There is a particular kind of English sweetness that Spirit of Yorkshire has learned to coax from its barley — unhurried, farm-grown, coastal — and when it meets Moscatel, the result is something that feels like late summer bottled.
Spirit of Yorkshire is England's first grain-to-glass single malt distillery, founded by Tom Mellor and David Thompson on the family farm at Hunmanby near Filey. The barley is grown in the fields above the distillery, and the whisky is matured within sight of the North Sea. The Moscatel Finish takes their house spirit and rounds it out in casks that once held sweet Portuguese Moscatel wine — stone-fruit concentrate, honey and raisin all soaking into the wood.
The nose is gentle but generous: apricot jam, beeswax, a wisp of orange blossom. On the palate, the Moscatel influence is unmistakable but never heavy-handed — candied peach and sultana drape over a spine of clean Yorkshire malt, with marzipan and golden syrup tucked underneath. The finish is sweet without cloying, drifting off through raisin and soft oak spice.
At 46% and non-chill-filtered, it has the texture to carry the richness, and the coastal barley keeps it honest — there is always that underlying cereal brightness that stops it becoming dessert. A lovely English expression from a distillery still writing its early chapters, and one that shows how confidently Yorkshire can speak the language of sweet-wine finishing.
