AN INTRODUCTION TO M&H DISTILLERY
Founded by a group of whisky enthusiasts who wanted to showcase the best of their home country in a glass, the M&H Distillery was built 10 years ago in the heart of Tel Aviv, Israel.
When we visited we were shown around by Tomer Goren, their head distiller and Dana Baran, VP marketing. From digging through barrels to find our Heart Cut cask, showing us the R&D room to taking us through a tasting of their entire portfolio (of which there are quite a few), their passion and pride for M&H radiated from them, making us love the whisky even more.
As Israel’s first whisky distillery, M&H have - alongside others - been at the forefront of the new world whisky narrative. In our eyes, these are distilleries that combine tradition with innovation, that zig when traditional distilleries zag, that are putting their home countries, often not associated with whisky, on the world whisky map and combine passion, skill and a desire to have fun along the way.
The distillery is located in the up-and-coming neighbourhood of Jaffa.
A stone's throw from the city beachfront and close to a bustling and aroma-filled hub of markets and restaurants. Not just a working distillery, it has a cool and welcoming visitor centre, bar and shop with locals regularly popping in to stock up on bottles of M&H whisky and gin.
In addition to their warehouses at the distillery in Tel Aviv, they have 4 additional warehouses across Israel. These allow the team to explore the full effect of the Israeli climate on their whisky as it matures. These are :
- The Sea of Galilee : An area with high humidity for most of the year
- Jerusalem Mountains : Characterised by low temperatures compared to the other areas in Israel, meaning a lower angel’s share.
- The Desert : Arid and dry area with very low humidity
- The Dead Sea : An area with an extreme climate - very hot and dry - where summer temperatures can reach 50°C
To create the fruity, oily, chewy whisky they had in mind, they needed to make the region's climate work in their favour.
So it was only natural that they bought in Dr. Jim Swan, one of the world’s most accomplished master distillers and an expert in hot climate distillation and maturation, to help design the distillery around these two factors.
Remember that the climate in Israel is very different to that of Scotland - the country experiences 300 days of sun a year. As we said - VERY different! Under these temperatures, spirit will interact more rapidly with the cask during maturation, taking on flavour compounds from the cask in a shorter time period. A few ways in which this impacts production include :
- Taking a small heart cut (only about 10% of the run) during distillation.
- Maturing their spirit for less time, as in that shorter time they’ll get a rapid ‘infusion’ of sorts of flavour from the cask into the whisky due to the heat.
- Keeping an eye on their Angel’s Share (the evaporation that comes from the cask, where - depending on the humidity - you lose a combination of water and alcohol) which averages 12% in Tel Aviv and goes up to a whopping 25% at their Dead Sea warehouse.
Around 75% of their whisky is matured in ex-bourbon casks from Kentucky.
In the words of Tomer, these are his favourite as they ‘help represent every new make character, and provide a great canvas to paint on top of when using finishing casks’. And the other 25%...Sherry, red wine, ex-Islay, orange wine, tequila, Madeira, rye, ancient Israeli red wine varietals…the list goes on! Keep your eyes peeled for whiskies finished and matured in these casks from them in the future.
Other M&H expressions we enjoy
This is the perfect interpretation of M&H - it’s fruity, honeyed and a very approachable whisky - one for everyone!
Unofficially Tomer’s favourite from the core range, the red wine casks used to finish this whisky are sourced from some of Israel’s finest wineries. They bring this light ‘blush’ of red wine to the whisky, layered with base notes of dark chocolate and a perfumed elegance to finish.
