Meet the Yorkshire whisky expert who creates bottles from barley grown in coastal fields
And for Joe Clark, the director of whisky at one of Yorkshire’s few distilleries, the festive season marks the end of a very busy year.
The Spirit of Yorkshire distillery in Hunmanby is the first in the region to sell bottles from its own barley and its Filey Bay whisky has quickly become coveted by collectors.
The distillery’s logo - the gannet - is a sweet homage to the seabirds that make nearby Bempton Cliffs their home.
And for Mr Clark, 36, pride comes from the Yorkshire provenance of the drink - which takes some three years to mature in cask.
“Our founder Tom Mellor is a third generation barley farmer. It’s very much taking the barley which grows here and keeping it to make something delicious with it. There was a real drive to do something that has never been done before,” he said.
While many gin distilleries have sprung up across the region over the past decade, it is believed there are just three producing whisky in Yorkshire.
Mr Clark said: “It’s a more difficult product to create. The main difference is whisky has to mature in oak casks, so anyone setting up a distillery has to look at three years of having no product, which is a really difficult period.
“When you’re making whisky it’s not something you can rush into. I think the challenges put a lot of people off.
“But that’s also why it’s exciting. There’s risk - but that risk is balanced out by the sense to research and get the process right.
“I make sure what we make tastes as good as it possibly can. But you need to have some guts to do it.”
The distilling of whisky is one that is comparable to how beer is created, Mr Clark explained.
“The simplest way of looking at malt whisky is like it’s distilled beer. In the northern parts of the world we grow lots of grain, whisky is the next logical step.
“You make a wash of barley, yeast and water and then ferment it, distill it, mature it in cask and at the end of that process you have the whisky,” he said.
“That’s the simple version - but it’s very complex when you put it under a microscope.”
"You can count on almost one hand the number of field to bottle whisky makers across the UK. We have absolute unbroken provenance on every spirit we make, back to the fields of barley.”
For Mr Clark, there is no drink quite as enjoyable as a whisky – especially at Christmas time.
He said: "There’s a lot of enjoyment to be had from sharing a glass with friends and family.
"It brings people together, especially at this time of year.”