UK: Adnams to sell out its entire production of whisky just days after the launch

Brewer Adnams is set to sell out of its entire production of whisky, just days after it launched the product, This Is Money reported on December 7.

The company, best known for ales such as Broadside and Ghost Ship, began producing spirits three years ago.

Initially just 5,000 bottles of Adnams No.1, a single malt matured in French oak barrels, and Adnams No.2, made from East Anglian barley, wheat and oats matured in American oak, were made. A fifth of that was snapped up within 24 hours of going on sale.

‘We’re all thrilled,’ said chairman Jonathan Adnams. ‘With the benefit of hindsight, we should have perhaps made five times as much, but three years ago it felt like a huge gamble to be going into making spirits at all.’

Adnams, which has been brewing since 1872 and is still owned by families in and around Southwold, Suffolk, invested £650,000 in its Copper House distillery in 2010. It now produces honey vodka, sloe gin, limoncello and absinthe, and its Copper House gin has won a top award.

Next year the firm is to launch a triple sec – an orange-flavour liqueur – and is using local grapes to try to make brandy.

11 December, 2013