Malt and New Make Spirit

New make spirit is essentially unaged whisky, the alcohol that runs off the stills before it is matured. Typically when you say the words ‘new make’ people think of Scotch but technically, new make can be any style of whisky. Americans call it white dog, moonshine, or white lightning. It is clear like vodka and is very strong without dilution. But don’t fall for the misconception that anything that distillers create is rubbish before it goes into the barrel.

New make is the closest you can get to whisky DNA, a spirit so packed full of character and a great cocktail ingredient with its own fascinating history. What distillers do before maturation has a huge effect on flavour and new make will demonstrate the impact of the choices they make in the production process, for example when it comes to grain selection, yeast strain, fermentation times, or still shapes. You can swap it for Pisco in a sour, vodka in a Bloody Mary, or even for whisky in certain serves, like a Highball.

Whisky distilleries are increasingly bottling new make, both because it gives new producers a chance to make some much-needed money and give people a glimpse of what’s to come while their whisky matures, but also because it provides fans a chance to see how the flavour profile the love is formed.

So, if you want to learn more about what makes the whisky you love taste the way it does or you just want to learn about one of the world’s most unrecognised and unappreciated spirit subcategories, then we suggest you pick up one of the bottles below.