The award-winning single malt whisky was launched in 2004 and was the first distilled in Wales for over 100 years.

[5] Penderyn contains two Welsh words:[6] Welsh historian David Watkin Jones (bardic name 'Dafydd Morganwg')[7] documented in his 1874 Hanes Morganwg (History of Glamorgan)[8] that, in 1666, one "Mayber" built a small charcoal-fired furnace near Llygad Cynon, the source of the River Cynon, in an uninhabited place in the parish of Penderyn (ym mhlwyf Penderyn).

However, the furnace was successful: it produced on average a ton of iron a week, which was taken to Brecon for finishing (forging), where it would have enjoyed "the advantage of proximity to English markets".

[9] At some point Penderyn became an agricultural village, which supplied the ever-growing needs of the nearby local market town of Aberdare.

Dic Penderyn (Richard Lewis, 1807/8–1831), the central figure of the Merthyr Rising of 1831, was not from the village but was from Aberavon.