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It is famed for a love of singing and a passion for rugby. It has a distinctive Celtic language and is the birthplace of the poet Dylan Thomas. But few would claim that Wales, a nation of three million people outnumbered by sheep, is well known for whiskey, or whisky, as it is known in Wales.<\/p>\n
Yet the country has played its part in distilling history \u2014 a Welshman is considered one of the founding fathers of bourbon \u2014 and a recent revival of whisky production has prompted new rules governing which liquor can call itself Welsh.<\/p>\n
That was how the problems began in Abergwyngregyn (pronounced ABER-gwin-gregin), in the shadow of the ice-capped Snowdonia mountain range, where Aber Falls single-malt whisky is produced in a distillery filled with the strong malty aroma of barley.<\/p>\n
Made with exclusively Welsh grain and water from a picturesque nearby waterfall, the light, slightly fruity, single-malt whisky distilled by Aber Falls<\/a> was the first in more than a century to be produced in North Wales.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The packaging is red \u2014 one of the national colors of Wales \u2014 and bears an image of a dragon, the country\u2019s symbol. When the distillery opened in 2017, its mission was to create \u201ca Welsh brand, supporting Wales and collaborating with other Welsh businesses,\u201d said Carole Jones, its general manager.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n But it still was not Welsh enough.<\/p>\n Last year, Aber Falls whisky failed a test for certification as a protected Welsh product because the bottling was taking place not at the distillery, but 50 miles across the border, in England. The company had a choice: move the bottling back to Wales, or banish any mention of Welshness from the label \u2014 even the red dragon.<\/p>\n That, said Ms. Jones, would have been a \u201ccatastrophe\u201d for Aber Falls, so by September, bottling was back on Welsh soil, allowing the company to join a list<\/a> with four other certified Welsh whisky makers.<\/p>\n Awkward though it was, the wrangle over provenance highlights the growing interest in whisky in Wales, where a small number of commercial distilleries have followed in the footsteps of the best-known modern day producer<\/a>, Penderyn. In total, Welsh whisky firms generate an estimated 23 million pounds, or about $29 million, in revenue a year.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Though for some, whisky is synonymous with Scotch, Wales enjoys an unusual place in liquor history because a Welshman, Evan Williams, is hailed as one of the first distillers of bourbon in the United States.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Historical details are sketchy and disputed, but, according to Heaven Hill Brands, the producers of a bourbon named for him, Mr. Williams was born in 1755, immigrated to North America in the late 1770s or early 1780s, and began distilling in 1783 in Louisville, Ky. He was probably raised in Dale, Pembrokeshire, where his family may have had a distillery.<\/p>\n The country he left behind never developed commercial production on the scale of Scotland or Ireland, but in 1889, one large producer, the Welsh Whisky Distillery Company, was founded in Frongoch, near Bala, around 50 miles from Aber Falls.<\/p>\n It did not survive long. In England, the whisky\u2019s reception was lukewarm. In Scotland, it was cooler, and in Wales, social forces were gathering against it, including the temperance movement.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cConditions in many of the factories and mines were so bad, and poverty was so rife, that there was a movement to galvanize people into Christian communities,\u201d said Alexander Langlands, an associate professor of history at Swansea University. \u201cIn hard-working working-class communities, you really didn\u2019t want young men, fathers and grandfathers, and women in the family, taking to the bottle. So there is a reason why it died \u2014 a cultural reason \u2014 here in Wales.\u201d<\/p>\n It took a century, but the revival began in 2004, when Penderyn was opened in South Wales. It expanded a decade later and has won critical acclaim.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a whisky I would keep in my collection,\u201d said Vic Cameron, a whisky lecturer at the University of the Highlands and Islands in Scotland, referring to a Penderyn single malt finished in a former Madeira cask.<\/p>\n While \u201cScotch took over the world,\u201d Mr. Cameron said, whisky can be produced wherever cereals grow.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you ferment it and distill it, it\u2019s whisky,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd the Welsh have everything that we have: They have decent water, they have malted barley, and they have yeast, so they can make good whisky.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Still, selling whisky, said Dr. Langlands, who advised Penderyn on branding, often requires creating \u201ca sort of mystique.\u201d He said, \u201cYou really do need to pull on some sort of heritage.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n To that end, Penderyn uses an old copper works in Swansea, while Aber Falls, on the banks of the gushing river that flows from the waterfall to the Menai Strait, distills in a 19th-century slate works (previously used as a margarine factory).<\/p>\n Starting with a staff of only five, Aber Falls now employs 35 people, 29 of whom work at the distillery, with the remainder in Bangor, about 10 miles away, where bottling now takes place.<\/p>\n Spirits were first produced here in 2018, but whisky must be matured in casks for at least three years, so it was not until 2021 that a single malt was released.<\/p>\n