Our micro-distillery in the heart of Hertfordshire.
Our distillery is set in an old stable block, that sits amid the rolling hills and countryside of rural Hertfordshire.
We’re surrounded by farms, woodland and hedgerows, all which contain their own unique plants and botanicals. Our landscape inspires us to do more with what we have locally. We’re committed to improving the landscape and we have plans to make more use of our botanical garden, currently being planted for next year.
We double distil our rum in a custom-made copper pot still, discarding the heads and tails of the run and keeping only the most selective hearts cuts to produce our full bodied, heavy rums . We have a 500 litre production pot still and a smaller flame-fired 50 litre copper pot still on which we develop our more delicate botanical products.
Our pot stills are heated by a recycled steam boiler that is almost 50 years old. It’s the true workhorse of the distillery and we love the fact that we could give it a useful home when others had thrown it on the scrapheap.
We primarily use three types of oak barrels: American bourbon, Scottish whisky, and charred new oak, for their deep flavours and resulting toasted amber colour. We leave it in barrels until it tastes good - no more, no less. It varies batch to batch, so we never take it out until it’s ready.
At Scratch, we produce limited edition rums prioritising quality over quantity.
We release new batches across our product line throughout the year, through various ‘Barrel Drops’. We rely on traditional techniques to make untraditional rum. So while other distilleries might rush out an ‘aged’ product we take our time and only release products when they are ready. We clearly label and number every bottle – so you can identify when the product was made, how long it was matured for, and other relevant information about its production. We are proud to display on each bottle information which highlights the unique quality and character of each barrel drop.