Isle of Cider is preparing to produce a new spirit made predominantly from Manx-grown ingredients, with owner Phil Jolley aiming to create a product in the style of an American bourbon.

Named ‘Mr Jolley’s Amaizeing Manx Liquor’, the spirit uses wheat and maize grown on the Isle of Man, alongside water from Green Mann Spring.

Mr Jolley, who has held permission to distil spirits for around a year, said the latest venture was the result of several years of developing the business and working towards producing spirits from scratch.

‘The ultimate goal was to get into spirits, but getting there was always going to be a challenge with experience and budget constraints,’ he said.

Over the past five years, Mr Jolley has worked to put Isle of Cider in a position to expand into distilling, with the business initially using neutral grain spirit blended with spring water to create its vodka base before developing a range of flavoured vodkas and Manx Moonshine.

The latest project represents a further step, with Mr Jolley building his own distilling equipment rather than purchasing a ready-made still.

‘This year, rather than buy an off-the-shelf still, I built one from scratch myself over a long period of time, buying parts and gradually building it to what it is now,’ he said.

The equipment comprises a 38-litre pot still and a 50-litre condenser, which uses mains water for cooling. Mr Jolley believes it may be the smallest still on the island, making it suitable for producing limited batches aimed at the collectors' market.

The idea for Mr Jolley’s Amaizeing Manx Liquor came partly from the challenge of finding an available name and partly from the ingredients used in the recipe.

‘One was finding a name that hadn’t already been taken which is always tricky. So I used my own name in the title,’ he said.

He added that the name also reflected the use of maize, with the spirit based on recipes containing more than 51 per cent corn.

The project has brought together several Manx businesses, with the aim of sourcing as many ingredients as possible from the island.

Allansons Farm is supplying the maize, while Laxey Glen Mills is cracking the wheat for production. Peter Kanneen of Kaneen's Brewery has contributed dark malt barley to help develop the spirit's flavour, and Green Mann Spring is providing the water used in the fermentation process.

The longer-term ambition is to use ingredients sourced entirely from the Isle of Man, although Mr Jolley said a local source of malted barley was still needed.

The first distillation is scheduled for Tuesday (October 13), with bottling and ageing expected to follow shortly afterwards.

Mr Jolley said customers would be able to reserve bottles from individual batches and decide how long they wanted the spirit to age before taking delivery.

The price has yet to be confirmed, as it will depend on the yield from each batch.

To find out more about Isle of Cider, you can visit https://www.isleofcidershop.im/