Daniel Szor of Cotswolds Distillery on making whisky: "Do we live to work, or work to live?"

Saturday, 01 November 2025 at 12:00

Daniel Szor (62), originally from New York, never quite found his footing in the big American city and later lived in Paris and London. But he lost his heart to the Cotswolds—and to whisky. The former businessman founded Cotswolds Distillery, and things have gone rather more smoothly than he ever expected.

This interview was previously published on the Dutch version of Whisky Monkeys and was therefore conducted earlier

For years, Szor was more into the world of wine and the good life Paris had to offer—or as he puts it, “joie de vivre.” He sold derivatives (which didn’t make him happy) and got his joy from “war & wine” trips he took once a year with his childhood friend Dave. Fast-forward to 2024, and whisky has been the driving force in his life for more than a decade.

With multiple awards to his name, several whisky releases, a team of over 30, and an expanded visitor center, he still has to pinch himself. After working with a coach, he decided at 52 to completely change course. He’s reaping the rewards now.

Do we live to work, or work to live?

“I’m really happy to share this story with people. (…) There’s simply a list of things I’ve achieved that may not be financial, but give life more meaning.”

For a long time, Szor lived to work rather than the other way around. “After all, I was selling hot air,” he muses at Hotel TwentySeven in Amsterdam. Even though he always complained, it took him a long time to dare to follow a new path.

“It’s just nice to know you truly did that once in your life. Otherwise, it would have been a bit sad to just work, work, work until you could retire because you’d made some money…”

- Daniel Szor

Three different drinks in one glass

His love for whisky was sparked after an evening with the Scotch Malt Whisky Society in 2001.

“It was just amazing that every cask tasted different. And they also taught me—because I knew nothing about whisky—the whole concept of cask strength. You add a little water and it changes. You add a bit more water and it changes again. It’s like three different drinks in the same glass.”

- Daniel Szor

The influence of Mr. Miyagi

Szor decided to attend regular whisky tastings with his good friend Jean-Marc Bellier (“I always call him my Mr. Miyagi”), who ran the shop La Maison du Whisky in Paris. It was as if there were a whisky cupid at work, because New York cast its spell too—his buddy Dave fell under the charm of the water of life as well. The war & wine trips were promptly rebadged as whisky journeys—and where better to do that than Scotland?

Jim McEwan’s defining tour

After visiting Campbeltown and Arran, the childhood friends’ second “study year” led them to Bruichladdich, and after a tour by none other than Jim McEwan, there was no turning back. Szor laughs when he recalls that Bruichladdich had been told two Americans were coming.

“Maybe they thought of a quick sale, since they sold casks. So Jim comes out and takes us on a tour, and within ten minutes he’s sold us a cask. We walked out into the rain for a quick tour and came back out with a cask of whisky—which we hadn’t planned on.”

“I remember it was £675 and I thought: how on earth am I going to pay for that? I wasn’t earning much then…”

- Daniel Szor

That’s when Szor truly fell head over heels for Scotch whisky, and he followed everything Bruichladdich did. The culture, the people, and the seamless way everything fit together—he’d never experienced anything like it. The emptiness of New York paled in the warmth of Scotland. He can’t stop talking about Bruichladdich.

“They really focused on a sense of place. They made Islay a real place. It’s not just a small island with a bunch of distilleries and smoky whiskies. It was about people. Especially Jim—he was one of the most romantic men in the world. He could talk to you about what it meant to be there, and what Bruichladdich meant to the town, because it was the only distillery—now Kilchoman as well—that matured and bottled on the island and so on.”

- Daniel Szor

Reflecting on life

When Szor was living in London and his wife fell ill, he began to reflect on life and wanted to spend more time with his beloved. He’d come to hate New York, and after Paris, London—where they were living by then—also proved not to be the holy grail.

A holiday home in the Cotswolds

They bought a little holiday cottage in the Cotswolds, where the couple would spend every Friday night through Sunday. Away from city life, with time and attention for each other, in a beautiful, peaceful setting.

“I’ve always found the Cotswolds so magical. It’s a different kind of beauty. It’s not the austere beauty of Scotland. It’s not high mountains and cliffs and pounding surf. It’s more like an impressionist painting. It’s just very gentle.”

- Daniel Szor

In the summer of 2012, after a few glasses of wine (“maybe that gave the dream some courage”), the farmer was out in the fields growing barley. “I sat here looking at the barley and thought: maybe we could build a whisky distillery and make whisky with local barley.”

The man, with no track record in the whisky world, decided to slowly but surely chase the dream. He received some remarkable help. “I knew just one person in the entire whisky business, and that was the man who sold me the cask,” he laughs. When he went back for advice, it wasn’t Jim anymore, but Mr. McEwan.

Jim Swan in a single bottle

Help soon arrived in the form of Jim Swan and Harry Coburn, who helped bring the dream to life. Swan introduced the concept of STR casks and taught Szor the magic of wood. It’s a great pity he’s no longer with us.

On the table at Hotel TwentySeven stands a bottle of Cotswolds Founder’s Reserve. Szor points at it.

“That is Jim Swan in a single bottle. This is 100% STR, so it’s like having him in a bottle. Yes, I think he’d be truly proud. I’m also very good friends with his two daughters. When he passed away, they held a memorial at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, and it was amazing how many people came. Turns out his kids had no idea how famous their father was.”

- Daniel Szor

Patrick van Zuidam as an idol

These days, Ichiro Akuto and Patrick van Zuidam are good friends of Szor’s. In terms of background, van Zuidam and he are opposites: Van Zuidam grew up in his father’s distillery, while Szor merely nurtured a dream. Now they share the same stage at awards shows, with whisky as the great unifier.

“He’s my idol,” says the American. He’s in awe of how efficiently van Zuidam operates. He produces twice as much spirit, yet does it with just fifteen people, whereas Szor has a little over thirty. “Millstone is one of my favorite whiskies in the world. I could drink his whisky all day.” — Daniel Szor

Szor simply acts out of passion and just got on with it. When he started making whisky, he was only the third player in England. Now he’s the leading figure and English whisky has become a byword—something he’d never dared to dream.

There is pressure around the clock too, he admits.

“It’s all gone far beyond what we expected—this new distillery, making more whisky, and having a bigger, more global ambition.”

- Daniel Szor

One day, he hopes that when people hear “Cotswolds,” they won’t think first of the place in England, but of his whisky brand. Just as Range Rover is unmistakably tied to England, he wants his whisky to become synonymous with the Cotswolds.

Favorite whisky: Cotswolds Signature
Number of whisky glasses per week: 1–2
Most fun bottle owned: “Cotswolds Signature. It brings me the most joy.”
Most expensive whisky ever tasted: MacPhail's 1945
Whisky country to watch: England.
Whisky you wish you’d created: Millstone.
Least favorite whisky: “I haven’t yet found a German whisky I like. Sorry, Germany.”