M&H, first called Milk & Honey, was founded in 2013 as Israel's first whisky distillery.1,2,3 Israel's hot climate speeds up ageing, and the distillery ages its whisky in all of the country's climate regions, without climate control.4
In 2012, Gal Kalkshtein, Amit Dror, Simon Fried, and Roee and Naama Licht decided to set up Israel's first whisky distillery.5,6,7 In 2013 they hired Dr. Jim Swan, an expert in hot-climate maturation, who helped draw up the floor plan, choose the ingredients and design the stills.8 A crowdfunding campaign in late 2013 raised more than $70,000, enough to buy barrels and copper stills.6
Baking spices, oak, dried fruit, and honey emerge, though an oak-driven bitterness makes this an interesting but imperfect pour.
A sweet, fruity whisky with dark fruits, pomegranate and baking spices; water makes it more accessible and brings the brighter fruits forward.
Building work began in June 2014 in a former bakery in Tel Aviv, and the first spirit flowed from its pot stills within a year.10,11,12 Swan worked with the distillery until he died in February 2017.5,10
In October 2018 it placed 20 casks on a hotel rooftop by the Dead Sea, about 423 metres below sea level, for a year before returning them to Tel Aviv.13 Its yearly angels' share, the whisky lost to evaporation through the cask, gets as high as 12%.4 By January 2019 the distillery had doubled in size, to more than 2,000 square metres.14
Its whisky is single malt, made from malted barley.4 The barley is unpeated, apart from a two-week run of peated malt at 40 ppm every 6 months.4 In 2023 its barley came from Muntons in the UK.11,15,16 By May 2025, barley grown at Kibbutz Be'eri had been harvested and sent to maltings in Austria and Germany; the malt was later distilled at the distillery.17 The distillery filters and purifies local groundwater for its water.4 The wort, the sugary water from the mash, ferments for 60-72 hours in one of its 6 washbacks, the fermentation tanks.4 The spirit is distilled twice in copper stills, keeping a short middle cut from 80% down to 70% strength.4 The new spirit comes off sweet, grassy and medium-bodied.4
Every bottle in Peated with a vintage year.
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