The Spirits Business reported on Friday that England’s application for a whisky Geographical Indication (GI) is nearing the end of its review by the UK’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA). According to the European outlet, casks of English whisky are worth £1 billion ($1.33 billion U.S.) Even Hollywood has come a-calling, and in September, “Snatch” director Guy Ritchie invested in a distillery in the Cotswolds.
Spearheading the charge is the English Whisky Guild. The organization shared that production rose from 2.1 million to 5 million total liters. The Spirit Business reported that over 60 English distilleries are laying down whisky and 38 are already retailing English whisky.
The Guild initially proposed the draft in February 2025. It issued mandates that the distillate must be produced from UK grain and English water. The distillate must be made in England and clock in at an ABV of under 94.8%. It must spend a minimum of 3 years maturing in wooden casks with a capacity less than 700 liters. The liquid can be bottled at a minimum of 40% ABV.
As far as subcategories go, English whiskies can fall into the Malt English Whisky and Grain English Whisky categories. The legislation allows for prefixes “single” and “blended.”
If an English whisky achieves the designation of a “single malt,” only English distilleries can make it. An interesting caveat suggests that mashing and fermentation can occur elsewhere. It’s this particular stipulation that has England’s neighbor, Scotland, a bit worried.
A glass-half-empty situation for Scotland?
If there’s one whisky-producing country that is not happy about England’s use of the term “single malt,” it’s Scotland.
The BBC reported in February that the Scotch Whisky Association (SWA) claimed that English approval of the term “single malt,” for the burgeoning whisky region would “devalue” Scottish single malts.
“What Scotch whisky does is it takes the malted barley and it creates the mash, it ferments it and then distills it at one site,” SWA Director of Strategy and Communications Graham Littlejohn said, according to the BBC. “What the English proposal would do is strip away the first two of those three elements and really remove the fundamental connection to place that single malt Scotch whisky has.”
According to The BBC, Scotch Whisky is a major economic driver of the country. Such a classification might undermine the provenance of Scotch whisky.
Scotland’s Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs, Mairi Gougeon, shared with the news organization that should the alternative standards for English single malt go through, it could potentially “have devastating effects” on Scotland’s “iconic whisky industry and would be wholly unacceptable.”
No responses yet