First Peat Moonshine

Boasting a Polish pedigree (and an unfailingly Polish name), the London-based Bimber distillery has managed to establish itself firmly in the hearts of whisky lovers. Its successive editions are bought eagerly and highly appreciated both in the UK market and outside the UK. Unsurprisingly, its products receive a special place on the shoulders of Polish connoisseurs.

Based in West London, the distillery has just announced the debut of its first edition of whisky made with kilned malt and peat smoke.

Moonshine - The 1st Peated, as the new whisky is to be called, is a limited edition, a marriage of the contents of four American oak barrels in which the bourbon was previously aged. They were filled with a high peat distillate, which resulted in a whisky with a peatiness of 14.4 ppm. Unlike most distilleries citing phenol levels in barley malt, Moonshine reports the smoke value of the already finished liquor. The 14.4 ppm value mentioned is phenols in the bottle, after distillation and maturation.

The distillate was made from barley grown by Fordham & Allen in Basingstoke, where all the barley used for production at the Moonshine distillery comes from. It was produced from the distillation of one of the first batches of all-peat malt, which took place in May 2019. So we are dealing with whisky a little older than the legally required 3 years.

According to the producer, the new whisky is expected to offer accents of pineapple juice, apricot cake, creamy toffee, smoke, autumn leaves and a touch of saltiness. In the taste, we should find notes of campfire, autumn leaves, smoky fudge, fruit and oak-derived spices in it.

The edition is limited to 1140 bottles, which will be offered to visitors to the Bimber distillery's website through a random drawing. Applications will be accepted starting Monday, November 28. The price of a single bottle is £130.

As mentioned earlier, founded by our compatriot Dariusz Plazewski, the Bimber distillery is located in London. Thus, for obvious reasons, the whisky produced there cannot bear the name of Scotch. However, it is a matter of time when a second distillery, run by our compatriots, will be launched, this time in Scotland. In the Speyside region, near Forres in its northern part, construction work is underway. The second distillery, where Scotch whisky is already sure to be made, will be called Dunphail, and we will certainly be following it closely.


[25.11.2022 / photo: Moonshine Distillery]