BEHIND THE BRAND
Inside Wood Brothers: The 1000 Acre Oxfordshire Distillery
Cotswold Style recently visited Wood Brothers Distillery, a 1000 acre single estate distillery nestled deep in the Oxfordshire countryside. The farm and distillery is run by brothers Ed and Charlie Wood and has been in the family for 6 generations. We spoke to the brothers to discuss the history of the farm, their farm to bottle practices and the future of the distillery.
BY ARCHIE CAWTHRA
14 July 2024
The Bar at Wood Brothers Distillery. Photo by Rebecca Pearson for Cotswold Style
Wood Brothers Distillery is set on a 1,000 acre farm nestled deep in the Oxfordshire countryside. The farm, which has been in the family for 6 generations, was previously a mushroom farm. The original sign for the farm can be found in the Wood Brothers’ bar area. As the 6th generation in a family of farmers, the Wood Brothers have taken the leap to become the 1st generation to use the farm as the base for a modern, sophisticated distillery.
As a single estate distillery, everything inside a bottle of Wood Brothers has derived from the family farm on which the distillery is nestled. The process starts out in the fields where in late autumn they plant their winter wheat, barley and rye. These crops are nurtured throughout the year and harvested the following autumn. Once harvested, it is milled into flour, fermented and finally distilled by their head distiller Ed to create the base spirit. Each bottle of Wood Brothers’ spirit contains around a kilo of grain grown on the farm.
The Wood Brother’s Farm. Photos by Rebecca Pearson for Cotswold Style.
The brand launched in 2015 originally selling vodka from the farm. In more frequent years, they have a range of products from dry gin, vermouth, sloe gin and whiskey coming soon. They opened a bar at the distillery in 2020 which is now used for their frequent events and distillery tours.
Kicking off the tour with a welcome drink in hand, they dive into the world of craft distilling, walking you through their history and their unique approach to producing spirits from field to glass. Of course, there’ll be plenty of opportunities for tastings, and they’ll finish up the tour in the Wood Brothers' bar where you can sample their full range of gin, vodka, and liqueurs.
The experience lasts roughly 1 hour a welcome Gin & Tonic or Vodka & Tonic, guided tour around the Wood Brothers distillery, and tastings of the spirits on the tour.
The Wood Brothers’ Bar. Photos by Rebecca Pearson for Cotswold Style.
Earlier this month, Cotswold Style visited Wood Brothers where we had a tour around the estate and spoke with Ed and Charlie Wood to discuss the history of the farm, their farm to bottle practices and the future of the distillery.
What is most important to you at Wood Brothers?
“It’s really important to us that our spirits are the best they possibly can be, to ensure this we need control over every part of the process from selecting which grains to grow and how they grown through to our brewing process and finally the distilling process, Gin making and bottling.
Every part of the Wood Brothers Team is essential to ensuring this quality is upheld. Starting with those on the farm nurturing our grains all the way through to the bottling team doing our final product checks before our spirits get to the public, we couldn’t do what we do without them!”
What is unique about Wood Brothers?
“Being a single estate distillery, we not only make a base spirit ourselves but we make this base spirit (96%abv for our white spirits) out of grains that we grow here on the farm in Black Bourton. As the name suggests, this spirit becomes the base from which we produce our gin and our vodka from and we are very proud of this.”
The Wood Brothers Distillery. Images by Rebecca Pearson for Cotswold Style.
How would you describe Wood Brothers in three words?
“Delicious, Fun and Quality.”
Where do you see the distillery in 10 years?
“Having spent 2023 growing malting barley and the best part of 2024 so far putting together new stills and developing new brewing processes for our Single Malt Whisky, we would hope that in 10 years it’ll be bottled and on the shelves!”
What are you doing to make the distillery more sustainable?
“At the moment we do offer refill pouches for our Heritage Gin and Vodka. If people keep their bottles and refill with our pouches, the carbon footprint of the bottle is reduced by 73%.
In terms of our processes at the distillery, we're are growing our grains ourself rather than importing grains reducing carbon emissions. Any green waste is also either used as cattle food or compost rather than going to waste. One of our biggest waste products is hot water, This is currently stored in tanks and re used the next day or moved into the bottling room to help heat it in winter.”
To find out more about Wood Brothers, visit their website www.woodbrosdistilling.com
