Cornwall's Only Wood-Fired Distillery — Why We Distil with Fire

Most distilleries run on gas. We don't.

Walk into almost any distillery in the UK and you'll find gas burners beneath the stills. It's efficient, controllable, and easy to automate. We understand why — but it's not how we work at Mounts Bay.

We fire our copper pot stills with wood. It's slower, more demanding, and requires constant attention. You can't set it and walk away. But we believe you can taste the difference, and that's why we've never changed.

Why wood-fired distillation is so rare

Wood firing is how spirits were made before the industrial age made gas the default. The heat behaves differently — it's less uniform, more alive. The distiller has to read the fire, adjust constantly, and respond to what the still is telling them. It's a craft in the truest sense.

Very few distilleries in Britain still work this way. In Cornwall, we're the only one.

What it means for the spirit

Wood-fired heat is gentler and more variable than gas. This affects how the wash heats, how the vapours rise, and ultimately which flavour compounds make it through into the final spirit. The result is a rounder, more characterful distillate — one that carries the warmth of the process itself.

Combined with our hand-foraged Cornish botanicals — sea kelp, samphire, dulse, and local honey — and pure Cornish water, the wood fire is just one part of what makes our spirits taste unmistakably of this place.

Come and find us

Our spirits are distilled in small batches at our distillery on the shores of Mount's Bay in West Cornwall. You can explore the full range — from our Ebba Coastal Cornish Dry Gin and Ebba Tidal Cornish Dry Gin, to the Rum Dhu trilogy of White, Gold and Black, and our Keynvor Honey Spiced Rum — at mountsbaydistillery.com.

If you're a restaurant, bar, or spirit shop interested in stocking our range, get in touch at sales@mountsbaydistillery.com.