Somerset's first whisky

Using local ingredients, a small distillery near Mells is making spirit so good it's "bonkers"

Retribution’s founder and distiller Richard Lock in his natural habitat

On the 19th of August 2021, at Retribution distillery just outside the village of Mells, Richard Lock filled six ex-bourbon casks with a white, malt-based spirit. Since, as of last week, this spirit’s now spent more than three years in a cask, it can legally be called a whisky – making it the first whisky ever to be made in the county of Somerset.

Richard’s pipping of anyone else to the task would be a fairly empty and inconsequential gesture if he was bashing it all out of a hangar-size factory with no relation to what’s around it. But that is far from the case – his malts are from the legendary Warminster Maltings 20 minutes down the road; he’s fermenting wort with brewers’ yeast (virtually unheard of in distilling these days); and his distillery is the first to use peat from the Somerset Levels (an ecologically contentious practice that we'll get to) to add smoked notes to his whisky. All this from the backdrop of a probably once productive farm, where visitors are greeted by two accusatory terriers, and the barrel ‘warehouse’ is an old pony shed.

But maybe all that’s irrelevant. Though whisky’s existed in the UK since the 15th century, there’s a long-standing debate within the industry as to whether ‘terroir’ – referring to how the flavour of something is derived from the soil and climate in which it’s produced – can exist in whisky. The leading thought being that any distinct flavours generated in the spirit are lost once it’s spent the usual 10 or so years in a cask. 

“In the late ‘30s into the ‘40s,” Richard tells the WFJ, “you went from everything being regional, where distilleries in Scotland would get grain from their local farmer. Then big alcohol turned up, and it became about profit and yield. And they all had one yeast, and one grain. If you all use the same yeast, and the same grain, guess what... it's kind of all going to taste the same.”

The challenge Richard’s given himself, then, includes such things as incorporating brewers’ yeasts into his recipes – which hasn’t been widely done since the ‘70s. “I'm doing a lot of trials to find out what's interesting,” he says. “Fingers crossed I might hit a magic combination. Although I kind of have an idea of what that combination is already – it's regenerative landrace grain with a local brewing yeast.”

Retribution’s new make spirit, i.e. a spirit set aside instead of going into a cask (which is where it would get its colour). People with more informed palates than me (e.g. Master of Malt) have said it’s “bonkers” how good it is already

If you’re starting to think whisky sounds a lot like beer in how it’s made, that’s because – as a simple combination of malted barley, water, and yeast – whisky is essentially beer in distilled form (minus the hops). Richard’s fully leaning into this, come what may – from a commercial angle, one might call him slightly barmy for using traditional and regenerative malted barleys (Maris Otter and Plumage Archer respectively) coveted by craft beer brewers, as they are far less productive than mainstream distilling grains like Laureate. From a flavour perspective however, they’re chalk from cheese.

“At whisky shows, I'll take six or seven new make spirits,” he says, referring to spirit that’s yet to go into a cask. “One will be 100% Maris Otter, with our standard blend of distilling yeast and English ale yeast. And I'll take along 100% Plumage Archer. You can really taste the difference.”

Another USP is currently sitting in a small trailer out in the courtyard. It’s spongy, brittle, dark brown stuff, punctuated with the odd bit of millenia-old tree. This is peat – since the 1800s, Scottish distillers and maltsters have used it (moors and bogs being particularly abundant up that way) to add a smoked character to their whiskies. Only this time, and for the first time, a Somerset distillery is doing so too, with its own local peat from the Somerset Levels.

“In Scotland on the islands up there, nothing grows above your knee – it's all grass,” says Richard. “Whereas the Somerset Levels are reed beds. I don't want to say all Scottish peat is this way, but it can be quite aggressive. This,” he says, pointing to a bucket of dry, almost-black matter, “gives a much smoother, mellower flavour and aroma in my opinion.”

A trailer of peat. Richard orders roughly one of these a year. What’s also quite unique is that it’s kilned (smoked under malt in order to flavour it) in a little shed on site

As this newsletter has touched on before, peat on the Somerset Levels acts as one of the county’s most important carbon sinks – far more so than any woodland. Extraction and drainage occuring on the Levels affects the peat’s ability to retain carbon, a fact not lost on Richard, who previously worked in the energy industry. 

“I don't think I'll ever get a pitch [selling this whisky] at Glastonbury,” he says. “But this is all done legally, and is going to be offset. I’m speaking to an advisor about getting the business to net zero, and it's not going to be offset by a few blokes planting trees in the Philippines – it's going to be done locally.”

‘Locally’ being an important word here – the dangers of damaging peatland, ergo releasing more carbon on a warming planet, is well-documented. Less so is the argument that a permissible but heavily-regulated approach to peat extraction can support small independent businesses, therefore some of the local economy, and the production of good quality, culturally-rich food and drink that in some way bridges the gap between local people and local produce. 

That said, a fair bit of what Richard sources isn’t massively local. Usually, that’s because of availability – Fir Farm in the Cotswolds, for example, is currently his most reliable source of Plumage Archer grain, while casks are often from American distilleries mostly because, due to US regulations, the global whisky industry has a steady supply of ex-bourbon casks.

Once malted grain is added to warm water to create a ‘mash’, then fermented, and then distilled, the resulting spirit is aged in these barrels of varying provenance

“Anything of good quality I can get, we fill,” says Richard, who has amassed a collection of currently 62 casks of various sizes housing or set to house Retribution whisky over the next decade or so. There are ex-bourbon casks, ex-sherry casks, ex-sherry and ex-whisky hybrid casks, ex-red wine casks, ex-tawny port casks, ex-ruby port casks, casks which previously matured other fortified wines, and, curious to discover what they might “bring to the party”, a few virgin chestnut casks. 

Seeing as anything between 40%-80% of the character of a whisky comes from its time in the cask, that means quite a lot of variation in flavour. After tasting a few, one maturing in a Pedro Ximenez sherry cask particularly stood out. Though a peated whisky currently ticking away in an ex-port cask really took the biscuit: a stunning almost rosé wine pink colour, with flavours of berry and smoke – if you barbequed a bunch of blackberries, maybe you’d get something close.

A lot of this experimentation, as you’d normally guess, is because Richard has to plan for what might appeal to drinkers ten or twelve years in advance. The good news is that actually, those keen to try the finished product will probably not have to wait another seven or so years. “You can make a really good spirit that doesn't need to be in cask for 18 years,” he says. “Probably five to eight years could well be the absolute sweet spot. I believe that's where it'll be, given we're making really good spirit at three years.”

This may well be a case of leaving the best till last: Those already familiar with Retribution will know something about its gin, or vodka, or rum, but “The end goal was always the whisky,” Richard says. “With gin, and a relatively small investment, you can have a product in five weeks. This was always intended to be a whisky and rum distillery, but with a startup like this, you have to build up to it.”

It can cost millions to establish a shiny new whisky distillery with its own shop, visitor centre, and tasting rooms – not to mention space for the mash tuns, stills, fermenters, and other kit. Retribution was set up on a budget of £10,000, but since releasing its first gin in 2019, has evidently grown fast. Now, it needs a somewhere bigger – somewhere it might fit, say, a visitor centre, brewery, and an option for tours. Nothing short of that would be appropriate, given the whisky Richard’s producing already, and the attention it’s got – and will inevitably get – in return.

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