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On The Rapid Rise Of New Scottish Distilleries

Editor’s Note: We here at The Whiskey Wash are thrilled to announce legendary Scotch whisky writer Charles MacLean is joining our digital ranks with occasional contributions. 

There have been three significant eras of distillery building in Scotland. The first was the decade following the passing of the Excise Act of 1823 – the Act of Parliament which made it possible for small distillers to make good whisky at a reasonable price, and which laid the foundations of the modern whisky industry. Between 1824 and 1834, no fewer than 260 distillers took out licenses. Many had previously been distilling outside the law, all were small operations, and most businesses failed after only a few years. But 20 distilleries established during the decade are still in operation.

The second period of dramatic expansion was during the 1890s, when 40 new distilleries were commissioned (24 of them on Speyside), many of them built by blending houses to supply malt for their burgeoning trade. Nineteen of these are still in operation, 16 of them on Speyside.

The third Scotch distillery boom era was between 1955 and 1975, during which 24 new distilleries were commissioned and many more expanded and modernized. All but six of these are still in production.

new Scottish distilleries
The grounds of the Kilchoman distillery (image via Kilchoman)

Coming into the present

The present Scotch distillery boom is turning out to be unprecedented in terms of the growth in distilling capacity in Scotland. Since 2004, 21 new distilleries have opened, bringing the total number of operating malt distilleries to 111, capable of producing 381.5 million litres of pure alcohol (LPA) per annum. In addition to this, 42 further distilleries are currently proposed – so far as I can ascertain; the number grows monthly!

Some of the newcomers are small, privately owned units sited on farms and growing their own barley. Leading examples are Daftmill, Kilchoman, and Ballindalloch Distilleries.

The Cuthbert brothers, whose family have farmed Daftmill in Fife for six generations, converted an old meal mill between 2003-2005, and combine distilling up to 65,000 LPA per annum with farming. Their whisky has not yet been released.

Kilchoman on Islay, the brainchild of Anthony Wills, is also located within converted buildings at Rockside Farm. It opened in 2005, and its whisky is doing so well that capacity was doubled to 200,000 LPA per annum this year.

Ballindalloch Castle has been the home of the Macpherson Grant family for 600 years. Their small, traditional distillery (90,000 LPA) makes use of a substantial farm steading built in 1820 and was officially opened by the Prince of Wales last year. Barley is grown on the estate. The spirit is “robust and old-fashioned.”

The new (little) whisky kids on the block

Most of the new distilleries have the capacity to produce between 200 and 500,000 LPA per annum. These are privately financed ventures, and will have to rely on selling their make as single malt, which will lead to hot competition in the market place in years to come. Examples are:

Glengyle (2004; 500,000 LPA) was built by the owner of Springbank Distillery in Campbeltown. Limited annual releases of its malt as “Works in Progress” under the brand-name Kilkerran have been issued since 2007.

Wolfburn (2013; 125,000LPA) is Scotland’s most northerly mainland distillery. It stands in an industrial shed outside Thurso, and produces both unpeated (mainly) and peated spirit. The first bottling was released earlier this year, from quarter casks which had previously held Islay malt.

Annandale (2014; 250,000LPA) is a painstaking restoration of an earlier distillery, founded in 1830 and owned latterly by John Walker & Sons, until it closed in 1920. The site was bought by Professor and Mrs. David Thomson in 2007, who have created “a modern distillery which rises sympathetically on the site of its forbear.”

new Scottish distilleries
Kingsbarn distillery (image via Kingsbarn)

Arbikie (2014; 200,000 LPA) Estate in Angus has been owned by the Stirling family for generations, and provides not only first class barley for whisky and gin production, but potatoes for vodka, which already has a high reputation.

Ardnamurchan (2014; 500,000 LPA) is situated on the remote peninsula of the same name, the most westerly point on the British Isles. It was built by the well-known independent bottler, Adelphi, and is fueled by hydro-power and a large biomass boiler. Two styles of spirit are produced, unpeated and lightly peated.

Kingsbarns (2014; 600,000 LPA) was planned as early as 2008 and realized when the Wemyss family (independent bottlers) took over the project in 2012. The location is an 18th Century cattle court on Cambo Estate in Fife, the barley is sourced locally, and the style of the spirit is Lowland.

Big, but still new Scottish distilleries

The last group of new distilleries are large – very large – and have been commissioned by the leading Scotch whisky companies to produce spirit for their blended Scotch whiskies:

Glenburgie (2005; capacity 4.2 million LPA) was commissioned by Allied Distillers to replace an earlier distillery on the same site. Before the modern new building was opened, Allied had been taken over by Pernod Ricard. Glenburgie is a key filling for the Ballantine blends.

Ailsa Bay (2007; capacity 12 million LPA) was built by William Grant & Sons, owners of Glenfiddich, in nine months within their large Girvan grain whisky distillery in Ayrshire to make four different styles of spirit for the company’s popular Grant’s blend. It was doubled in size in 2013.

Roseisle (2008; capacity 12.5 million LPA), Diageo’s new mega-distillery, cost £40 million and has built in advanced re-cycling procedures to reduce its energy consumption and emissions to a fraction of what would be expected. Like Ailsa Bay, it makes different styles of spirit for blending purposes, principally Johnnie Walker.

Like Glenburgie, Dalmunach (2015; capacity 10 million LPA) replaced an earlier distillery on the site, Imperial, and was commissioned by Pernod Ricard to provide filling for Chivas Regal.

Currently, these are the largest malt distilleries in Scotland, except for Glenfiddich (14 million LPA). Capacity at several other sites has been doubled – Glen Ord (to 11 million LPA), Teaninich (to 9.8 million LPA), Clynelish (to 9 million LPA).

Macallan is currently building a gigantic new distillery adjacent to the original, with the capacity to distill 16 million LPA per annum (an increase of 5mLPA on current capacity), while Pernod Ricard has obtained planning permission to build two new distilleries beside the current The Glenlivet Distillery (which itself was expanded by 75% to 10.5 million LPA in 2010), increasing capacity to over 30 million LPA.

What needs to be remembered

The huge expansion in distilling capacity since 2000, especially since 2007, surpasses that of any other era in the history of Scotch whisky. It  has been embarked upon in anticipation of the global demand for Scotch whisky, both blended and single malt, in the years to come – particularly from China and India.

Yet history tells us that the demand for Scotch has always been cyclical. The Scotch distillery boom period of the 1890s finished abruptly in 1900; that of the post-war period terminated in the early 1980s. In both cases, factors beyond the control of the whisky industry played a part in this – fashion, the world economy, local legislation, anti-drink lobbies. In every case production levels were massively out of line with demand.

Let us hope that the economic forecasters have got their sums right!

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