A distillery is celebrating after two of its locally-crafted whiskies were recognised at a leading industry competition.

The Foundry in Canterbury, which is a brewery run by husband-and-wife team Jon and Jodie Mills, received two national honours at the 2024 World Whiskies Awards.

Their Streetlight Single Malt won gold in the England cask single grain category, while their Capstan Single Malt picked up gold in the England new make and young spirit category.

Mr Mills, who is the firm’s distiller, said: “We’re absolutely bowled over to find out a few weeks ago that both have won gold.

“But more importantly both have won category winner, and category winner essentially means best in England for the two categories.

“There are some big whiskey distilleries in England now, exporting all over the world, and there's little old us, and we've won two of these categories. So that now puts us forward to what is essentially the Oscars of the whisky world.

“This month we will go to the Whiskey Magazine Awards in London and we will be sharing the room with the biggest whiskey houses in the world, we're up against Japan, Scotland, Ireland for the best of the best on the planet.”

Streetlight is the distillery’s first attempt at whiskey, and it believed to be the first example of the spirit being produced within the walls of the cathedral city.

It is currently on sale in a limited release of 429 bottles, all individually numbered and signed by Mr Mills, and retails at £70.

The whiskey is crafted using English barley and wild yeast sourced from the local St Augustine’s Abbey, before being aged in a bourbon barrel imported from the United States to produce what the distillery describes as a “full-bodied whiskey with deep honey and vanilla undertones”.

Reflecting on the recognition for his work, Mr Mills told KentOnline he hopes it proves that quality spirits can be produced in Kent and that in can help encourage further food-and-drink tourism in the county.

He said: “I have made over 250 beers, we make seven gins, we make rum – we won a global award for our rum last year, which we just thought was a bit of a fluke almost.

“If I've ever had a chip on my shoulder or imposter syndrome, it'll be for whiskey. We put so much into it, we were just looking at it for three years, occasionally tasting, hoping that you've done a really, really good job.

“So to get that kind of feedback and that kind of recognition, essentially already on a global level because the judges are the top judges from all over the world, it's massive to us.

“I don’t even imagine that we will win anything, but if we do that could bring visitors, that could be so huge it brings visitors to the county and Canterbury because whiskey is a big product in the world.

“If you're in whiskey magazines as the best of the best it could be really exciting.”