Penderyn Whisky Distillery Tour, Llandudno, November 2025

In a change to our regular programming, we visited a whiskey distillery tour!

As part of a birthday treat for the in-laws, we took a trip along the North Wales coast to Llandudno to the Penderyn Whiskey Distillery to partake in one of their tours. Not something we’d usually be into as we don’t drink whiskey, but it was something different to experience.

Penderyn have 3 distilleries in Wales and they all offer tours and drinks masterclasses, and Llandudno is the smallest of them. It’s also the closest to home and I doubt we’d get the in-laws in the car for a 3 hour drive down to the Swansea or Brecon Beacons, so Llandudno it is. The distillery is located just a short walk from the seafront, tucked away behind some houses on Lloyd Street and has it’s own car park too, which is free for tour guests and anyone visiting the shop.

The Llandudno facility is set in The Old Board School House from the 1880s. They’ve even managed to keep a lot of the period features and rooms in tact, the original parquet flooring and tiling, whilst adding a modern extension to the building to house the gift shop. It does look great.

The cost of a distillery tour in Penderyn’s Llandudno distillery is between £5 for 14-17 year olds and up to £15 for adults, depending on date and time selected. We paid £13.50 each for 4 adults, which includes a tour that lasts approximately an hour plus some tasters in the bar afterwards. And don’t worry if you’re driving as they’ve got you covered. Not with breathalysers and police radars, but they’ll give you a miniature to take home instead of trying some from the bar. Up to date pricing and full booking info for Penderyn Llandudno or the other distilleries can be found on the Penderyn Whisky website.

The tour begins in a room detailing the history of Penderyn Whiskey, information about North Wales, the Great Orme and surrounding area with details of the production, the stills used and the people involve. All of this is on boards that flow and spiral around the room, intertwined with models of a castle, the school and a full sized Mountain Goat.. There was also a screen which wasn’t on during our visit.

After a few minutes in the pre-show room, we met our tour guide, Barbara, who was incredibly knowledgable about the facility and all the processes involved. She lead us though into the main distillery room where we’re taken through the process from start to finish.

Sorry, no pictures or video allowed in the distillery!

We were given some of the different kinds of barely to sniff, explained the differences in using peated and regular barley, showed us around the machines that separate the powder from the husk, the giant vats used to mix and how often the process takes place, detailed to us the measurements of how many tonnes of grain and water they get through, what they do with the waste and much much more. There are a few screens around the room too, which offer a little more info on the processes. It was all quite interesting stuff.

There was another opportunity to smell some of the liquids created in the process. This time it was a bottle of liquid taken out early in the process, which had a very strong scent to it. Later on, we were given our first taster, but not a fun one. You’re allowed a quick sample of some of the liquid when it’s at its peak alcohol percentage. Don’t worry, it’s not a shot. They spray the back of your hand so you can taste how potent it is at that phase of the distilling process. Strong stuff.

Penderyn Llandudno is one of the only places in the world that still uses a copper Faraday Still, designed by David Faraday (who, yes, is a descendant of Michael Faraday). Our guide talked us through the process of the still, the different levels and plates used, and the point at which the whiskey is extracted to give it it’s own unique flavour.

The final liquid is pumped into massive vats and shipped off to the Brecon Distillery to be finished, aged, bottled and packaged.

The next step of the Penderyn Distillery tour was about how the drinks are flavoured, which I found really interesting. Not sure how I thought whiskey was flavoured, but I didn’t think it was by leaving it in barrels that other drinks had aged in. Turns out that’s exactly what they do. They buy used barrels from vineyards, American bourbon barrels, fortified wines and the like, then add the whiskey in and leave for a number of years for it to extract the flavours that the previous occupant of the barrel had soaked into the wood. Clever stuff.

All barrels are meticulously checked to see if they can be used, and there were some examples of barrel wood for you to see how they look after use. I didn’t think I’d be interested in the lifecycle of a whisky barrel or how many times it can be used, but there you go. Something new!

Before leaving the tour they showed us the line-up of all the limited edition runs of whiskey that Penderyn had produced, each with a nod to an important Welsh figure, place or event, including Wrexham F/C., Rugby, Dylan Thomas Bryn Terfel, Patagonia, there were many to see.

Up to the bar, where we could take a seat and each person could enjoy tasters of any 2 drinks in the Penderyn arsenal. Whilst it is primarily a whisky producer, they do have Gin, Vodka and Rum in their catalogue too, so those were available. The room itself was incredibly posh. How they’d managed to keep the skeleton of the year 5 classroom and add the modern décor without it looking wrong or forced was great. The back wall was a glass cabinet filled with bottles and packaging, the bar was the same. Filled with more examples of the Penderyn limited runs and current choices, including the Llandudno distillery’s own distilled whiskey: Serpent’s Tears.

The tables were along the centre of the room and could easily accommodate 20 or so comfortably. Each table had a small glass of water with a pipette for those who like a drop of water in their whisky, which apparently changes the flavour greatly! Our small party tried a few of the whisky options and some of the flavoured gins. They were even kind enough to give you a small taster of some of the drinks before you decided which you wanted. I gladly accepted my driver’s miniature of their “Five” vodka, which I’m saving for a Christmas tipple.

For a whiskey lover, you could spend a fortune in the Penderyn gift shop (a bit like me in the Lego store). They had the limited blends and their basic ranges all available, vodka, gins, and miniatures, with some pricey options in there too! They also had a few merchandise items. Sadly no fridge magnet, but we did pick up a pin badge. There were glasses, jugs, keyrings, hats and even a Penderyn Christmas stocking available.

Pros and cons of our tour. We went on a random Sunday in November, and the weather was cooler but not freezing, but out of season for Llandudno. As it was a Sunday, the biggest disappointment for us was that the distillery wasn’t running. If we’d have known that it wasn’t running we might have picked a different day to visit, and I don’t think that was mentioned anywhere during the booking process, but worth looking into if that something you want to see.

On the plus side, we were the only people on the tour today, so we had all of our tour guides attention and information imparted on us, and she was incredibly knowledgeable and helpful, even making the trip back upstairs to the bar to get another sample to ensure the father-in-law was making the right purchase in the gift shop.

All in all it was a fun morning out. Not my typical idea of a great day out, but something different and interesting. The venue was great and we got lots of information out of it. Shame it wasn’t working that day, but the fact that we had the tour to ourselves was worth it.

Like I’ve said, I’m not a whisky drinker but learning about the processes involved was fun. I’d imagine any tour is only as good as the tour guide and Barbara was great. She was even kind enough to let us leave the car in the car park while we strolled into Llandudno to get something to eat.

I know its a whiskey distillery tour, but a small cafe with a few tables, serving tea/coffee and cakes would have gone down a treat.

After the tour we were starving. We went to the Kings Head pub just behind the Great Orme Tramway Station for a Sunday roast. Can’t recommend the place enough. The food was lovely and massive portions too! Really good quality and the gravy was top notch. Might have to go back for another!