Ep. 240: Retribution Distilling co. with Richard Lock Show Notes

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Jun 9

Retribution Distilling: Somerset Peat, Brewing Yeast, Direct-Fired Stills, and the Future of English Whisky

English whisky has become one of the most interesting threads running through the podcast lately, and this episode takes that conversation west into Somerset with Retribution Distilling.

I first got introduced to Retribution through Richard Foster, which feels fitting given how much of this current wave of English whisky is built on collaboration, curiosity, and people working outside the old maps. Retribution is one of the smaller English whisky distilleries in that conversation, but small does not mean simple. If anything, it means every decision is closer to the bone.

Rich Lock is the founder, brewer, distiller, cleaner, builder, problem-solver, and probably a few other job titles that only exist when something breaks at 10 p.m. His background starts in homebrewing, runs through Heriot-Watt, passes through oil and gas, and eventually lands in a garden shed with a still. From there, Retribution Distilling has grown into a whisky-focused Somerset distillery making spirit that sits apart from much of the English whisky category: floor-malted barley, brewing yeast, long fermentations, direct-fired copper pot stills, Somerset peat, applewood smoke trials, and a habit of experimenting that seems less like a side project and more like a medical condition.

The name Retribution comes from Rich’s past in oil and gas, a kind of repayment for where the startup money came from. That gives the name a useful tension. This is a distillery thinking seriously about flavor, but also about environmental responsibility, sustainability, and whether making something just because you can is actually a good enough reason.

From Homebrewing to English Whisky

Rich’s route into distilling started with beer.

About 16 years ago, he got serious about homebrewing, serious enough to study brewing and distilling through Heriot-Watt. The brewing side gave him a foundation in fermentation, yeast, grain, mash pH, and the way small changes early in the process can echo all the way into the final drink.

Distilling came from there almost naturally, at least as naturally as anything can when it begins with a small still in a garden shed and the realization that perhaps licensing should happen before things get too interesting.

That first working distillery was set up at the bottom of the garden, and it lasted about three months before being outgrown. By February 2020, Retribution had moved to a small farm on the edge of Frome in Somerset. The timing was strange, to say the least. COVID arrived almost immediately after the move, but for a small distillery still getting equipment in place, the enforced slowdown created time to build, adjust, and start shaping the business.

Gin came first. Rum followed. Whisky was always the destination.

Retribution Rum as Stepping Stone, English Whisky as the Path

Retribution’s first aged spirit was rum, and the reason was partly practical. At the time, Rich did not yet have the equipment needed for whisky production, but rum could be made with molasses, water, nutrients, yeast, and the setup already available.

That said, rum never became the long-term center of gravity.

The economics and logistics simply did not make sense. Molasses had to be imported from abroad, often with limited traceability because it is treated as a commodity product. It cost more than malted barley, created waste issues that were harder to manage, and placed the distillery at a distance from the raw material.

That last part matters. Retribution is surrounded by excellent barley-growing regions, with Warminster Maltings only about 10 miles away. If the goal is to make something tied to Somerset, whisky offers a far more coherent route than importing molasses and trying to compete with older Caribbean rum at a similar shelf price.

So the rum chapter served its purpose, but the distillery has moved on. Today, roughly 95% of production is whisky, with the remaining small portion going toward vodka made from heads and tails.

A Somerset Whisky Distillery Built by Necessity

One of the most interesting parts of Retribution’s story is how much of the distillery was shaped by limited cash.

That might sound like a constraint, and it is, but constraints can be useful. Rich did not go out and buy a turnkey distillery from a major manufacturer. He designed stills himself, worked with fabricators, and built around what was possible: door size, copper sheet size, budget, available space, and what he actually wanted the spirit to taste like.

The current setup includes direct-fired copper pot stills, including an 1,800-liter wash still and a smaller spirit still, both designed with practicality and flavor in mind. The firebox idea traces back partly to inspiration from Montanya Distillers, but the larger stills are very much Retribution’s own solution.

That direct fire matters. Rich wants Maillard reactions and caramelization in the wash still, adding flavor at the distillation stage rather than relying entirely on casks to do the work later. The stills have short necks and downward-angled lyne arms, helping create a heavier, oilier spirit with real texture.

It is not the easiest way to make whisky. That seems to be part of the point.

Flavor-First English Whisky: Barley, Yeast, Fermentation, and Fire

Retribution’s production philosophy is pretty simple: add flavor early, add flavor often, and do not expect the cask to rescue boring spirit.

That starts with barley. Rich uses heritage and landrace varieties such as Maris Otter and Plumage Archer, with interest in Chevalier as well. The barley comes from Warminster, one of the great names in English floor malting, and that floor-malted character has become close to non-negotiable for him.

The floors matter because they are not sterile. They carry microbial life, including bacteria and lactobacillus, and that contributes flavor before fermentation even begins. Rich sees that as part of the difference between whisky made for yield and whisky made for character.

From there, yeast becomes another major tool. Retribution has been moving away from distilling yeast and toward 100% brewing yeast fermentations. Distilling yeast can give efficiency, but brewing yeast brings character. Rich has worked with different strains, including English ale strains and a Fullers-derived yeast that performed surprisingly well from both a yield and flavor perspective.

That is where the brewer’s mindset really shows. Whisky starts as beer, and if that beer is dull, the still can only do so much.

Brewing Yeast, Seven-Day Fermentations, and Heavy English New Make Spirit

Retribution’s fermentations run for a minimum of seven days. That is partly for flavor and partly because the schedule fits life and production rhythm, which may be the most honest explanation any small distiller can give.

Long fermentations allow more complexity to develop. Temperature control means the profile can remain consistent across seasons rather than shifting dramatically between summer and winter. The goal is not just alcohol. It is a flavorful wash with enough depth to justify everything that comes next.

Rich has also thought about wooden fermenters, and they remain on the wish list. The appeal is obvious: wood can hold microbial life and create a more complex fermentation environment. But wooden vats cost money, take space, and bring practical headaches. For now, Retribution works with stainless fermenters that are rinsed rather than aggressively sanitized, allowing some biofilm and house character to remain.

It is a small-distillery version of “use what you have, but understand why you’re using it.”

Somerset Peat and England’s Traceable Peated Whisky

Retribution has access to Somerset peat, making it the only English distillery currently working with English peat for whisky. That gives the project an obvious hook: a fully traceable bog-to-bottle English peated whisky.

The first peated whisky is expected to come from a single tawny port cask, with roughly 360 bottles when released. That cask has been watched closely because, according to Rich, it was already tasting excellent between 12 and 18 months. At that point, the countdown to three years became less romantic and more bureaucratic.

But the peat story is complicated.

Somerset peat is interesting, different from Scottish peat, and deeply tied to place. It also carries environmental baggage. Peat extraction in the UK is increasingly under scrutiny, with horticultural use being phased out and whisky likely to become more visible as a remaining user. Rich is not interested in hiding behind the argument that whisky uses only a small percentage compared with horticulture. For him, if the environmental impact is real, it has to be addressed.

That is why Retribution is already looking beyond peat.

Applewood Smoked Whisky and Life After Peat

The alternative may be applewood.

Somerset has no shortage of orchards, and Retribution has been experimenting with smoking green malt using applewood from a local source. That distinction is important. Rich is not wetting finished malt and smoking it superficially. He is working with green malt from Warminster, smoking it before it is fully dried, which creates a deeper integration of smoke into the grain.

The early response has been promising. In fact, Rich’s tasting group has preferred the applewood-smoked new make over the peated version. That does not mean the two are identical. Wood smoke and peat smoke behave differently, and drinkers looking for classic peat may need time to recalibrate. But the goal is not imitation. It is flavor.

This is where Retribution’s philosophy becomes clearest. Being first matters less than making something worth drinking. If applewood gives the right profile with a lower environmental cost, the distillery will follow that path.

There may be people who treat wood-smoked whisky as second class compared with peat. There were also people who thought English whisky itself would never be interesting. The glass has a way of winning some of those arguments.

Smoked Whisky Without the Ashtray

Rich is not trying to make whisky that tastes like a bonfire fell into a tar pit.

That came through clearly in the conversation. He wants smoke to enhance the spirit, not bury it. The goal is a whisky you can keep drinking, not one where a single dram leaves your mouth feeling like it spent the night in an ashtray.

That is another brewer’s instinct. Drinkability matters. Balance matters. Flavor intensity is not the same thing as quality, and the best smoked whiskies often understand restraint better than volume.

The peated tawny port cask is a good example of that balance. Port casks can easily overwhelm young spirit, especially when peat is involved, but the aim here is integration: smoke, fruit, texture, and spirit still visible underneath.

Direct-Fired Stills and the Shape of Retribution New Make

Direct fire has become one of the recurring themes in conversations with flavor-forward distillers, and Retribution sits firmly in that camp.

There are easier and safer ways to heat a still. Direct fire requires more thought, especially around safety, ventilation, separation, pressure relief, and the design of the system. But it also creates flavor. For Rich, that flavor is worth the extra work.

The stills themselves are not off-the-shelf monuments to tradition. They are practical inventions. Built around cost, copper availability, doorway size, and the production needs of a very small distillery. That kind of decision-making gives Retribution’s spirit a fingerprint that would be hard to copy, even if someone had the recipe.

You can list the barley, yeast, fermentation time, still shape, and casks. You still would not quite have the same whisky.

That is the useful kind of weird.

Worm Tubs, Shell-and-Tube Condensers, and Knowing Your Own Spirit

Retribution’s earlier alembic still used a worm cooler. The current setup uses shell-and-tube condensers. In theory, that could create a noticeable difference in spirit character, especially for heavier styles.

Rich’s view is refreshingly direct: he cannot taste a meaningful difference in his spirit.

That may run against some received wisdom, but it also makes sense in context. Retribution is loading so much flavor into the front end through barley, brewing yeast, long fermentation, direct fire, and still design that the condenser difference may simply not be the dominant variable.

Someone else may taste it differently. Someone always does. But for Rich, the core identity of the spirit is built earlier.

Retribution Whisky Casks: Bourbon, Sherry, Port, Chestnut, and Orange Bitters

Retribution’s maturation program has been varied by necessity and curiosity.

There are octaves, quarter casks, 200-liter ex-bourbon casks, sherry casks, port casks, and some stranger experiments. Casks have come from trusted sources including Spanish cooperages and Speyside Cooperage, with fresh ex-Heaven Hill bourbon casks currently offering good value.

As more stock matures, Rich is aiming for a bit more structure. The first years were about learning, and the warehouse reflects that. Lots of casks, lots of variations, lots of experiments. Some brilliant. Some odd. Some probably destined for creative problem-solving.

One of the more unusual projects is new make aged in an orange bitters cask. Another is chestnut, which Rich says tastes, helpfully, like chestnuts, with a peppery spice. The first fill in chestnut went a little far after 13 months, so it was moved into second-fill ex-bourbon to mellow. The cask was then refilled, with hopes that later fills may allow longer maturation.

That kind of cask movement feels very Retribution: curious, practical, and unwilling to pretend every experiment has to become a flagship.

Young English Whisky and the New Flavor-Driven Drinkers

Retribution’s first whisky arrived in 2025, and the reaction has followed a familiar split.

Some drinkers understand what young English whisky is doing. They taste the flavor, the texture, the intensity, and the production choices behind it. Others still want age, color, and the comfort of familiar benchmarks.

Rich’s experience at festivals has been telling. Give someone a three-year-old whisky without telling them the age, and they may guess six, eight, or nine years. Tell them it is three, and suddenly the conversation changes.

That is one of the larger stories of English whisky right now. Distilleries are proving that young whisky can be genuinely compelling when the new make is built with enough character. That does not mean age does not matter. It means age is not the only way to measure seriousness.

For a generation of younger, flavor-driven whisky drinkers, that message seems to be landing.

English Whisky Without Copying Scotch

There is always the temptation to define English whisky in relation to Scotch. That temptation is understandable, but also limiting.

Retribution is not Scotch, and it is not trying to be. The distillery is drawing on older methods that Scottish distilleries once used more widely: heritage barley, brewing yeast, direct fire, floor malting, longer fermentations. But the result is not imitation. It is an English distillery using local materials, local constraints, and its own stubborn set of decisions to make something that belongs to its own place.

That is where the category gets interesting. English whisky does not need one identity. It needs enough serious voices to show range.

Retribution is one of those voices: small, experimental, flavor-first, and allergic to boring efficiency.

Sales, Belief, and Getting English Whisky Into Glasses

The practical challenge now is getting the liquid to more people.

Rich knows the production side inside out. He can talk about barley, yeast, direct fire, cask movement, peat, applewood, and sustainability for hours. The sales side is different, but not entirely disconnected. When you know something deeply and believe in it fully, explaining it becomes part of the work.

That may be Retribution’s next phase: not just making interesting whisky, but getting enough people to taste it.

Because this is not whisky that explains itself through age statement, color, or an inherited national reputation. It has to be poured. It has to be tasted. It has to prove that a three-year-old English whisky made with floor-malted barley, brewing yeast, long fermentation, and direct fire can carry more flavor than many older, safer bottles.

That is a harder pitch, but a better one.

What Retribution Distilling Is Building in Somerset

Retribution Distilling is still small. The releases are limited. The biggest so far is around 360 bottles. The warehouse is full of variation, and the future will likely bring more structure alongside continued experiments.

But the foundation is already clear.

This is a distillery built from brewing knowledge, practical engineering, and a refusal to let yield be the whole conversation. It is using local malt, brewing yeast, direct fire, long fermentation, thoughtful casks, and a willingness to rethink peat before someone else forces the issue.

Rich could make this easier on himself. He could chase efficiency, simplify the process, and let casks do more of the work.

Instead, Retribution is choosing the longer route: flavor at every step, even when that means more labor, more risk, and more explaining.

That feels about right for a distillery named after repayment.

Retribution Distilling