Founded in 2018 through a passion for authentic flavours and Welsh provenance, In the Welsh Wind was born on the Welsh coast of Cardigan Bay. The original dream to distil only small batches of craft gin quickly evolved into them becoming maverick distillers and spirit makers for many businesses as well as their own brands. Although the business is still relatively young, growth has been very impressive with their innovations leading to multiple award-winning spirits products, of which, many are exported worldwide. 

In March 2020 at the start of the pandemic, like other distillers in the UK, In the Welsh Wind had people knocking at their doors for hand sanitiser. Food technologists from Food Centre Wales assisted with the production of the Hand sanitiser through Project HELIX. They ensured the recipe provided by The World Health Organisation (WHO) was followed correctly and helped implement the production process for the product effectively. Changing the use of alcohol to produce a different product incurred much paperwork with HMRC, which the food technologist was instrumental in collating.  Ensuring that the business fulfilled their legal obligations without incurring further alcohol duty implications was important to be able to offer the hand sanitiser free of charge in the first instance.

Whisky production was always a key goal for the business and the move to a new larger premises in 2019 has enabled them to achieve this. In Autumn 2020, In The Welsh Wind began experimenting with barley to create its unique whisky making process. Further support from a food technologist enabled them to test and trial different methods and use equipment from the food centre, funded through Project HELIX. Between them, they were able to develop a unique method of processing the barley that doesn’t require kiln drying. This not only has huge environmental benefits through energy savings in production, but also creates a unique ‘green grain’ flavour to the whisky, not present in whisky distilled using traditional methods.