to who they were and also why did they settle in that particular area?

Chris (07:03.2)
this is one of the things so the the it's taking a step back in your history so you go you go back to the end of the Roman Empire so you're sort of the early four four hundred collapse of Roman Britain and there's there's a whole load of things that are happening economic collapse climate collapse all sorts of things happen so there's mass migration happening right away from the Eurasian steppe and it's sort of this is where the Huns everybody's moving around in Europe and so the Angles the Saxons

the Jutes, the Frisians, all these groups who are on what is now the coasts of northwestern Europe, so the Netherlands, modern Germany, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, are getting their boats basically and come across the waters. And you get the creations of kingdoms which then become the seven kingdoms of Anglo -Saxon England, of which Northumbria is one, right across what is modern England and southern Scotland. And so

The north end, Northumbria, was made up of two kingdoms, Banishia and Deira, which are complicated words but basically it's Northumbria, so the area from the river Humbi, north of the Humbi, all the way up to north of the Firth of Forth and stretches coast to coast at the end, focused on Bamber and Lindisfarne. Bamber and Argephrine and York and Catterick is the royal palaces. But their Angles and Saxons are the people that make it up along with surviving

British Celtic communities and other peoples as well. And there's a whole thing where people become Anglo -Saxon because it's the way to get ahead in society. So they'll dress like an Anglo -Saxon and they'll speak in Old English because that's where the power is. And so it's easier to just become that. So you've got this mix of moving peoples and people who start identifying as an Anglo -Saxon at the same time.

Drew Hannush (08:38.642)
Mm.

Drew Hannush (08:53.97)
What I find interesting is during that time period, it seemed like the kings and queens had to move around. That it wasn't necessarily that this royal palace is built and this is just where they stick their claim to their empire.

Chris (09:08.736)
It's a north kingship queenship in that period is a different concept to what we think of. So the important thing is these people even describe themselves as the kings and the queens of the Northumbrians as a people rather than as Northumbria as a geographic unit. So it's really important to be seen and to to meet the peoples who you are their leaders of and to settle disputes.

Drew Hannush (09:20.69)
Mm -hmm.

Chris (09:37.344)
bring justice, bring law, hospitality, giving, all of that. So places like Adgephrine, it's their Royal Summer Palace. They're there for three months. They then moved to Bamber, they moved to York, they moved to Catrack, they moved to Leeds. And then they have two to three months at a time. And it's all about that bringing people together, the hospitality in the spaces, the celebrating, the togetherness, the settling dispute. And the important thing, what we say about Adgephrine is very key thing that comes out of

and Beowulf which is also set in these sorts of halls is you leave your weapon at the door so you don't go in armed and that's part of that being in the hall and being hosted and so this is where the King and the Queen and the court are seen and are engaged and you're not it's not a place of battle it's a it's a place of hospitality and war.

Drew Hannush (10:11.73)
Mm.

Drew Hannush (10:29.01)
And then when we talk about the agricultural draw, I mean, what would be the thing that would draw people to that area? What was being grown there? Was it a livestock area? What was the countryside like at that time, if you looked back?

Chris (10:49.568)
So I think for people who might have a sense of the geography of the British Isles, you know, we are we are just by the banks of the River Tweed, not far from the River Tweed. So it's it's the modern borders of England and Scotland. And those borders come into existence in the Middle Ages. Cast your mind back beyond that 1400 years ago, this is the heart of a kingdom because it's agriculturally rich. So it's a it's the whole Tweed Basin up the till Glendale. All of this area is

an ancient lake bed, an ancient glacial river system. So it's all sands and gravels. It's massively nutrient rich. And you have the uplands as well. So you have a really mixed and wealthy agricultural economy that can grow in the Anglo -Saxon period. So their staple crops are barley and rye. They're also growing some oats and some wheat, but it's really barley and rye is what this and still is today.

very good barley growing territory. There's wild goats up in the hills and they do a lot of transhumance of cattle. So your main wealth in this period is from how many cattle head you have and that they you would bring them to court you'd bring them to tax when the king and queen were in town. So imagine a world that is a timber world full of dispersed farming communities massively more populated than when you come and visit today.

with an awful lot of wealth from your agricultural crops and that's what allows them to spend the money founding monasteries because they've got so much cattle head they can convert that into a taxation that they can then fund the monasteries with and then dow the monasteries.

Drew Hannush (12:35.538)
When you have such a rich area of agriculture and you have now infused in this idea that there was travel going on on the water, what were their trade routes at that time period? Would that have been one of the main outlets of their wealth?

Chris (12:52.288)
Yeah so these are these are massively maritime communities as well. I mean we are and I think this is sometimes it's particularly for British people in the British Isles because we live in a modern world. You still don't think of ourselves as a maritime nation now even though we were 1400 years ago. It's massively maritime. All of these sites are connected by rivers and sea and so the east coast is very much looking to western Europe to Germany to the Rhineland

Scandinavia, the west coast connecting the west coast of Britain with Ireland and then down the west coast of France. And those trade routes you can see goods moving backwards and forwards up and down. So once they found the monasteries they're exporting things down and that's why you find the Lindisfrond Gospels were a product of one of those monasteries. The Codex Amitina things which are made in these Northumbrian monasteries are right across Western Europe and because they are massively massively integrated into that economy.

Drew Hannush (13:50.738)
So we get to a point where we talked a little bit offline about this, the idea of when stills could have made it to the area. It's really interesting to note that you have combined a museum with a whiskey distillery. And of course we've had a drew on from Lindor's Abbey and that infusing of history with the whiskey.

really opens up an opportunity for you to tell stories. Is that really, is that kind of what the idea of bringing a whiskey distillery into a museum was all about?

Chris (14:25.504)
We think of ourselves as storytellers. That's what we do. All of us. And we create our whiskeys to share those stories, to be part of that story. So all of the inspiration into making our whisky is from what that Northumbrian -ness is. And that's what you're getting at the Royal Palace and what we show in the museum. So you kind of can't have our whisky without our story. So if you buy a bottle of our whisky and you're in the States, you should be getting a little bit of Northumbria with you on the bottle, in the bottle.

it's part of that and because those main crops then are the same as we'd use to make whiskey now, the water is the same. We pull our water from the Cheviot pour hole. It's massively connected with that. There is a deep history of illegal whiskey making in these there hills in the Cheviots as well. And there is that, obviously as you say, Lindor's has the first written record of whiskey making in Scotland.

But what we were chatting about is we don't know when that stretches back to. That's the first written record. But where does that go before that? For us and what we share with those guys is it's about the story. It's about the joy. It's about the curiosity. And it's about bringing that together into making a great whiskey.

Drew Hannush (15:40.85)
Yeah, absolutely. Well, and so what were people probably drinking back in the 500s, 600s in that area?

Chris (15:48.704)
We know that they are making alcohol, we've definitely got the evidence for making a lot of alcohol. There's a lot of beer, there's a lot of meat. We will be putting on display actually some Bronze Age, so going back even further, so you're back into the sort of 1000 BC. So on my pick is we've been given by local landowner, which were used for making beer.

Drew Hannush (15:53.682)
Yeah.

Chris (16:13.568)
And so we can show that this depth of alcohol making in this area from these same crops, from these same beers, from the same barlies and things going right back. And so it's that we know that in the Great Hall, when we were sort of 1400 years ago, they're having a great time. They're in there for feasts, they're in there for hospitality. They're passing around the claw beaker, the drinking horn, full of beer, full of mead, full of something, you know, and it's that capturing that essence of what that is.

putting it into the products now.

Drew Hannush (16:45.01)
Yeah. How much of that culture survived? When did that culture sort of fade away? The, and the palace, when did the palace really kind of fall out of use?

Chris (16:55.52)
Well this is what makes the palace so interesting is we've got Bede's story. So Bede's writing in the late 600s. So he's looking back, so a lot of the stuff we know about from about 575 through to 650 is in the past tense for Bede. He's writing it looking back as a history. He tells us in the ecclesiastical history that the palace at Adgephrine is no longer in use it has moved to Mailman which is Millfield which is only a mile and a half away.

Drew Hannush (17:23.698)
Mm -hmm.

Chris (17:23.712)
And there is aerial photographs of the palace there that's never been excavated that looks very similar. So we know by the late 600s the site at Argephron has fallen out of use and they've moved closer to the rivet, closer to somewhere that's actually a bit more accessible because there's a whole load of spiritual associations with the Evering. And that site was burned down four times. And I think by the time it had been burned down the fourth time, everybody got really fed up and they just built it somewhere else.

you know to try and just go well maybe it's got a bit bad luck about it. They had a lot of wars with inter wars with the Mercians with the Welsh and those kings from there came up slaughtered the king of Northumbria, burnt his palace to the ground and disappeared off again. And so that's sort of the end point of that. So by 700, the Everings moved out of use.

Drew Hannush (18:07.474)
Wow.

Chris (18:13.92)
The culture of the period as a whole, 793 is the start of the Viking age. That's when the first raids on Lindisfarne, which is again only 10 miles from what's happened. And from there you the the kingdom of Northumbria really disintegrates into a Viking kingdom around York and a rump Anglo -Saxon community around Bambra, which is what goes on to form the stories of Uhtred, son of Uhtred at Bebbenberg in the last kingdom.

Drew Hannush (18:38.322)
Yeah, this is what is great about having a museum and an archaeological site because I have a feeling if people went just to the archaeological site, it's a lot of imagination. It'd be really hard to tell that story.

Chris (18:53.12)
That's exactly what we wanted to create somewhere because this is a period that it's a lot of complicated names and people and it feels far away and it feels kind of romantic but at the same time what is it? We wanted to create a experience of the interior of the Great Hall and show some of the artifacts so you could come in and just get a real feel for what it may have been like to then go out to the archaeological sites or to go to the modern castle at Bambra which is very romantic but doesn't show that period armed with some sort of picture in your mind of

what it might have been like and who you might have met.

Drew Hannush (19:23.602)
Yeah. So that area, there was a lot of mixing of cultures and I found it very interesting that for your first whiskey release, you decided to do a blend, but you did a blend with Irish and Scottish whiskey. I mean, those two will argue with each other endlessly about the origins of whiskey. yet I have this feeling that the two kind of share that history in bringing it about.

And so what brought you to the idea of let's take some Irish whiskey and Scotch whiskey and make a blend out of it?

Chris (20:03.488)
So it's celebrating all of the people who came together. So it's this idea that the palace at Argephron was a great sort of cultural melting pot in a way. So you'll come today to Northumbria, to Wooler, to visit us, to go to the field. And it feels that this beautiful, idyllic bit of the Cheviots, and it's all very remote and it's all very lovely and removed.

1400 years ago, it's a central place. It's full of a dispute There's a whole lot of people living across this landscape and you go to the Royal Palace and there's a lot of people Coming from a long distance away. There's people from North Africa. There's people from Western Europe There's people from my own people in Scotland people from Scandinavia. So our first product We thought while we're doing blends where we're waiting for our single malt Bring those people together. So so the takin bore it and

is our Irish and Scottish blends. That's where those peoples connect. They would have come here from that side. And tachymbora means standard bearer in Old English. So it's a standard before in our whiskeys. It's the standard bearer for what's to come. But it's also we were told by Bede that the King Edwin, whose palace it was, was always preceded by his standard bearer. And then Hope Taylor, when he excavated the site, found the grave of a man

with a standard right in front of the Royal Palace. So it sort of connects it all together. And then we also have a Founders' Members group called our Choran Kinn. That's our chosen family in Old English and they have access to an exclusive blend for them that is Irish, Scottish, English and Scandinavian. So it's the four communities that come together to make up the community of our Geffrin and of Northumbria.

Drew Hannush (21:24.722)
Mm.

Drew Hannush (21:51.314)
Yeah. So you have a single malt that you're working on right now. How did you decide about, you know, where you were going to source grains from and, and what you're trying to, what story are you trying to tell with, with that whiskey?

Chris (22:07.009)
So the main thing for us is it's that connection back to the area that the king, the sort of the community of Aghaefon is from. So all of our barley is grown within a 40 mile radius of the distillery. And it goes to the modern maltings at Beric -on -Tweed, which is only 10 miles away and then comes back to us. So our carbon footprint is super small and super tight and all our barley sourced within the ancient kingdom of Northumbria, but really the core around what the palace was.

and we work with a community of farmers who are really bought, you know, are really sort of tied into our production so that we are getting not only the best out of the barley, but everybody's growing and producing something that connects that story. So it's on the fields where this Anglo -Saxon community would have trodden and we're using strains that give us the best produce we can get then from the single malt.

Drew Hannush (23:01.97)
So when somebody comes to visit and they're going to take the tour experience, how would you kind of pair that? Would you view the museum first and then walk through the distillery and what does the distillery tour entail?

Chris (23:17.184)
So you can't basically, you get the museum in your Distillery Tour ticket and you have to walk through the museum to go on the tour. So we take you on the Distillery Tour from the back of the museum. So you've met all these people and you've told them your story and then when one of our fabulous guides takes you on the tour through the Distillery, they'll connect that story through. And we designed our Distillery process in a wonderful new building. It's on the footprint of the old building that was here. Same floor space as the old palace was as well.

And it's a systemic logical flow of the process from input of mulch at the start into the grain hopper right the way through to filling the cask. So it's a, as a tour goes, we try and take you through the whole process in this wonderful space. And then we take you out to our cask store. There's a really exciting, different way of understanding the process there that the guy takes you through with a sort of interactive wall.

You get a very cool Indiana Jones -esque moment looking down the length of the warehouse, looking over all the casks. And then at the very end, our tasting room experience, we take you to half an hour with one of our alchemists who takes you to the tasting. And that's in a room with a backdrop of Northumbria and Northumbrian small pipes, which are a local folk instrument, giving you a...

giving the alchemist a background so you can sit and you can savor your glass of our whiskey just immersed in a bit of 21st century Northumbria as well.

Drew Hannush (24:52.914)
Awesome. So are you still doing digs on the site at all?

Chris (25:00.512)
Yeah, so we with the Geffen Trust who are charitable trust to safeguard the site and we have a deep partnership with and Durham University. We are part of a sort of campaign of excavations. They've taken a pause this year. They were doing two years. They did last year, the year before, and they've got three more years to go. They found some really exciting, cool things last September going back into some of Hope Taylor's excavations, which caused them to do some.

radio carbon dating, scientific stuff that wasn't able to him and gave him pause for thought to go with a really big planned thing for next year. So they were going to go this August but they're gonna go next Easter instead having considered exactly what they're gonna do. So plan your visit around Easter because then you can come and see the excavations as well.

Drew Hannush (25:48.082)
That's awesome. Yeah, it's great to know that the area is still being looked into. I'm sure there's so much more connecting of the dots, the more artifacts that you find. And I assume that you have artifacts probably there on site in the museum as well as your recreation.

Chris (26:06.176)
yeah, so we have a the whole museum and we have objects from the site from the excavations, Hope Taylor excavations, but we also have loans from the British Museum, from the Society of Antiquities of Newcastle, Duke of Northumberland, all the great landowners as well. So what you get is an insight into the golden age of Northumbria. So we've got objects from the breadth of it, so you get a real feeling of it. So those, there's a one of the.

star objects is the Castle Eden Claw Beaker. So Castle Eden is a place in County Durham which is about 40 miles 50 miles south of here. And it's a fully intact glass beaker with claws on the side. It's called a Claw Beaker because it has these sort of claws that go around the side of it. It was made in the Rhineland in the 400s into early 500s and exported here. And would have been used in the feasting hall.

So it would have been passed around in feasts, full of your beer or your mead or whatever alcohol you're drinking. And the thing's so precious, it's sort of, you know, it's that thing too, when you use it in those occasions, gives you the status. And then also don't get too drunk and don't drop it.

Drew Hannush (27:10.738)
Nice.

Chris (27:13.664)
So we have all sorts of drinking vessels gaming vessel things about it's a place of music a place of storytelling so we have one of the only Surviving examples of a liar which is a bit like an early guitar So sort of string instrument so we've got the bridge and the tuning pegs and things from a liar and then we have replicas that are used in the Great Hall so you can see the objects that would have been used in that celebration and hospitality and also Experience and hear them

Drew Hannush (27:40.242)
Yeah. So great what you're doing there. And it's, it's also wonderful to get people engaged with history in an unusual way. You take the whiskey fan and you give them something to really embrace in terms of a learning, learning along the way, understanding culture, how it's all developed over and getting a sip of whiskey at the same time.

Chris (28:05.728)
I think it's the thing about every, you know, every whiskey drinker enjoys sitting around with a glass of whiskey, sharing a story. So if we can do something that's just making it a really fun experience and a different experience to then go back and share that story with someone else, then that's a win. That's what it's all about.

Drew Hannush (28:22.994)
Fantastic. Well, Chris, thank you so much for what you're doing and good luck with everything. And I hope you find a whiskey vessel out there somewhere in the field so we can even add more to the whiskey story.

Chris (28:36.8)
fingers crossed. Thank you so much for having me on.

Drew Hannush (28:39.922)
Cheers.

Closing Details

I hope you enjoyed this virtual visit to the Ad Gefrin Distillery in the Borderlands. If I piqued your interest in experiencing the Ad Gefrin Museum and Distillery and all it has to offer,, make sure to head to whiskey-lore.com/england, visit the distillery page and click on the bookmark to add it to your wish list. And while you’re on the site, find maps, distillery profiles, and information about over 20 other English distilleries and over 75 Scottish whisky distilleries you might also consider visiting.  Get started at whiskey-lore.com/england

Now, stay tuned because, in just a moment I’ll have some closing travel tips if you plan on visiting Ad Gefrin Distillery, but first, it’s time for This Week in Whiskey Lore.

This Week in Whiskey Lore

This week in Whiskey Lore, we mark the 201st anniversary of a pivotal moment in whisky history—the passage of the British Excise Act of 1823 on July 18th. This landmark legislation fundamentally transformed the Scotch whisky industry and laid the groundwork for its future success.

The Excise Act of 1823 set forth a clear framework for distillers. It established a licensing fee of £10 for stills, standardized duty levels for distilled spirits, and permitted the warehousing of spirits before duty payments were due. These measures reduced tax evasion and fostered a fair competitive environment for distillers. By doing so, the Act aimed to provide a steady income for Scottish grain farmers and ensure a reliable supply of high-quality spirits for consumers.

But the Act’s impact wasn't confined to Scotland. Irish inventor Aeneas Coffey played a crucial role in the negotiations, and the changes in the law eventually helped the Irish whiskey industry soar to remarkable heights in the latter half of the 19th century. The legislation laid the foundation for a more regulated and prosperous whiskey trade across the British Isles.

Today, Scotch whisky is a cornerstone of the Scottish economy, directly employing over 11,000 people and the Irish whisky industry provides nearly 2,000 jobs and continues to grow as new Irish distilleries begin shipping their spirits around the globe. From production to finance, marketing to health and safety, the industry thrives, much of its success traceable to the reforms initiated 201 years ago.

So, as we raise a glass this week, let's toast to the foresight of those who crafted the Excise Act of 1823, a law that not only legitimized and revitalized Scotch whisky distillation but also helped shape the global whiskey landscape we enjoy today.

https://www.scotch-whisky.org.uk/discover/story-of-scotch/the-1823-excise-act/ July 18th

The Wrap Up

As we prepare to make our way south across the beautiful English countryside to our next destination, the Cooper King Distillery, just north of York, I wanted to first remind you of a couple of nearby stops you could add to your day. First, if castle hunting is your thing, consider driving about 30 minutes north east to the North Sea, where you’ll see the imposing castle Bamburgh. Or if you are a lover of nature, head west into Northumberland National Park, where you can indulge a need for a hike and to take in the beautiful countryside at a slower pace.

Closing and Three Things

As we close out our trip to Ad Gefrin, if you’re on the fence, let me give you my three reasons why you should have this distillery on you Whiskey Lore Wish List. 

• First and foremost is the history. What a great opportunity to see the story of a people and a time period rarely covered in our history books. The museum’s castle interior recreation is a great way to step back in time. 
• My second reason is the beautiful countryside near the scenic River Tweed. Not only can you enjoy the views before and after the distillery visit, after going through the process of making whisky and visiting the cask store, your tasting will include views of the beautiful landscapes surrounding the distillery.
• And third, two thumbs up for how Ad Gefrin’s blend is being used to demonstrate the unification of different cultures in historic Northumbria. The Scots and Irish take some fun pokes at each other over who is first in whisky - this blend of the two distilling center’s spirits may actually be closer to the truth of whiskies origin.

I hope you enjoyed today’s episode. It’s time to jump back in the rental and drive a couple hours south to a spot just north of York, to learn about an English Distillery inspired by a trip to the Australian island of Tasmania. Make sure to subscribe to the Whiskey Lore podcast, so don’t miss any of the great Whiskey Flights to come. Until we meet again, cheers and Slainte mhath. 

For transcripts and travel information including maps, distillery planning information and more, head to whiskey-lore.com/flights