Penderyn's new distillery in the Welsh city of Swansea is built from the ruins of an old copperworks powerhouse.
Scotland, Ireland, and Wales are the world's great Celtic nations, and the Celtic culture is most often credited with inventing whisky, or “uisge beatha,” the water of life. But while Scotland and Ireland remain among the modern world’s whisky stars, whisky making in Wales became a lost art, mainly due to temperance movements in the 19th century. That changed in 2000, when The Welsh Whisky Co. opened its doors in the southeast village of Penderyn and began making single malt. The venture has since garnered a reputation as a skilled whisky maker, earning a long list of 90+ ratings from Whisky Advocate’s tasting panel—quite a feat for such a relatively young distillery.
In 2021, the company, now widely known as Penderyn, opened a second distillery in the Welsh coastal resort town of Llandudno. And this week Penderyn is opening its third distillery, this one in the southern coastal city of Swansea. The unveiling is set for this Friday, July 14.
The new Swansea Copperworks Distillery is built from the ruins of an old 19th-century powerhouse that was part of a copper mill along River Tawe in the northern part of the city. The structure, which is punctuated by a tall stone clock tower, has been fully restored. It features a shop, guided tours that are available seven days a week, and a tasting bar offering a masterclass in Penderyn’s whiskies.
Like the distilleries in Penderyn and Llandudno, the Swansea facility uses Penderyn’s custom-made Faraday Stills, which have a high spirit draw that creates a lighter style whisky, allowing production in a single still as opposed to the two- or three-pot still system used in Scotland and Ireland. Water for the original distillery in Penderyn is sourced from nearby Brecon Beacons National Park, while Llandudno uses a well beneath the nearby Great Orme lighthouse and Swansea is supplied by the Dan-yr-Ogof caves. The annual production capacity at Swansea is 400,000 liters of pure alcohol (LPA), the same as the distillery in Penderyn. The Llandudno distillery, which also makes a peated expression, produces 100,000 LPA. The total annual capacity of all three sites is 900,000 LPA. A look at the full Penderyn single malt whisky range can be found here. The company also makes other spirits, including gin, vodka, rum, and a cream liqueur, but the primary focus is whisky.
Penderyn’s rise not only brought whisky making back to Wales, but has also helped touch off the launch of other Welsh whisky distilleries, including Aber Falls, Dha Mile, and Coles.
