Many Hands: Cooper King and Spirit of Yorkshire's Blended Malt Whisky

Many Hands is Yorkshire's first blended malt whisky, and it exists because of a broken still rather than a marketing plan. Cooper King Distillery and Spirit of Yorkshire Distillery, near neighbours in North Yorkshire, have brought their whiskies together into one bottle for the first time, and the story behind it is as interesting as what is in the glass.

How a broken still led to Yorkshire's first blended malt

In 2021, a fault in Cooper King's Tasmanian copper still forced a nine-month pause in production, threatening a gap in future stock. Spirit of Yorkshire Distillery, based ten miles away at Hunmanby on the Yorkshire coast, stepped in and distilled spirit to Cooper King's own recipe, so production could continue while the still was out of action. Four years of maturation later, that spirit has been married with Cooper King's own whisky to create Many Hands.

The spirit was filled across four cask types sourced from Kentucky's MB Roland Distillery: dark-fired and first-fill bourbon, rye whiskey and corn whiskey. Eight casks of Spirit of Yorkshire's whisky were married with eight casks of Cooper King's own, matched cask type for cask type.

What's in the glass

On the nose, expect honeycomb, peach cobbler and blackcurrant leaf. The palate turns more savoury: biscuit, toasted cashews and cracked black pepper, with warmth from the American whiskey casks carrying through into a finish of toasted rye bread, butter and honey. In our view, it is a whisky that wears its dual provenance well; each distillery's character stays distinct within the blend rather than blurring into something generic. Bottled at 48% Alc., non-chill filtered, with natural colour, from a release of 1,922 hand-filled and individually numbered bottles.

A whisky built on goodwill

What strikes me most about Many Hands is not the tasting notes, it is the reason the whisky exists at all. Spirit of Yorkshire did not step in because a joint release made commercial sense; they stepped in because a neighbouring distillery was in trouble and they could help. That is the kind of collaboration that is genuinely heartwarming to see, and it says something good about the English whisky community as a whole. Distilleries here compete for the same shelf space and the same customers, yet when it counted, two of them chose cooperation over self-interest.

Who is this for

Many Hands suits whisky drinkers who enjoy tracing a spirit's story as much as its flavour, and who already enjoy a bit of savoury spice and American cask character. Each bottle carries a QR code linking to the full technical breakdown, so it rewards a closer look. It is a strong choice for anyone who already has Cooper King or Filey Bay bottles on their shelf, or for a talking-point dram at a whisky club tasting.

Price and availability

Available from Digital Distiller. Only 1,922 bottles were made, so this is one to move on if the story and the cask profile appeal to you.

Buy Cooper King Many Hands Whisky

Visit the distilleries behind the bottle

If the collaboration behind this bottle has you curious about either distillery in person, both run guided tours ten miles apart on the same patch of Yorkshire that produced this whisky.

Book a Cooper King Distillery Tour Book a Spirit of Yorkshire Distillery Tour

Many hands make light work, as the saying goes, and in this case they also made a genuinely distinctive whisky.

Explore more from Cooper King and Spirit of Yorkshire

We carry the full range from both distilleries behind this collaboration. Browse Cooper King Distillery, or explore Spirit of Yorkshire and Filey Bay Whisky.

Alex Murray DipWSET

Founder, Digital Distiller

Alex spent more than a decade working at leading wine and spirit merchants Berry Bros. & Rudd and Waitrose Cellar before founding Digital Distiller, the UK's specialist English spirits retailer. He holds the WSET Diploma (DipWSET), one of the highest academic qualifications available in the wine and spirits industry.

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