Newport Distillery Tour
A tour of the Spirit of Wales Distillery in Newport in South Wales, and enjoying tastings of spiced rum, vodka and other tasty Welsh-made spirits.
We lucked out when we toured the Spirits of Wales Distillery in Newport in South Wales. I’d booked it as a surprise birthday treat for a friend of ours, after we’d rented a place together for a week’s holiday near Monmouth. When we got to Newport we found that (a) the four of us were the only people booked on that particular tour, and (b) it was being conducted by the distillery’s founder, Daniel Dyer, as two of his staff were away that day at the Bath Gin Festival.
Surprise Newport Distillery Tour
The Newport distillery tour was definitely a surprise. To explain the background, my wife has a birthday four days away from one of our best friends. Each year the husbands try to come up with a surprise, so that instead of a birthday we can enjoy more of a birthweek of enjoying ourselves.
As part of the week I’d arranged a tour of Spirit of Wales, and the birthday wives clearly had no idea what was happening as we drove into a Newport industrial estate. It was raining, but we’d just had a terrific takeaway ‘lunch’ from Holy Cheesus – very highly recommended if you’re in Newport and like cheese. I can personally recommend their Chilli Con Carnage.
Newport Distillery Location
If you’ve never visited a craft distillery before – and sometimes even the big distilleries – they are not always in picturesque locations. Many are in industrial estates, as that’s where you can find the space you need at an affordable price. But it doesn’t matter, as once you’re through the door you enter another world.
Touring the Spirit of Wales
We were welcomed at the door by someone who I assumed was a tour guide but turned out to be Daniel Dyer, who founded the distillery. Just inside the door is a cosy little bar, and Daniel did the essential thing – offered us a complimentary cocktail first.
We were spoiled for choice as Spirit of Wales makes a wide range of spirits including rum, spiced rum, gin, flavoured gins, vodka, flavoured vodkas… and much more in development, along with small batch stuff that you only get to sample on a distillery tour.
Fever Tree
Whichever spirit you wanted for a cocktail, it was paired with a Fever Tree mixer. Was there a reason for the choice?
‘Yes,’ Daniel explained. ‘There are lots of fine mixers out there, including a Welsh tonic company, Fentimans, and several others, but because we’re creating a lot of different flavours we needed a wide variety of mixers. Fever Tree was the only one I found that offered both quality and sufficient variety.
‘For instance, we’ve done a raspberry rum, so if you imagine a rum with mango and all those other Caribbean flavours, so when you put English raspberry with it, it changes the flavour combination, and if you try to put it with a tonic water, or even a cola, it gets in the way. But if you put it with a cream soda it allows the flavours to come out. So you get the raspberry, banana and other Caribbean fruit notes as well.
‘We’re using low calorie, too. It’s less than 50 calories in a full bottle. And our spirits, because we’re not adding sugars, are less than 50 calories for a measure. 100 calories for a double shot drink is pretty good. It’s hard to tell the difference between the regular and the low-calorie versions with Fever Tree. They still use fruit sugars, they just use less of it. They don’t use any artificial sugars or flavours like aspartame or anything like that.’
Love Story
Daniel tells us that he’s not from Newport but was born in Cornwall, just outside Newquay. However, his family roots are here.
‘My grandfather lived in South Wales and worked in the coal mines. During the late ‘40s, early ‘50s, you could pay a couple of pennies and take the paddle steamer down to Cornwall with the coal on it, so he would go down there for a weekend, where he met my grandmother, who was working in one of the harbours. And that was that. He moved to Cornwall and they got married’
Company History
Daniel’s own background is that he worked in Eastern Europe for a time, and enjoyed visiting distilleries there. Then he was based in Orlando for five years, and continued his distillery visits.
‘I’d visit mostly moonshine and bourbon distilleries at weekends,’ Daniel says. ‘In Orlando there was a distillery just down the road from me, which had started making their own bourbon from their beers, using their beers as a base. I went down and helped out on Sundays and basically learn how they were running their process.
‘And then we had the pandemic last year. I had a business in the states and sold that business off so I could spend time with family here. And then I got a Rectifier Licence to do some recipes at home and started putting together some different gin recipes from home.
‘And then last October [2020], I met my colleague James [Gibbons, a chemical engineer]. He had been working for a distillery in Mallorca, the Mallorca Distillery, and they made a product called Palma Gin.’
The two men decided to go for it and establish their own distillery. They were due to open in March 2021 but the continuing pandemic and building delays due to lack of materials meant they only launched their first spirits at the end of July.
Spirit of Wales Range
The distillery certainly hit the ground running, though, launching several different spirits, with many more in the pipeline, including what will be the first-ever Welsh absinthe. Taking our very tasty cocktails with us, we followed Daniel on a tour around the small distillery.
Make Your Own Gin and Rum
In the bar area, several miniature stills show that they hold classes teaching people how to make their own gin and rum.
Welsh Rum
‘Going forward,’ Daniel says, ‘we’ll be more of a rum-forward distillery than gin. We’ve got a really good smoked rum. We’re using Lapsang tea, and it gives it a kind of campfire sort-of finish. And we’ve also tried that with vodka as well. It’s really surprising how it’s changed the vodka too.
‘And then the other rum we’ve done is with coffee beans. There are only two places in Wales who actually grow their own coffee from scratch. There’s one place in Merthyr Tydfil and we’ve worked with them to get their coffee beans.’
Daniel shares some of his rums and other spirits with us, and our friends are so impressed with the smoked rum they immediately order a bottle.
Newport Distillery Tour
The great thing about a distillery tour like this, with a spirits enthusiast such as Daniel showing round a bunch of people who share his enthusiasm, is that he’s keen for you to taste some of the things he’s working on. This includes his absinthe, which is amazingly good. I’ll certainly be after a bottle of that when it becomes available.
We try a Wild Blueberry Gin, which also has heather tips in it to add to its sweetness, and then Daniel’s White Welsh Rum, another winner with everyone in the group. I’ve already tasted and reviewed their Steeltown Welsh Vodka, so knew how good that was and was the reason I wanted to visit this innovative distillery when I was nearby. And the visit confirmed that the Spirit of Wales is definitely going places.
Spirit of Wales
To book a tour, arrange a gin or rum class, get cocktail recipes, learn more about the distillery, book an online tasting, or order any of their exciting spirits, visit the Spirit of Wales website. And by the way, they have a great line in chocolate, too! I know because we bought some as we left.
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