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We sell gift vouchers - for more details call us on 0115 911 0555 or email us at eann@gauntleys.com
In 2007 Shane and Alison Parr established the Stonehouse Brewery in Oswestry, Shropshire. Over time the brewery has won numerous accolades for their beers and one imagine that things would have carried on as such, if not for the day that they decided to employ a former Telcoms and IT specialist called Chris Toller.
Chris had ‘retired’ in 2015 and jumped at the chance to work part-time at the brewery. As well as having a love of beer he also had a fascination with distilling and it didn’t take long for him to convince Shane and Alison that it might be an idea to consider diversifying into spirits production, after all it was a natural evolution of their business.
After a few years planning the venture, they received a grant from the Rural Development Programme for England and purchased a still manufactured by Kothe in Germany. This was installed on a mezzanine floor at the brewery, and they began by distilling a vodka and a gin. Since then, they have progressed into single malt whisky, corn whisky, rum and an apple brandy called Non Parel.
Since their first ex-Bourbon barrel release in 2021, they have gone on to release their spirit aged in ex-sherry casks (Oloroso and Pedro Ximinez) as well as spirit finished in small 125 ex-peated quarter casks. Each release is a small batch release, the details of which can be found on their website.
Their Old Dog Corn Liquor, which was launched in January 2020, outshines may equivalent products from across the pond in opinion. Their whisky has a lovely, natural barley’d character with relatively unobtrusive oak and the peated release shows just how much peat character can be extracted from those small casks in a relatively short period of time and is a fantastic dram.
By 2023 the distillery had pretty much outgrown its space and the owners’ thoughts turned to how nice it would be to have their own purpose built distillery as opposed to squatting in the brewery. By the middle of the year, they had got a new investor on board, that being entrepreneur and Chairman of the New Saints Football Club, Mike Harris. Mike also owns a 96 acre farm which straddles the English/ Welsh boarder at North Shropshire. Thus the team have built a temporary distillery on the farm, from shipping containers bolted together with the sides cut out to create the open space within, which has meant that they have tripled their distillery footprint. The plan is then to replace this temporary structure with something more permanent, which will house a larger still (either 5000L or 10,000L). Once that is built, they plan to move the temporary distillery to the other side of the border and start to produce Welsh Whisky! How cool is that? I have been told that whisky would be produced under a different name to avoid any confusion. Obviously, this may take a few more years to come to fruition, but I’m sure the alure of draughty shipping containers and chip board dividing walls will wear off pretty quick, so I wouldn’t have thought that it will be long before they are replaced by something more aesthetically pleasing.
Incidentally, the name Henstone originates from the family homes of the co-founders. Chris and Alexandra Toller live in an ex-public house called ‘The Hen and Chickens’, whilst Shane and Alison live in ‘Stone House’ – Simples!
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