THEDAILYWHISKY

By Andreas Lykke, The Daily Whisky

Woven, the Edinburgh blender founded in 2021, won its first World’s Best at the 2026 World Whiskies Awards. WXC, a Scotch-and-coffee spirit drink made with London’s Assembly Coffee, was named World’s Best Flavoured Whisky 2026. It is bottled at 44.5% ABV, non chill filtered, and carries an RRP of around £40 for 70cl. Woven also won its category with the all-English blend Experience N.22 Pastures New, and from 1 June 2026 the company runs hands-on Blending Rooms sessions at its new base, Brown’s of Leith, on the Shore.

A whisky-and-coffee bottling that legally cannot call itself whisky just won a World’s Best at the World Whiskies Awards. WXC, the collaboration between Leith blender Woven and London roaster Assembly Coffee, took World’s Best Flavoured Whisky 2026, and it is Woven’s first global title.

It did not come alone. Woven’s blended English whisky, Experience N.22 Pastures New, also picked up category honours, and the company has now moved into a new home at Brown’s of Leith with a public blending experience opening this month.

What Woven won at the 2026 World Whiskies Awards

The 2026 World Whiskies Awards were announced on 25 March at a ceremony in London, with World’s Best titles going to producers from Scotland, Japan, Australia, China, Spain and beyond.

WXC took the World’s Best Flavoured Whisky title. The judges described a nose of fresh coffee grounds, milky latte and a touch of hazelnut yogurt, with orchard fruit and lemon oils underneath, and a palate that leans into the coffee, lightly bitter and lightly sour with a clean finish.

The second win lands closer to Woven’s core trade. According to the company, Experience N.22 Pastures New won its category, the fourth year running that co-founder and whisky maker Pete Allison has taken category honours. That is a strong record for a blender that has been bottling for only a handful of years.

For Woven, the WXC result matters most. The flavour-led end of the category is arguably the liveliest part of whisky right now, and a first World’s Best in exactly that lane is a useful flag to plant.

What WXC actually is: a spirit drink, not a whisky

This is the detail worth getting right. WXC is labelled a spirit drink, not a whisky, because adding coffee disqualifies it from the legal definition of whisky. It is not a coffee liqueur either.

The blend is roughly 70% Scotch whisky and 30% cold-brew coffee, built around Assembly’s Colombian single-origin beans. There is less than 1% sugar, the sweetness coming from the coffee rather than added syrup, and it is bottled non chill filtered. Allison worked the blend with Assembly’s head of quality, Claire Wallace, over several months of trials.

WXC tasting note

Nose: fresh coffee grounds, milky latte, hazelnut, orchard fruit, lemon oils 
Palate: rich coffee, cocoa, gentle sweetness, good body, a lightly bitter edge 
Finish: clean, lingering coffee and dark chocolate 
ABV: 44.5%  
Coffee: Assembly Colombian single-origin, cold brew
Format: spirit drink, non chill filtered 
Price: RRP around £40 (70cl)

It is built to be flexible. Neat over ice, long with soda or tonic, or as the base for an Old Fashioned variant. That versatility is much of the point.

Experience N.22 Pastures New: the first all-English blend

Pastures New is a genuine first: a blended English whisky, drawn from six English producers. The component liquids come from Cotswolds, White Peak, Cooper King, Copper Rivet, Fielden and Adnams, married for 75 days in a hogshead.

England has no blending tradition to lean on, which is part of what makes the bottle interesting. There is no established culture of distilleries supplying liquid for blending as there is in Scotland, so assembling an all-English blend meant building the relationships first.

Experience N.22 Pastures New tasting note

Nose: crunchy apple, just-ripe pear, vanilla shortbread, orange zest, a hint of sandalwood 
Palate: ripe hedgerow fruit, malty cereal, chocolate, leather, honey, with rye spice from the Fielden component 
Finish: warming, herbal, gently spiced
ABV: 49.1%
Maturation: 75 days married in a hogshead
Bottles: 714
Price: RRP around £55

At 49.1%, a little water helps the orchard fruit open up. It is a limited run of 714 bottles, and it has sold out on Woven’s own site. Bottles are still available through Master of Malt, which ships internationally, so readers outside the UK can still get one.

Woven’s new home: the Blending Rooms at Brown’s of Leith

The second piece of news is a move. Woven has left the small ex-textile studio in the Biscuit Factory that was its first home and taken up residence at Brown’s of Leith, the historic warehouse building on the Shore.

The long-term plan is ambitious. The two-floor site is slated for completion in 2027 and will house Woven’s full blending operations, public blending rooms, a tasting space and a lounge bar, plus a planned bonded warehouse. Woven describes it as the largest purpose-built investment in blending infrastructure in Leith since the area’s whisky heyday in the 19th and early 20th centuries, when the port was central to taking Scotch to the world.

You do not have to wait until 2027 to visit. From 1 June 2026, the Blending Rooms experience runs as phase one. Sessions last around two hours, for groups of six to eight, on Thursdays and Fridays.

The format is hands-on. It opens with a highball at Haze, Brown’s of Leith’s coffee and spirits bar, then moves into the Blending Rooms, where guests nose and taste individual components from Woven’s flavour library, build their own blend under Allison’s guidance, then bottle and label a 100ml take-home bottle, with the option to order a larger batch afterwards. It closes with a cocktail.

Allison frames the project as reopening a craft that became hidden behind closed doors, and putting Leith back at the centre of blending. Gunnar Groves-Raines, founder of Brown’s of Leith, points to the building’s century of production on the Shore and its fit with the wider Custom Lane creative cluster.

Why this matters

Woven sources liquid from across the world and bets on flavour over provenance, which makes its operations read like a logistics puzzle in a year of tariffs and shifting shipping routes. The two wins suggest the bet is working: one in the experimental flavoured lane, one in the emerging English category.

The brand is also expanding, with new distribution arriving in France, Italy, Spain and New Zealand, so more of the range is now reachable outside the UK.

Who is this for? WXC is for the curious drinker, the coffee obsessive and anyone who treats whisky as a flavour playground rather than a heritage exercise. At around £40 it is an easy yes. Pastures New is for collectors and for anyone tracking English whisky as a category, and at £55 for a 714-bottle run it is fair. And the Blending Rooms are for makers: if you have ever wanted to stand at the bench and build a blend yourself, this is the most direct way in.

If you want to act: book a Blending Rooms session for a Thursday or Friday through Woven’s site, pick up WXC for around £40, or grab one of the remaining Pastures New bottles at Master of Malt before the 714 run is gone.

Frequently asked questions

What is Woven WXC? WXC is a spirit drink from Edinburgh blender Woven, made with London’s Assembly Coffee. It blends Scotch whisky with Colombian cold-brew coffee, roughly 70% whisky to 30% coffee, with under 1% sugar. The coffee is why it is a spirit drink rather than a whisky. It was named World’s Best Flavoured Whisky 2026.

What does WXC taste like? Expect fresh coffee grounds, milky latte and hazelnut on the nose, with orchard fruit and lemon oils underneath. The palate is coffee-forward, lightly bitter with cocoa and a gentle sweetness from the coffee itself rather than added sugar. The finish is clean. It works neat over ice, long with soda, or in an Old Fashioned.

How much does WXC cost and where can I buy it? WXC carries an RRP of around £40 for a 70cl bottle at 44.5% ABV. It is available from wovenwhisky.com, in store at Assembly Coffee, and through retailers including Master of Malt and Hard To Find Whisky. European stockists such as Dramtime carry it too, so buyers outside the UK can find it.

What is Experience N.22 Pastures New? Pastures New is Woven’s blended English whisky, drawn from six English producers: Cotswolds, White Peak, Cooper King, Copper Rivet, Fielden and Adnams. It is bottled at 49.1% ABV from a run of 714 bottles, with an RRP around £55. It is sold out on Woven’s site but still available at Master of Malt, which ships internationally.

What are Woven’s Blending Rooms at Brown’s of Leith? The Blending Rooms are a hands-on experience at Woven’s new home on the Shore in Leith, opening 1 June 2026. Two-hour sessions for groups of six to eight run on Thursdays and Fridays, letting guests build, bottle and take home their own blend with whisky maker Pete Allison. They are phase one of a larger blending facility due in 2027.

Who is Woven Whisky? Woven is an independent blender and bottler founded in 2021 by Pete Allison, Duncan McRae and Nick Ravenhall, based in Leith, Edinburgh. It sources liquid globally and focuses on flavour over provenance, bottling non chill filtered and at natural colour. Its range spans blended Scotch, an all-English blend and the coffee collaboration WXC.