The Edinburgh distillery best known for Pickering’s Gin is expanding its range of spirits with the launch of a new blended scotch whisky; The Broody Hen.
Summerhall Distillery has combined casks of whisky from Highland distilleries to create the new bottling, with the resulting liquid offering a sweet and smooth flavour profile with a palate of vanilla, caramel and manuka honey.
The whisky is blended and bottled on site at the distillery, with casks selected by co-founders Matt Gammell and Marcus Pickering, who have a combined 18 years experience in the spirits industry.
The launch marks the start of a period of growth for Summerhall Distillery, with plans to release a range of liquids under The Broody Hen label, including a 10-year-old single malt at the end of 2022.
Bottling capacity is expected to double by early 2023 as the firm moves the majority of whisky operations to a bigger warehouse facility, creating up to three new jobs in its already 14-strong team.
Pickering explained: “The Broody Hen is a culmination of almost five years of careful development by myself, Matt and our distillery team and marks the start of our proposed expansion into scotch whisky.
“Our motto is: if you can’t find what you want, make it yourself - from engineering our own bain-marie heating system for our copper stills, to inventing a custom bottle labeller designed specifically for our bottles, everything we do has innovation at its heart and The Broody Hen is no exception.
“This first foray into whisky has been something we’ve wanted to do since we first started out, but it's taken eight years of building up the right contacts and careful planning to get to where we are now.”
With pre-orders already received across six international markets, including The Bahamas, South Korea, North America, Japan, Singapore and Europe, The Broody Hen is already seeing similar success in export markets - hoping to expand to 12 markets in the coming 12 months.
The Edinburgh based distillery occupies the site of the small animal hospital of The Old Royal Dick Vet School. The 1,000 sq ft space was developed by the co-founders in 2013, after they spotted it while working on the nearby renovation of Summerhall.
Since then, the business has expanded to produce vodka, gin, rum, as now whiskies.
Summerhall Distillery is best known for Pickering’s Gin, which is based on an original Bombay recipe dating from 1947.
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