New Arrival of the Week: Fielden Harvest 2019 Rye Whisky

Our new arrival this week is a whisky that is all about farming and not so much about Oxford:

Fielden Harvest 2019 Rye Whisky.

What makes this English single malt whisky interesting? Who is Fielden? What happened to the Oxford of it all? Why does farming even matter to whisky? Let’s dig in. 

Introducing: Fielden whisky

First, let’s take you back to 1 August 2024. I’m standing in a very fancy marquee in a field in the Cotswolds sipping this whisky for the first time. I’m surrounded by so many industry names that if the whole thing was an elaborate hit job to take out some of the biggest names in whisky I wouldn’t be surprised. And I would also be extremely flattered. 

We’re there to mark Lammas Day. I had no idea what that was before the invitation but have since learnt that it’s a date in the calendar traditionally marking the start of the harvest. It’s basically an old Christian festival and takes its name from the practice of bringing the first loaf of bread from the year’s harvest to the church to be blessed. Loaf Mass (or Hlafmæsse in ye olde English) became Lammas. 

That’s not the only old English word that’s on everyone’s lips. The other is Fielden, which means ‘of the field’, and was thought to be a suitable name for an English whisky brand that wants to change the way we in whisky see farming, field by field, harvest by harvest. 

That means utilising heritage grains grown on regenerative farms. It means embracing traditional farming techniques to revitalise the land, not chemical inputs. It means letting wildlife thrive above and below ground. And it means taking all that grain and using it to make whisky. 

The heritage grain approach is not new to English whisky, however. In fact, it’s not even new to this brand, which was the artisan formerly known as the Oxford Distillery. 

RIP TOAD

Yes, you might have seen the news, but if not: that distillery is no more. 

What was TOAD (The Oxford Artisan Distillery) became (the) Oxford Artisan Distillery and is now Fielden. And the whole thing is being relocated to Yorkshire. A new facility has been commissioned and is set to open in Goole soon. It will produce 450,000 litres of alcohol p/a on hybrid pots with eight plate columns and a copper catalyser and hold 12,000 casks, while 2,100 acres of heritage grain have been planted across 15 farms stretching from Cornwall to Norfolk. The aim is for the site to be net zero emissions by 2030.

It will also be a pure whisky distillery, with no more gin or vodka. The Oxford Botanic Garden Physic Gin and Asmoleon Dry Gin will continue to be made at Wood Brothers Distillery in Oxfordshire, however. The new Yorkshire-based distillery will not have a visitor experience, but there are hopes to invite guests into the fields to showcase the heritage grains as we did on Lammas Day, and events like that are also planned to keep taking place. As for the old site, the plan is for it to be decommissioned, which includes those beautiful old Victorian retro-rail-steampunk-stills. In fact, the current whisky being released is produced through a third party. 

It’s all part of a bright new future for the brand now known as Fielden. A recent UK distribution deal with Berry Bros & Rudd followed investment from Distill Ventures (Diageo) back in 2022, which “unlocked” the brand’s ability to scale according to Mark Harvey, Fielden’s managing director of sales and marketing, who also said the brand had outgrown the site in Oxford. 

Remaining the same are some of the main men behind the whisky. First, master distiller Chico Rosa, and second, the barley whisperer himself and renowned paleo-ethnobotanist Dr. John Letts. As Fielden’s head of farming, he will continue the good work into heritage grains that were at the core of the Oxford Artisan approach. 

The toad is dead… or is it?

A twist in this tale came in June when it was announced that the original founder Tom Nicolson was looking to maintain the original site and stills after launching a new campaign. The Friends of Toad group has called on Fielden to leave the stills behind and the site in its current state so it can keep the business open as a white spirits distillery and retain jobs for local people. The campaign has support from residents, local businesses, councillors and an MP.

Nicolson founded TOAD in 2017 but left the business after “securing the distillery’s future in Oxford” following the funding from Distill Ventures in 2022 but claims that promises have been broken. Now he’s asking the brand to walk away and leave the keys rather than decommission everything, hoping to fix the original stills and operate a sustainable distillery using organic grain-neutral spirit (GNS).

Dave Smith, CEO of Fielden, said in a statement that the stills were not fit for purpose, were deemed a safety risk, and that continuing in the Oxford site was not viable. He reveals that options were explored to remain there but that the site is difficult to develop “given its physical footprint, location and the fair and reasonable restrictions imposed by the Oxford Preservation Trust covenants and Oxford City Council’s planning requirements”. He says the brand worked with the key stakeholders, Oxford Preservation Trust and Oxford City Council, on an exit plan for the site, that tours ended at the end of May, and the site will thereafter be used for blending whisky and then be fully decommissioned by the end of 2024. 

Let’s hope a resolution that works for all parties can be found. 

Fielden Whisky and farming

As for Fielden, the future is farming. What’s whisky got to do with farming? Everything. Whisky is, of course, an agricultural product. It always was, anyway.

But most grain in England is grown industrially, with chemicals. Not on Fielden’s farms. They look very different from industrially farmed fields, full of wildflowers, birds and insects, and biodiverse populations of heritage grains grown through an approach to grain farming known as Restorative Continuous Grain Cropping (R-CGC). This involves growing grain in the same field year after year without fallow years, tillage, crop rotation or chemical inputs, supporting greater biodiversity in the field. This system produces three times as much grain as a standard rotational organic grain production system. 

The rye, wheat and barley used by Fielden are grown exclusively for the distillery. Mixed crops were common before the turn of the 20th century when the hybrid varieties now used in both conventional and organic farming were created. These genetically diverse ‘field blends’ of heritage grains are revived from historical sources and grown sustainably on over 2,200 acres in the UK as a result of Letts’ lifelong research. He spent decades sourcing, growing and bulking up heritage grains together as populations.  

Letts’ work has given Fielden the ability to grow grains that can survive in marginal soils, have high pest resistance (disease spreads quicker in a monoculture), and that is drought resistant because the roots are deeper, which gives them access to nutrients and water. Instead of using chemicals, the grain grows in clover, a natural fertiliser, which leads to greater soil health. The Letts approach also means cultivating the grain in a manner which leaves the straw standing, which can then be chopped and placed on the field to be over-sown with white clover. The old straw releases nutrients as the clover fixes nitrogen. The field can then be resown with next year’s seeds, rather than having to be left fallow, which assists with yield. 

The 2019 harvest and its impact on the whisky

It’s an incredibly in-depth, thought-out approach that does Fielden credit. Grain-to-grass-washing is a thing but not here. This is an approach that puts yield second to flavour. Barley and its grainy cousins have a cultural history and they make whisky taste like whisky. Just as wine is more than one grape, or beer is more than one hop, there are all kinds of barley and they all have character. It’s not just that they can make whisky, they should make whisky. For Fielden, the focus doesn’t appear to be rooted in terroir as such, it’s more about what the grain is and how it’s treated than where it’s grown. But with fields from Norfolk to Cornwall, that side of things could easily be explored. 

Accompanying the press release of Fielden Harvest 2019 Rye Whisky was the 2019 Harvest Reports source for reference, as well as farming statistics for provisional crop areas, yields and livestock populations in June 2019. Unlike other whiskies, where the vintage tells you when the whisky went into the cask (with grain from any year), Fielden’s vintage means the whisky is made from the same grain harvest. The vintage reflects the weather patterns and their influence on the grain in the given year. Mild weather and summer rain in 2019 meant the rye gathered that autumn was brighter and more delicate in its character. 

“Weather variations don’t necessarily impact the quality of the whisky in a good or bad way, but it certainly impacts the composition of the grains we use. The growing season reacts to conditions (rain levels, temperatures, sunlight hours, etc.) and this gives variable yields and quality parameters, such as levels of starch (sugars) and proteins that are direct factors impacting the whisky-making process,” Rosa explains. “Despite the heat spikes that year, the cooler, wet summer and wet harvest season allowed for a higher yield of grain in 2019 compared with the previous year and the UK average. It had a particular vibrancy, and it has created a refreshing, delicate and yet rich complexity in this year’s whisky.”

Fielden Harvest 2019 Rye Whisky review:

That all brings us neatly to what we think of our new arrival. Fielden Harvest 2019 Rye Whisky is the first of what will be an annual series, with a new edition to follow each Lammas Day (1 August). Each will celebrate the flavour nuances of the grains from one growing season to the next. 

Harvest 2019 Rye Whisky is made from two different grain recipes, the brand’s classical one which is 70% rye, 20% wheat and 10% malted barley, and another recipe focusing solely on rye – 100% rye (75% raw rye and 25% malted rye). The diverse populations of rye cross-pollinate year after year and are taken straight from the field or floor-malted and mashed. There’s also wheat from a mixture of several historical varieties grown together in the same field. Sometimes, a small percentage of wheat is grown with rye in a ‘maslin’ mixed crop. Then there’s barley, a mixture of several historical varieties of both 2-row, 4-row, and 6-row grown together, traditional floor malted in England. 

The mash was fermented for five days in stainless steel tanks and then double distilled, the first a pure pot distillation and the second pot and column (sieve plates) distillation. The resulting spirit matured in a combination of nine casks: mostly second-fill American oak casks (37.5%) and STR (shaved, toasted, and re-charred – also 37.5%) barrels, as well as a Sauternes barrel (12.5%) and a Ramandolo barrique (12.5%). These casks were aged for a minimum 38 months were married together over 82 days and then the whisky was slowly diluted to 50% ABV. The outturn is 2,680 bottles.

This is such an intriguing release for several reasons, partly because it raises so many questions: This whisky is being made by a third party, so is it going to be anything like what we taste in the future once the Yorkshire site is operational? What will the change in distillation and fermentation equipment bring? How much will it matter when the grain is at the forefront of the flavour profile? How much can grain be the core of a whisky’s flavour profile? Will there be any legacy of the Oxford-made spirit? Should there be? Time will take care of these questions as much as any statement can. It’s certainly worth keeping an eye on all things Fielden. 

For now, we taste what’s in front of us. And Fielden Harvest 2019 Rye Whisky is lovely. It’s rye-rich but not overly spiced or herbaceous. It’s got a gentle, warm quality, a fresh-baked-goods-straight-out-of-the-oven vibe. While all the talk is of heritage grain and farming, I’m reminded sipping this that it was Rosa who impressed me so much a couple of years ago. His methodical, impassioned approach was the conduit for the good work done in the grain stage then. Amongst the turmoil of change and the spotlight of a bright future, his steady hand could be the key to making sure those fields of flavour come together in the glass. 

Fielden Harvest 2019 Rye Whisky tasting note:

Nose: I get a very nostalgic note of Harvest Chewee Choc Chip Cereal Bar. Combined with the hint of Petits Filous Apricot Fromage Frais I’m right back to childhood. There’s also delicate rose florals, hearty orange marmalade, raspberry, a little spearmint, and a deep, rich gingerbread note. 

Palate: Butterscotch and nutmeg are at the core of the palate, with touches of earthy red chilli heat, stone fruit, croissant, cooking apple, heavy cream, and a little numbing Szechuan peppercorn.

Finish: Ginger, lemon, black pepper, and thyme.

You can buy Fielden Harvest 2019 Rye Whisky now.

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