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Following on from yesterday’s look at the history of whisky distilling in Australia, today I’m going to focus very much on the present (and future) and have a chat with three people from different spheres of the whisky industry; Niko Devlin, President of the Australian Whisky Appreciation Society (and the man responsible for this blog piece!), Frank McHardy, Chief Whiskey Advisor at the Whipper Snapper Distillery in Perth, Western Australia and Mark Coburn, who is currently in the process of building the Coburns Distillery in New South Wales. First though, let’s take a wee look at what is happening with whisky today. Fortunately things look a lot rosier than where we left it yesterday! The birth (rebirth?) of the modern Australian whisky industry is pretty much credited to one man - Bill Lark. In 1992 Lark fired up his small still at the Lark Distillery in Hobart, Tasmania, making him the first person to hold a distilling license on the island for 153 years. No mean feat, since in order to do so, he first successfully lobbied the Minister of Agriculture to change the 1901 Licensing Act requirement that stills had to be a minimum of 2700 litres. This change in law presumably paved the way for the plethora of small craft distilleries currently springing up all over Australia. While the number of distilleries has increased dramatically since Lark was established, the volumes produced nationwide remain very small. It would certainly seem that the current crop of Aussie distillers are focussing very much on quality over quantity. According to Deloitte, Australia currently produces around 360,000 litres per annum - that’s less than is currently produced in Campbeltown’s 3 distilleries (Springbank, Glengyle and Glen Scotia) and Campbeltown ain’t exactly a powerhouse in terms of Scotch whisky production volumes!
Just for fun I decided to do a wee comparison between these two illustrious whisky islands. You can see the results for yourselves in the table below but basically it boils down to; Tasmania is over 100 times bigger and more populous than Islay but Islay produces 100 times more whisky. To put it another way, if Tasmania had the same concentration of distilleries as Islay, it would have 882 distilleries! Even at the rate the Australian whisky industry is growing, that’ll take some doing!  While Australian whisky is not that widely available in the UK as yet (ie you’re not going to find it on special offer in your local Tesco) you can find a reasonable selection (Sullivans Cove, Lark, Limeburners, Starward and others I’m sure) in specialist retailers. One thing’s for sure - if the Aussies are anywhere near as successful at marketing their New World Whiskies as they were their New World Wines, we’re going to be seeing a lot more of them in years to come! Anyway, enough chat from me, let’s find out what they have to say for themselves. First up is the man responsible for this whole map and blog post idea, Niko Devlin. Niko Devlin, Australian Whisky Appreciation SocietyWhy do you think so many new Australian whisky distilleries have started up in recent years? Well our modern industry only really started in 1992 with Bill Lark leading the way for all of us. Over the past decade Australians have begun to realize we actually have a whisky industry & people have decided to get involved at all levels. There's a boom going on here now with it seeming like there's a new distillery in the works every few months. It's very exciting to see, now if we can just get our government to help the whisky industry in the same way it's helped the wine industry, the sky will be the limit for what we can achieve. You mentioned that you are doing a bit of independent bottling - can you tell me a bit more about that? Are there many indie bottlers in Australia? My AWAS partner Brad O'Riley & I have put together a small batch of casks for our Australian Whisky Appreciation Society members, 3x 30L ex-port casks made with 60+yr old port staves crafted by Master Cooper Andrew Young at Seppeltsfield Winery, we also have a peated 20L mystery cask. All of the spirit for our 1st batch comes from Archie Rose Distillery, the 1st distillery in Sydney since the 1800s, the team there does outstanding work & we feel very lucky to work closely with them on our 1st bottlings. We're working on putting together a series of larger batches with a view to build it up into a full time independent bottler business, sourcing casks & spirit county wide. We've also got a few little experiments going on, our 1st one being a Mead cask aged Rye, which I'm pretty sure is a world 1st. That was given out to the attendees at our AWAS 1st Birthday tasting. There's only a handful of independent bottlers in Australia, the most renowned being Heartwood Malt Whisky, the owner Tim Duckett produces some of the best whisky on the planet. Do you think Australian whiskies have any typical national or regional characteristics?. Being such a young industry we're only in the infancy of defining our regional characteristics, with Tasmanian whisky blazing the trail for the rest of the country, it definitely has its own style, clean, full bodied & bold flavors with an oily spirit that has a fantastic mouth feel, the rest of Australian whisky follows in that style. There's loads of experimentation going on using a lot of single casks & small batch runs, taking advantage of our world renowned wine industry's barrel stocks. Do you have any recommendations for people trying Aussie whisky for the first time? (I know it's always difficult to single out favourites but even if it's just ones that you are particularly excited about or that are easier to find abroad than others!) I'd say the easiest to find on the international market is probably going to be Starward, it's a great representation of Australian whisky & they have a level of production that actually sees stock make it off shore. If you can find them, Lark, Sullivans Cove, Overeem & Heartwood are some of the best whiskies Australia has to offer. How do you see the future for Australian whisky, both at home and abroad?. Locally the industry is going from strength to strength with a large portion of releases selling out within hours. The infrastructure is slowly starting to build up to the point where hopefully over the next decade we can produce enough Australian whisky to take up shelf space abroad. We still have a long way to go to catch up with other countries volume wise, but in quality we punch well above our weight. Mark Coburn, Coburns Distillery, NSWWhy did you decide to start a distillery and why now? The seed was planted in me 14 years ago when I visited a small distillery in Queensland. The distiller had been an early business partner of Bill Lark, the grandfather of the Australian distilling industry. The distiller had moved from Hobart to the hinterland behind Queensland’s Gold Coast and was making flavoured liquors. I was fascinated by the process. Over the last ten years I have been working towards making the leap to setting up my own distillery. Along the way I came up with the idea that I wanted to be drinking my own 20yo single malt by the time I was 70. This year I turned 49, so it was now or never. It has taken me a while to work out where my love of distilling comes from. Note that it’s the distilling and not the whisky that came first. To put it into context let me explain; I believe that one of the sincerest ways to show love to another person is by cooking for them, I refer to it as 'putting love on the plate'. Whether it is a 36 hour slow cooked leg of pork or a breakfast omelette, I love cooking for family and friends. I am always looking for new techniques that will create a more enjoyable eating experience, regardless of the extra time or effort the process will take. Distilling comes into context when you learn that my other great passion is steam engines. I am a avid model steam locomotive enthusiast who loves to build and run working model steam engines. The thought occurred to me a few years ago that whisky distillation is the intersection of food and steam. Why did your choose the Southern Highlands of NSW as the location? First off, I live here! The area has rolling countryside with a proper four seasons which you don’t get in most of Australia. The distillery site itself covers 15 acres (6.2ha), of which 3 acres (1.5ha) is peat bog. It’s the only Australian distillery with their own onsite peat for smoking the barley. There are two types of amazing water onsite: Peat filtered lake water and four pure water springs. It’s a warm north facing site for those cold winter days, 725 meters above sea level with average summer temperatures of 14-24C, average winter temperatures 5-13C (100mm of snow last winter) and average rainfall of 700mm. As a visitors centre is an important part of the business plan, we needed to be easily accessible to nearby towns and major cities. The site we have selected is 12 minutes from Bowral, Mittagong & Moss Vale (25,000 population), 1h 45m drive from Sydney, New South Wales, 1h 45m drive from Canberra, Australian Capital. Where are you in the process? The distillery site is being purchased now. Currently we are working on a round of capital raising through barrel sales. We filled an early round of barrel sales and now we have a limited number of barrels in our second offering via our 'Barrel Investment program’ Very soon we will be producing product at another site while we wait for planning approvals for our new distillery to be granted. We will have licensing and planning approvals for on-site production within 12 months. The plan is that we can be releasing our first small cask whiskies by 2020-21. Do you have a particular style of whisky in mind and how will you achieve that? We are planning to start by putting down five expressions that will represent the four seasons of the New South Wales Southern Highlands. Coburns Distillery will distill a triple distilled spirit. Our spirit will be produced in three separate 5000ltr stills, each still built to capture different characteristics. The three still concept is designed to give our distillers and blenders a broad range of flavour profiles in the new make spirit to then create desired style of each expression. To clarify, by having the option of a larger spirit still we hope to have the ability to cut the hearts cleanly into early, mid and late hearts thereby having the ability to be able to make distinct expressions from the new make. Our goal is to create a single malt that captures the essence of our region. In the process, I hope to create a way of life to hand over to my two daughters in the future. Not to mention the dream of sitting on my balcony over looking the distillery drinking my own 20 year old malt. Where do you see yourself and your whiskies in 10-20 years time? We hope to have a substantial visitor centre trade to promote our region and add to that some international sales (and recognition) would be the dream come true. As I am now discovering, many new distilleries have started up in Australia in recent years - do you see this as an advantage or a disadvantage for you? We hope that we can inspire and help many more distilleries to open in this area. Joadja Distillery is the only other whisky distillery in the area, we hope to work closely with the owners Elisa & Valero Jimenez to build the region’s whisky profile. The goal is to be able to have the Southern Highlands of New South Wales defined as it’s own whisky region within Australia. How will your whisky stand out from the crowd? By being exceptional in every aspect of what we do. From our cellar door hospitality, to our product branding & presentation, and most importantly by making an exceptionally well-crafted spirit we hope to let what we do speak for itself.  The Coburns Distillery site - you can see the shedding in amongst trees on the other side of the railway line. The plan is to build a 60m long new build to house the distillery. The brown areas on the left and right of the trees are a 17,000 year old peat bog, the largest in Australia. Frank McHardy, Chief Whiskey Advisor, Whipper Snapper Distillery, Perth (formerly Director of Production at Springbank and Glengyle Distilleries, Distillery Manager at Bushmills and I forget which Speyside distilleries - Tamnavulin maybe? Anyway, suffice to say Frank has been in the industry for over 50 years and is an absolute legend!)How did you get involved with Whipper Snapper? Alasdair Malloch and James McKeown contacted me a number of years ago with a plan to set up a distillery in Perth Western Australia . It seemed to be an exciting project and through our discussions a friendship was developed. Following that, Alasdair and James came to Scotland, spent some time here and we developed the plan from there. What similarities and differences have you found between starting up a distillery in Australia compared to in Scotland? One of the main challenges to setting up a distillery in Perth are the ranges in temperatures throughout the year . Coolish in winter but extremely hot in summer. One result of the temperature range can be the large loss during maturation which over the past two years has been measured at around 5 % alcohol per annum. Maturation is proving to be relatively quick though. Distillers yeast has to be imported. Good comparisons are the excellent quality of grain used in the processes, the water is pure and legislation regarding the production of spirit is fairly flexible and open to innovation. What style of whisky are you aiming for and how is that achieved? The Whiskey produced to date has been Bourbon style and trials are being done at present on a single malt . The majority of single malt distilleries in Australia use similar processes, that is conventional mash tuns and traditional pot stills . What we do is slightly different in that we use two mash kettles, one of 1,000 litres and the other 4,000 litres. We have 10,000 litres of fermentation capacity in 7 washbacks of varying sizes and distillation takes place in a 16 plate rectifying column still by Arnold Holstein. At present we are using mainly new virgin American white oak barrels and producing in the region of 30,000 litres of spirit per annum. Finally Frank, you’ve worked at distilleries in Scotland, Northern Ireland and now Australia. Anywhere else you’re going to add that list? Currently I am also involved with Dartmoor Distillery in England and a proposed distillery in Israel . Who knows where else…could be Antartica, but don’t tell Richard Patterson - lots of ice there!!! Good to see Frank is taking things easy in his retirement! - ed. Massive thanks to Frank, Mark and Niko for taking the time to speak to me and help me with this blog post.
If anyone wants to do any further reading on the Australian whisky industry, I can recommend the following, which I used as sources; Nick’s Wine Merchants has a pretty extensive guide to Australian whisky and distilleries (past and present) The Australian Whisky Appreciation Society facebook page Deloitte Agribusiness article for some facts and figures Northshore and Norlane Stories website for more information on the history of the Corio Distillery
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My poor blog has been somewhat abandoned over the summer months (what little summer we had anyway) so this week’s news of the release of Wolfburn Aurora gave me the impetus I needed to get back to the keyboard and write my long overdue Wolfburn distillery focus.
I’m really looking forward to hearing what these guys have been up to as I used to work with Shane (Shane Fraser, Production Manager) when we were both at Glenfarclas. I know, I know, another Glenfarclas connection but you know that saying about there being only 6 degrees of separation between anyone on the planet? Well, I think when you’re talking about the Scotch Whisky industry you can probably reduce that to about 2 degrees! Let’s see what Shane has to say for himself anyway;
Q. Can you talk us through the process of setting up your distillery? The journey started in 2011 – that’s when we put together the outline business plan. Finessing the numbers took a long time because every little input has a knock-on effect. For example, the size of the mash has a direct bearing on the size of the washbacks and the size of the stills – not to mention the amount of malt used per week, which then has an effect on the size of the malt bins, and the weekly running cost. By the end of 2011 we had workable numbers, so we set about buying the land and getting planning consent – both of which happened in June 2012. The civil engineering started shortly afterwards, and we simultaneously finalised our contract with Forsyths – they started installing the plant equipment in November 2012. The build was completed in the new year and we went on spirit on 25 January 2013 – Burns Night! Since then it has been non stop – we mash and distill six times per week, and lay down roughly 1,000 casks per year. Bottling commenced in February 2016 and we have already sold a huge amount more whisky than originally forecast. It’s been quite a ride! Q. Do you have a specific style of whisky in mind and how are you going to achieve that? Wolfburn’s whisky is light and smooth – a nicely rounded whisky, which we hope is easy and pleasant to drink. Personally I prefer softer spirits and I’ve crafted Wolfburn so it’s a sweet and fragrant dram. It already has quite a following, which is lovely to see. Q. What is the biggest challenge you’ve faced so far in setting up a new distillery? What do you envisage as the biggest challenges going forward? There are so many challenges, it’s difficult to know when to start! Maybe the biggest is to ensure that quality is maintained as high as possible at all times, even when we are doing something for the first time. Sometimes I wish there were more hours in the day!
Maturation is all on site in our purpose-built warehouses. We hand-select all our casks, which mostly come from Spain or America. And we also bottle on site – Wolfburn is one of only a tiny handful of distilleries where everything happens in one place. Q. Who do you see as your target market? Anyone who enjoys fine quality single malt scotch, globally. We have distribution in 21 countries globally. Q. When do you plan to release your first whisky? Will you be producing any other products in the meantime? We launched in Feb 2016, and have been selling ever since. We’ll never produce anything other than whisky – it’s our expertise and it’s what defines us as a brand and as a business. Q. What’s your long term goal? Where do you see yourself and your distillery in 20 years time? To be honest I am enjoying everything so much on a day-to-day or month-to-month basis that I don’t give much thought to long term plans at the moment! If Wolfburn continues to grow, and we continue to produce such lovely whisky, I shall be very happy.
Sounds like Shane is having a ball up there! Let’s see what the end product tastes like then shall we? The lovely chaps from Wolfburn sent me a 3yo cask sample, matured in a quarter cask (like their Northland single malt). It’s sitting at 60.02% vol, so quite a bit higher than their bottling strength of 46%. I’ve drafted in Mark (my husband) to help with the tasting, which is a terrible chore for him I’m sure. Also, I don’t really go in for very detailed tasting notes - I’m very much a broad brush strokes kinda girl - but Mark’s much better at all the bullsh*t (oops, I mean tasting notes) so he’s written more detailed ones too. My impressions first; it’s a really well-balanced, drinkable dram. It’s got a lovely mouthfeel that really coats the palate and leaves a wonderful soft smokiness. It doesn’t seem overly young, and certainly tastes older than it’s tender 3 years. I wondered whether the slight peatiness on the palate adds a certain maturity? Overall, I’m really impressed and very much looking forward to trying more expressions from this great Northern distillery.
All in all an excellent dram, although you might not get that impression from some of his tasting notes! He is a bit odd and insists that stale custard creams, sileage, pebbles and pumice stones are all meant in a good way!
Incidentally Mark visited Wolfburn in 2013, shortly after they started production, as part of his stag do celebrations. He even managed to take 2 photos while he was there (pretty impressive for a stag do I feel) which I have included in this article.  For my next distillery focus, I’m going to Speyside, my home for many years, and the Ballindalloch Distillery. These guys were practically my neighbours when I worked at Glenfarclas so I was really keen to find out a bit more about what they were up to. I moved away from Speyside just after they opened, so although I often drove past the distillery while it was being built, I’m ashamed to admit that I haven’t yet had the opportunity to visit. (Something I hope to remedy very soon!) While the Ballindalloch Distillery is a new venture, distilling on the Ballindalloch Estate certainly isn’t; In fact, the Ballindalloch Estate used to feature fairly prominently in my descriptions of the early history of Glenfarclas. You see, the Glenfarclas Distillery was founded by tenant farmer Robert Hay in 1836 on Rechlerich Farm (part of the Ballindalloch Estate). When Robert Hay died in 1865, local farmer John Grant took over the tenancy and purchased the distillery at the same time (for the bargain price of £511.19d). Since his interests lay in farming, rather than distilling, he initially put in a manager, John Smith, to run the distillery for him, while he concentrated on farming. A few years later, in 1869, John Smith left Glenfarclas to establish the Cragganmore Distillery, in conjunction with the 4th Baronet of Ballindalloch, Sir George Macpherson-Grant. At that point, John Grant’s son, George, took over the running of the Glenfarclas distillery and farm and it has remained in the family ever since. They only ceased being tenants of the Ballindalloch Estate in 1930 though when George Grant (John’s grandson) bought the freehold. As far as I am aware, Cragganmore is still on Estate grounds, and there may well be other distilleries which were, or are, on the Estate but I’m not entirely sure of the full geographical reach. It’s certainly a fairly big area, covering some 7000 hectares today (around 27 square miles) and presumably much more than that in the past. Anyway, enough about the history, let’s find out what’s going on in the present! Brian Robinson, the Distillery Host, very kindly answered my questions;
Q. Why did you decide to start producing whisky? And why now? The Ballindalloch Estate has been in the Macpherson-Grant family for nearly 500 years. In more recent times, it has evolved and changed to remain viable and diversification remains key. The decision to build a distillery is the latest endeavor by the family to ensure a strong future. We had all the pieces of the puzzle already in place in terms of growing barley, water supply and a use for draff and effluent, so it seemed like a natural progression to bring those elements together. As far as timing is concerned, it was simply the family looking ahead and deciding that the time was right for them. Q. Can you talk us through the process of setting up your distillery? From the time the family decided to go ahead with building the distillery to the first spirit run on the 22nd September 2014, was around 4 years of planning, scheduling, building and renovation. We deliberately used a small group of local craftsmen and trades throughout the fit out, so the renovation took longer than it might have done. That said, the family got exactly what they wanted in terms of the standard of the work carried out and the distillery looks great as a result. We were fortunate that Forsyths could fit us into their schedule as they are superb at what they do. We certainly benefited from their knowledge together with Charlie Smith who was brought in, initially as a consultant, and latterly became our Master Distiller before stepping back the end of 2015. Colin Poppy now heads up production as Distillery Manager with Phillip Murray and Mike Duncan working with him. I joined in 2014, just as the fit out started, and look after the non production side of things.
Q. What is the biggest challenge you’ve faced so far in setting up a new distillery? What do you envisage as the biggest challenges going forward? Firstly, remove money from the equation – distilleries cost a lot of money to set up and run, so we will take that as obvious! Getting the right people in place is key, along with setting the direction you want your distillery go. In the future, the biggest challenge will be going head to head with some outstanding, established whiskies. As well as the usual, global suspects there are a number of small distilleries who I have great respect for, so we will be entering a very busy marketplace. That said, we have the quality we need, a plan in place and time to position ourselves, so I am confident we will be ready to compete. Q. Can you tell me a bit about your production equipment and processes (barley variety/yeast strain/distillation/cask management etc)? ie What makes your distillery unique?
Q. Who do you see as your target market? To be honest, it is too early to commit to and answer publicly. We have some thoughts and ideas that we will pursue when the time is right. Given that we are a number of years away from sales, so much can happen between now and then that could impact on plans made too early. I certainly would not like to suggest we will head to a particular market only for us to change our minds. I can promise though, once we are in a position to confirm these details, I will ensure everyone knows! Q. When do you plan to release your first whisky? Will you be producing any other products in the meantime? We anticipate a wait of around 8 to 10 years from when we started, so a little while to way to go yet. We do not make Gin or Vodka nor will we release bottled new make spirit. I am very pleased to say that we are lucky enough that we can wait until we feel the whisky is ready.
Q. If you were to compare your distillery to any other existing or closed one, which would you most aspire to be like and why?
I’m not sure that I would make any direct comparisons to specific distilleries. We are fairly typical of a Speyside style but with a more complex spirit character. My aspirations would be allied to any distillery that has produced a wonderful whisky and built a following of people who appreciate and understand the hard work that goes into making something special! Q. Are you open to visitors? Can we buy your product, either in bottles or cask? If not now, then when? We do indeed welcome visitors, but we do not have a Visitor Centre as such. Tours are offered by appointment and I will then tailor the visit to the guests who book. I can offer tours that start at £35 per person and last around 2½ hours through to a day spent working with Colin, Phillip and Mike. Called The Art of Whisky Making, it allows up to 2 guests to get hands on for the day getting involved with everything that we do here. As far as buying any product is concerned, as I mentioned earlier, there is a bit of a wait there I am afraid. I do have a very small Private Cask program with no more than 25 casks available each year. If anyone is interested, it is best to email me directly and I will discuss the program with them. You can contact me at [email protected] and follow us on Facebook for all the latest updates. For my next ‘newbie’ focus, we are heading to Scotland’s industrial heartland - Glasgow and the Glasgow Distillery Company Limited (not to be confused with the Glasgow Distillery project by Morrisons Glasgow Distillers Ltd, which as far as I am aware is still in the early planning stages). While Glasgow sometimes gets a bit of an unfair reputation from those that don’t know it, personally I love the place - I lived there for many years as a student so have a fairly in depth knowledge of the consumption of alcohol there, if not the making of it! As Scotland’s largest city, and industrial and trading hub, Glasgow has a long history of blending and bottling whisky and many of the big names (Chivas, Diageo, Whyte & Mackay, Dewars, Edrington) still have some kind of presence there. According to Brian Townsend, in his book Scotch Missed, historically Glasgow “was a city of many distilleries with colourful names” but the last malt distilleries closed down in the early 1900s (apart from the short-lived Kinclaith distillery, within Strathclyde Grain Distillery, which ran from 1958 to around 1975).  In terms of modern day distilleries though, there are now only two; Strathclyde Grain Distillery (established in 1927, now owned by Chivas Brothers) and the new Glasgow Distillery, opened in 2014 and owned by Liam Hughes, Ian McDougall & Mike Hayward. The distillery is in Hillington in the South-West of the City, not perhaps the most attractive area (however, in the interests of full disclosure, I should point out that I worked in call centre there during my student days so this may, understandably, have put me off!) but looks aren’t everything! The CEO of Glasgow Distillery Company Ltd, Liam Hughes, very kindly took the time to answer my questions (yep, same ones as last time - that was the plan remember?) before heading off on holiday. Here’s what he had to say; Q. Where is your distillery located, and why in that specific location? Glasgow Distillery is the only Single Malt Distillery in a city in Scotland and was chosen because we wanted to build a distillery on the basis of its city location and logistical practicality after visiting the Brooklyn Distillery who had done something similar. Q. Why did you decide to start producing whisky? And why now? We were always going to make Whisky – Glasgow hasn’t had a Single Malt Distillery since 1902 so it seemed a gap that needed filling.
Q. Do you have a specific style of whisky in mind and how are you going to achieve that? Our style is more Speyside than anything else and with our consultant being an ex Macallan Master Distiller that probably isn’t a great surprise Q. What is the biggest challenge you’ve faced so far in setting up a new distillery? What do you envisage as the biggest challenges going forward? The challenges have been a never ending list and this isn’t for the faint hearted !! There are as many opportunities going forward as there are challenges but as with all new Whisky Distilleries you have a big gap between making New Make and being able to put a product in a bottle.
Q. Who do you see as your target market? Our target market is not narrow – we believe that by making great products people will grow to be fans of what we are doing and that we can and would love to be able to attract a wide range of people Q. When do you plan to release your first whisky? Will you be producing any other products in the meantime? Our first Whisky will be released in 2018. In the meantime we have already released Makar Glasgow Gin and Prometheus 26 & 27 an Independent Bottling with more in the pipeline Q. What’s your long term goal? Where do you see yourself and your distillery in 20 years time? That is a question I really haven’t even thought about I can just about see as far as 2018 !!! Q. If you were to compare your distillery to any other existing or closed one, which would you most aspire to be like and why? I think one of the most enjoyable things for me is we have no baggage as the original Glasgow Distillery [Dundashill Distillery, described by Barnard as one of the very first distilleries established in Glasgow - ed.] shut in 1902 and there is as far as I know no surviving Whisky from it so we are relying on historical records so we are just doing a whole range of things with great New Make and great casks and are already so excited about what is in the casks and the what will be whisky in a few short years Q. Are you open to visitors? Can we buy your product, either in bottles or cask? If not now, then when? We aren’t currently open to the public though we hope to be in 2017, we sell a limited amount of casks via our 1770 Club and our Makar & Prometheus are widely available via the Internet  My quest to become better informed about all the new Scottish distilleries has begun! My plan is simple; contact all the distilleries and ask them all the same questions so I (and therefore you) can firstly, learn more about their experiences, philosophies and future plans, but also (hopefully!) explore the differences between them. First up is Ardnamurchan Distillery, owned by the independent bottler Adelphi Distillery Ltd. Now independent bottlers acquiring distilleries is nothing new; think Signatory and Edradour, G&M and Benromach and Ian MacLeod and Glengoyne/Tamdu to name a few. As far as I know though, Adelphi are the first independent bottler to build their own distillery from scratch (Although Wemyss followed suit with the Kingsbarns Distillery a few months later).
 Anyway, Alex Bruce very kindly agreed to answer my questions, so lets see what he has to say for himself; Q. Where is your distillery located, and why in that specific location? We are in the tiny hamlet of Glenbeg, half way along the remote Ardnamurchan peninsula. The area was selected due to its abundance of very pure water, local natural resources (woodchip for the boiler), and local requirement for distilling by-products (draff, pot ale). Some of the surrounding area is also under the same ownership as the distillery. Q. Why did you decide to start producing whisky? And why now? First, and foremost, because we wanted to return Adelphi to its distilling roots, but also because demand for Adelphi’s independent bottlings has outstripped its supply for some years now. This, coupled with a growing international distribution network, provided demand, route to market and a strong intention to make a quality whisky. There has also been a bonus to the independent bottling arm through the reciprocating of Ardnamurchan new make for mature single casks of other makes. Q. Can you talk us through the process of setting up your distillery? About 4 years from conception to final planning: in addition to finding the right site, this also included consulting on all aspects of renewable heat and power provision for distilling, looking at other new and existing projects worldwide, detailed market research, and finding the right architect and construction team. In addition, there was an early requirement to reserve a manufacturing slot for the equipment. Q. Do you have a specific style of whisky in mind and how are you going to achieve that? We are not trying to re-write any regional styles, just aiming to do the best we absolutely can: we are producing an unpeated and a medium peated spirit (6 months of each at the moment), filling into both ex-Bourbon and ex-Sherry casks (the majority are 1st fill). The spirit is very fruity, quite creamy and viscous, with a peppery kick and decent levels of peat in the background in the peated version. We hope to end up somewhere between Highland Park and Talisker in style (possibly with a hint of Springbank!) Q. What is the biggest challenge you’ve faced so far in setting up a new distillery? What do you envisage as the biggest challenges going forward? Plenty of teething issues to keep us busy, but none insurmountable: 1. Staffing, in particular for the VC in such a remote area 2. Trying to find the infrastructure to allow us to grow our own barley (100%) and have it dried and toll malted, both peated and unpeated 3. Working with a biomass boiler 4. Cash flow – keeping production running for several years without dipping into too much working capital or selling too many crown jewels. Going forward: 1. Developing the existing markets, bringing on target markets 2. Developing a domestic presence 3. Staffing 4. Visitor numbers 5. Commissioning in house malting 6. Fluctuating material prices for malt and wood Q. Can you tell me a bit about your production equipment and processes (barley variety/yeast strain/distillation/cask management etc)? ie What makes your distillery unique? We use 100% Concerto varietal barley, most of it grown on our farm in Fife and toll malted by Bairds in Inverness. We have a Ruddock mill, feeding a 2 ton mash (the largest we could fit up the road); 4 oak washbacks (ex Cognac) and 3 SS washbacks; a 10,000 litre wash still and a 6000 litre spirit still. We use a single distillers’ yeast for the peated, and 2 distillers’ yeast (50/50) for the unpeated, fermentation times are 72 hours with a long weekend (when we are on a 5 day week) and 72 hours for each (when we are running 7 days). All pot ale and draff is used locally, all spirit matured on site. Q. Who do you see as your target market? We will continue to expand our existing markets with particular emphasis on North America, Europe and the Far East. Q. When do you plan to release your first whisky? Will you be producing any other products in the meantime? The first “mainstream” single malt will be released when we have enough mature stock that we feel is ready to vat and bottle. We hope to release earlier maturing spirits and single malt in small batches to show the emerging style and quality. No other products are planned. Q. What’s your long term goal? Where do you see yourself and your distillery in 20 years time? We would like to establish the Ardnamurchan brand worldwide with recognition for a quality single malt that is attainable in most specialist outlets. A 40,000 to 60,000 case brand should be achievable within 20 years, and we would hope that the core of our existing team and ownership will still be involved to witness this achievement. Q. If you were to compare your distillery to any other existing or closed one, which would you most aspire to be like and why? From a flavour profile, as above: HP, Talisker, Springbank and backbone of Clynelish/Brora. From a sales and marketing angle, I have huge respect for Billy Walkers brands, Arran, and Ian Macleods, so a mix of all of the above would be perfect. Q. Are you open to visitors? Can we buy your product, either in bottles or cask? If not now, then when? We are open 6 days per week from Easter to October, and 5 days (or on demand) during the winter months. New spirit is available direct from the distillery. Small batch releases of maturing spirit should begin later this year (2016)  Now I definitely want to go and visit! I can’t wait to try the final product either - especially since the style they are aiming for is a hybrid of 2 (or 3) of my favourite distilleries!
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AuthorWhisky Impressions is run by Kate Watt. Previously at Springbank and then Glenfarclas, I now design some whisky related stuff and write about it, and anything else that takes my fancy, on this blog. Archives
January 2019
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