Welcome in the hillsides: single-malt whisky is synonymous with Scotland, but there's a newcomer to the field--and it's in Wales. The Welsh Whisky Company's single-pass still may represent the biggest change in distillery technology for centuries, as Stuart Nathan reports.(Distilling)

SINGLE malt whisky is a venerable product with long-established roots and technology that was perfected centuries ago. And, apart from a very few examples, it's overwhelmingly Scottish. So it takes some doing to decide to set up a new single-malt distillery, using a completely new type of distilling process--and to do it in Wales. Yet the Welsh Whisky Company, based in the Brecon Beacons at Penderyn, has done just that. Its product, named Penderyn, is currently maturing in oak barrels, waiting for the exact time to be released onto the market.

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It's been a long journey for Welsh Whisky charman Brian Morgan and his team, and one that began with a stark realisation: it wouldn't be enough just to make a good whisky and call it 'Welsh'. 'We had to do things differently, and we were inspired by the example of new world wines,' Morgan says. 'The Australians had taken on the French wine…