Meet the woman redefining English single malt whisky
Meet the woman redefining English single malt whisky: Lorna Chase, co-founder of Rosemaund Farm Distillery in Herefordshire. She is building field-to-bottle spirits rooted in real farming, patient cask aging, and a vivid sense of place on the estate her family reclaimed in 2024 after selling Chase Distillery to Diageo. For collectors who prize provenance as much as postcode, her work shows how a working farm can become a luxury asset in liquid form.
Key Takeaways
- Lorna Chase helped build Chase Distillery before reclaiming the family's Herefordshire farm distillery in 2024.
- Rosemaund produces English single malt from regeneratively grown Maris Otter barley, estate water, and on-site cask maturation.
- The Orchard Cut, a 10-year-old ex-bourbon release, is framed as the distillery's true taste of English spring.
- Film director Guy Ritchie serves as a creative collaborator and investor, not merely a celebrity endorser.
- Early specialist tastings praise the inaugural 10-year-old as a serious, distinctly English addition to the category.
Who Is the Woman Redefining English Single Malt?
At the center of Rosemaund Farm Distillery is Lorna Chase, co-founder and marketing director—a brand builder with a track record scaling British food-and-drink names globally. Born in Harrogate in 1987, she grew up on a North Yorkshire farm where seasons dictated daily life rather than a nine-to-five routine.
After Harper Adams University and a formative stint at Tyrrells Crisps, she joined Chase Distillery's founding team in 2008 as global marketing manager. She helped turn a small Herefordshire start-up into one of the UK's most admired craft-spirits producers before Diageo acquired the business in 2021—a deal reported near £70 million though never officially confirmed.
Why Did She Buy Back the Rosemaund Estate?
For Chase, the sale was a professional peak that also felt like losing part of her identity. The redemption arc arrived in 2024, when she repurchased the original farm and distillery at Rosemaund with her husband Harry and brother-in-law James, relaunching it as a separate whisky venture.
Rosemaund sits in Herefordshire's agricultural heart, ringed by apple orchards and red barley soils. It is a genuine farm distillery: heritage Maris Otter barley is grown regeneratively on land with its own water source, and whisky matures in converted farm buildings—an estate model that echoes the field-to-table ethos prized in Luxury Real Estate & Dream Homes.
What Whiskies Is Rosemaund Releasing Now?
Chase oversees story, sustainability, and product integrity across every touchpoint. The debut Rosemaund Farm Distillery 10 Year Old Single Malt English Whisky draws from bourbon and sherry casks filled between 2014 and 2016—unusually mature by English standards, with orchard fruit and soft spice.
The Orchard Cut shifts the register greener and fresher. This 10-year-old English single malt comes entirely from ex-bourbon casks and is conceived as a bright, orchard-led portrait of English spring. "We're not looking for the darkest or richest whisky," Chase says. "We're searching for the one that feels most alive."
How Is She Changing a Male-Dominated Category?
Beside the Chase family stands filmmaker Guy Ritchie—not as a badge-on celebrity, but as a creative collaborator who invested capital and designed the Wild Kitchen feasting tables. As a female entrepreneur in a traditionally male industry, Chase brings empathy and a modern voice to a project favoring provenance over scale.
Her hope is that a new generation stays open-minded about whisky and finds an English single malt that genuinely tastes of the farm it came from. For authoritative context on the distillery's philosophy, see the full profile in Robb Report.