Around the year 2000 we received an avalanche of sad reports about distilleries
being closed left and right. Fortunately, when the worldwide demand
for whisky
increased a few years later, mothballed distilleries were revived and new ones
were being built. Or at least enthusiastic plans to build them were made... ;-)
Arran was the last new distillery to go into production in the 20th century, but at
the end of the noughties the first whisky (or sometimes just the unmatured 'spirit')
from the first
'3d Millennium' distilleries became available. Young distilleries like
Kilchoman have already released some of their first efforts on a small scale
but
such early releases don't really count in my view. A malt whisky distillery has to be
able to deliver a good 10 or 12 years old whisky to prove they know their business.
Unlike many of their predecessors in the 17th and 18th century, most of today's
Scottish malt whisky entrepreneurs run their distilleries in a strictly legal fashion.
But that doesn't mean
that their lives are any easier. Building a new distillery from
scratch takes time, commitment and money. Lots and lots of money these days...
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The Abhainn Dearg distillery (pronounced as Aveen Jarręk, a.k.a. Red River distillery) was founded by Mark Tayburn
and hopes to produce its first spirit in 2009. It's the most Westerly of all distilleries in Scotland and is located in Uig, on the west coast of the Hebridean Isle of Lewis. Abhainn Dearg distillery aims to produce 'a true Outer Hebridean Whisky'. If all goes according to plan their first single malt will be launched at the Royal National Mod in Stornoway in 2011 - a Gaelic festival that's also known as the "Whisky Olympics". For the first time in history participants should be able to enjoy a Single Malt distilled and bottled on the Isle of Lewis. (Please note that the owners made sure to avoid the word 'whisky' in their announcement, because the spirit won't have matured long enough to legally be called whisky...) According to their website: "There will always be limited amounts of Abhainn Dearg, the aim is to produce a quality Single Malt for
those who take the trouble to visit our shores, support us via the Internet and, like the Shoeburn Distillery before us, supply local demand." (You can find the location of Abhainn Dearg on the interactive map of Scotland.) William Grant & Sons
have kept fairly quiet about their new malt whisky distillery in Girvan; Ailsa Bay. Ailsa Bay distillery is named after "Ailsa Craig", the mysterious island that lies some ten miles from the Ayrshire coast. William Grant & Sons built the new distillery because of '... the requirement generally for more malt, especially for our William Grants blend and this is where most of the stock will be used in the future. We are looking for a Speyside style malt from this Distillery similar in character to Balvenie.' So, if I remember my PR speak correctly, it's likely that the malt whisky which is distilled at Ailsa Bay won't ever be bottled as a single malt whisky. Apart from a precious two exceptions,
this was also the case with the malt whisky that was produced at WM Grant's Kininvie distillery. The last time I checked, there have been only two bottlings of Kininvie in two decades. You can find the location of Ailsa Bay on the interactive whisky map, but until a few single malt whiskies are released I won't bother to add a separate distillery profile to this site. Annandale distillery in, erm... Annandale (Dumfries & Galloway) features in Alfred Barnard's 19th century book about the distilleries of Scotland. He wrote about Annan, the capital of Annandale: 'It stands on the high road from Dumfries to Carlisle, is a royal burgh, and one of the cleanest and pleasantest towns we have seen in the Lowlands.' Annandale closed in 1919, but now, after almost a century, the closed Lowlands distillery is heading for a revival. Planning permission has been granted and Annandale has received a £150,000 grant from the UK government. David Thomson, the new owner of the derelict distillery buildings, said: "Our ambition is to create an interesting and meaningful brand around Annandale, to create a whisky drinking experience around the main parameters of single malt Scotch whisky flavour and to create an engaging visitor experience." That's all the interesting news I could gather so far - no news on actual building developments... There has been a lot of buzz about the new Blackwood distillery on the Shetland islands - but there are no 'buzzing' stills yet. The distillery that would have been the first on the shetlands was to be located near South Nesting, somewhere between Laxo and Lerwick. Some of the people involved around 2003 were Caroline Whitfield (founder and CEO) and John McDougall (master distiller). If it ever gets completed, Blackwood will be by far Scotland's northernmost distillery, but it seems that the ambitious plans that were revealed in November 2002 may have been just a tad too optimistic in hindsight. They had planned to start the actual building work on the distillery in the spring of 2003, but as far as I know they've only gotten as far as renting an office near the planned location in May 2004. They were awaiting final planning permission for a long time - but when they DID receive it, no building was done. For a few years things were silent around Blackwood, even though (unlike most other 'upstarts'), Blackwood already had a brand on the shelves. I don't know if they actually produced the stuff
themselves (yet), but there have been Blackwood gins and vodkas on shelves in the UK for some time now. They even have a wodka cream liqueur called 'Jago'. However, in May 2008
Blackwood was in the news again - but not in a good way... Several directors and staff members left Blackwood, annual accounts were several months overdue and there were some rumours about fraud. According to my
sources, the company had failed to become profitable until then, so the future of Blackwood looks grim indeed - especially because most of the business was sold to Blavod vodka. It looks like Blackwood distillery was a
short-lived project with little chance for revival. Daftmill has been operating relatively 'under the radar' since I first heard of them in 2004. The Daftmill distillery is a converted meal mill (apparently built in 1809) that uses un-peated malt, two stainless steel washbacks, one 2,500 liter wash still and one 1,500 liter spirit still; both fired indirectly. The maximum production capacity of the Daftmill distillery is a mere 20,000 liters of alcohol per year, so they're even smaller than their Lowland cousin Bladnoch. The conversion from meal mill to distillery took place between 2003 and 2005. With the exception of building the stills and mash tun (those were made by Forsyth's of Rothes), all the work to convert the mill to a distillery was done by men who lived within a five mile radius of Daftmill Farm. The owners consider Daftmill to be a Lowland distillery; they feel the border between the Lowlands and the Highlands runs through Dundee. However, in my book that would make Deanston, Glengoyne, Glenturret and Tullibardine Lowland malt whisky distilleries as well. I can feel as Scottish as I want, that doesn't change the fact that my passport maintains that I'm Dutch. So, I'll classify Daftmill as an Eastern Highlander for now. In May 2008, Francis informed me about the progress on Daftmill; The address is Daftmill Farm, Cupar, Fife (telephone 01337 810 732) and visits can be made by special arrangement. You can find more information on www.daftmill.com. The first 'Glengyle' distillery was built in 1872 or 1873 by William Mitchell. He built Glengyle after a quarrel with his brother John prompted him to leave Springbank. The Campbeltown distillery operated for half a century, until it was finally closed in 1925. Finally? Well, apparently not, because around the start of the new millennium Springbank (still owned by the Mitchell family) announced its plans to rebuild Glengyle on the original site. The production buildings at Glengyle were pretty much restored by the end of 2002. During the first half of 2003 the buildings were fitted with a mash tun, stills and a spent grains removal system (among other things) by the main contractor, Forsyth's of Rothes. The mash tun arrived in April 2003 and
according to Distillery Manager Frank McHardy the wooden washbacks (built by Arthur Brown of Dufftown) were in place by September 2003. The rest of the necessary equipment (mill, dresser, dust extractor, cooling tower,
pipework, condensers, milling system, electric supply, pumps & valves, etc.) was installed just a few months later and Glengyle was officially opened by Winnifred Ewing and Hedley Wright on March 25, 2004. The
first 'whisky' (Kilkerran) wasn't bottled until 2007 - and it will probably be a while before it's widely available. In October 2008, the Malt Maniacs E-zine featured an interview by Bert Bruyneel with Duncan Taylor's Euan Shand. Euan is one of the driving forces behind the new Huntly distillery that is planned in, erm... Huntly. When asked why they chose to go after a new distillery instead of buying one of the many mothballed distilleries, Euan replied: "I believe everything is for sale at the right price, however, in this industry most of the multinationals would rather close a distillery down than sell. With an exception of course. Building a new distillery is the best thing for Duncan Taylor as its the only way forward. Whisky companies no longer sell new fill to us minions and if they do its teaspooned and worse any mature cask stock that comes on the market is pretty dire stuff these days. Thank goodness Duncan Taylor has sufficiently large stocks of casked whisky to give the company time to get the distillery built and producing as some day the company will no longer have enough stock to survive if the industry keeps behaving the way it does. We've a good few years under our belts yet!" Of course, that was a few weeks before the credit crisis really broke loose, so those bold plans may have been postponed. The status of the Huntly website by the beginning of 2011 did not suggest a lot of activity yet. Kilchoman was the first new distillery to be built on Islay for well over a century. Here's a distillery project that seems to be inspired just as much by the touristic opportunities of the area around the famous Saint Andrews and Kingsbarns golf links as by the desire to produce aqua viteae. I'll have
to collect some more data for a proper write-up, but for now I'd like to point you towards their web site on www.kingsbarnsdistillery.com. Kininvie was nothing more than a 'dependance' of the Balvenie malt whisky distillery, which produced generic malt whisky for blending purposes between 1990 and 2010. After 20 years the owners (William Grant & Sons) decided to close Kininvie because the new (even larger and more modern) Ailsa Bay distillery was perfectly able to produce the generic type of malt whisky that is used mostly in blends. You can find more details about the history and equipment of the Kininvie 'distillery' on the full Kininvie distillery profile. James Thomson (formerly of Scotchwhisky.com - which is now owned by Sukhinder Singh) was closely involved with the Ladybank project in the past - but I'm not sure if that's still the case because the blog on the website hasn't been updated since 2006. The whole project has been set up as a club; members can invest in the distillery (located in the 'Kingdom of Fife') and reserve their own stock. Here's a quote from the site; 'The Club intends, by focusing on very small production quantities, to create one of the world's greatest single malt whiskies. By reducing yields so that we can always improve quality, and by distributing our whisky only to members and special guests who visit the distillery, Ladybank will add a new dimension to the world of Scotch Malt Whisky production.' Yeah, well... It seems the club didn't quite reach their goal yet. Unlike many ambitious distillery projects on this page, the Loch Ewe "distillery" (slash hotel) of John Clotworthy
has already been producing microscopic amounts of spirit since 2006. Because of that feat, it was actually listed on the main distillery page for a few years. However, according to their own web site, by 2011
only 3 casks of Loch Ewe malt whisky
were maturing somewhere. Most of the freshly distilled spirit is sold and consumed very soon afterwards, so it never has the chance to evolve into whisky. This distillery has a bit of a weird name, if you ask me - but then again I'm not Gaelic... I haven't included all the Scotch whisky projects that are in development in this list; some of the beautiful dreamscapes painted by enthusiastic entrepreneurs and borderline embezzlers are just a tad too 'imaginary' at this point. Take the Mellerstain distillery in the 'borders' region, for example. According to some vague reports in 2007 production was supposed to start in 2008, but that was the last we've heard of it. So, this list isn't exhaustive - I've tried to include only fairly 'solid' information. I've received some information about Barra, Falkirk, Lindores, Parkmore and Stal Thorabhaig, but couldn't verify all the data, so they're not included on this list yet. The founder of the Prąban na Linne distillery on Skye passed away in December 2010, so it doesn't seem likely that those plans will be picked up by somebody else. The Octomore distillery (connected to Bruichladdich) seems more solid, but since Bruichladdich also released a heavily peated 'bastard' malt (well, technically) from their own stills under that name (the first 'futures' were bottled in May 2008) I'll take a conservative stance on that; maybe a separate profile will be warranted later. Quite a few of these are probably just 'pipe dreams'. They - and others - will be added to this page once I've received 'solid' information. Do you know of any information that should be added? Drop me a note... |
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New whisky distillery projects in Scotland
Scroll down for some information about each of the distillery projects mentioned here.
Sadly, I don't have pictures
for most of these distilleries, but I've received the pictures below of the
progress at the Red River distillery from Ian Besch shortly after they were taken in September 2008.
That was right before the credit crisis really took off, so it could mean that progress since that time
has slowed down. Nevertheless, at least there is some activity. Looking at the design of the still,
founder Marko Tayburn will be producing a distinctive type of Scotch whisky on the island, due
North of the Isle of Skye. (www.isle-of-lewis.com)
Meanwhile, keep in mind that I've focused on the malt whisky distilleries in Scotland here.
Pioneers have been trying to produce malt whisky in many other countries around the world,
but for a long time, only the Japanese seemed to be able to
match the quality of the Scots.
However, that has changed, especially during the past decade. I'm happy to report that they
are making some very fine whiskies these days in places like India, Tasmania and Taiwan.
More information about those distilleries will be added to the 'deviant drams' section.
Meanwhile,
I'll try to keep track of the distillation developments in Scotland as best I can.
However, that's not always as easy as it sounds. Providing accurate information isn't always
in the best interest of whisky
entrepreneurs - and they often have better things to do than
answer curious questions. So, if you have news about new projects, please drop me a note.
Abhainn Dearg
Ailsa Bay
Annandale
Barra
Blackwood
Daftmill
Falkirk
Glengyle
Huntly
Kilchoman
Kingsbarns
Kininvie
Ladybank
Lindores
Loch Ewe
Mellerstain
Octomore
Parkmore
Roseisle
Stal Thorabhaig
April 2013 - Despite falling Scotch exports, Diageo plans to build a new 'super distillery'.
November 2011 - I've seen a press release about a new 'Lakes Malt distillery' in Cumbria.
February 2011 - Until recently I hadn't heard yet about the Kingsbarns distillery in Fife.
January 2011 - After a long silence, the Annandale distillery is ready for the builders.
November 2010 - William Grant have closed Kininvie in favour of the Ailsa Bay distillery.
October 2010 - Diageo's Roseisle distillery is - sort of - officially opened.
December 2009 - the credit crisis may have been the last nail in the Ladybank coffin.
May 2009 - The Abhainn Dearg distillery (Red River) just launched their official website.
February 2009 - I've received confirmation of progress at Red River on the Isle of Lewis.
June 2008
- We haven't heard from Mellerstain for a while. That doesn't bode well...
May 2008 - Blackwood (supposed to be the first Shetland distillery) is in financial trouble.
April 2008 - The Annandale Distillery Company received a £150,000 government grant.
March 2008 - Diageo is still waiting for planning permission for their Roseisle distillery.
February 2008 - Duncan Taylor's plans for their own 'Huntly' distillery are taking shape.
September 2007 - WM Grant's new 'Ailsa Bay' distillery in Girvan went in production.
December 2006 - the new blog on the Ladybank website went quiet - not a good sign.
November 2005
- After delays, Kilchoman has now (finally) distilled their very first spirit.
Not all of the distillery projects listed here may make it, so I felt that a page
dedicated to the tracking a few of the the major
developments could be useful.
The white box at the right shows all new malt whisky distillery projects
that I know of.
However, I fear that not all of those projects have the same chances of success. Making
a precise estimation about the odds of survival is difficult, because it's not easy to get all
the necessary data. Nevertheless, I've used
my amazing powers of prognostication
and
some animal entrails to try and predict if the project will eventually produce whisky.
I've used some simple colour coding to indicate the likelihood of anyone actually sampling
a single malt whisky one day that was distilled there. Purple names indicate projects that
are not yet in production, or waiting for further funding and/or planning permission.
The colour of these
links indicates the
likelihood of the
distillery releasing
a mature single
malt whisky in the
foreseeable future.
Colour codes:
Orange: likely
Purple: unclear
Brown: unlikely
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DD Overview |
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