Glasgow Distillery

In December 2014 two 17-ton grain silos, the first 5000-litre fermenters and a 1-ton mash tun were installed so whisky making could begin.¹ The first whisky stills arrived in January 2015: Tara, a 2,500-litre wash still, and Mhairi, a 1,500-litre spirit still.^1,8 Named after the founders' family, they are small and compact, which the distillery says gives the spirit as much copper contact as possible.^1,8 Cask No 1, the first cask filled at the distillery, was filled on 5 March 2015.^1,5,6 The first peated spirit followed in 2016.^2,9 After tasting it, the founders ordered three times the peated malt they had planned.^2,9 In 2017 the first triple-distilled spirit came off the stills, a third style beside unpeated and peated.^2,10,11 Liam Hughes says that after finding the original Glasgow Distillery made unpeated, peated and triple-distilled whisky, the founders set out to do the same.^2,10,11

In August 2019 two new copper pot stills from Carl in Germany, replicas of the first pair, doubled the distillery's capacity.^1,2,10 The new stills are named after the artists Margaret and Frances MacDonald.^1,2,10 In March 2024 the distillery more than doubled its footprint, adding its own maturation warehouse with a cooper on site.^1,3,10

It uses water from Loch Katrine and buys malt from selected maltsters across Scotland and the UK.^6,7,12 Its peated malt is dried over peat smoke to about 50ppm, or phenol parts per million, and its unpeated malt is 0ppm.¹² The washbacks, the tanks where the sugary wort ferments, are stainless steel so they can be cleaned deeply between styles.^6,12 Fermentation lasts at least 72 hours, longer than the traditional 48-60 hours.¹² It has 2 wash stills for the first distillation and 2 spirit stills for the second.^7,12 It began with a single still to make Makar Gin.⁶ Steam heats the stills.^6,12 The stills have a boiling ball and a gently sloping lyne arm, the pipe that joins each still to its shell and tube condenser.^6,12 It splits its year between unpeated and peated malt distilled twice and unpeated malt distilled three times, all on the same stills.^2,12 Running the stills slowly gives the spirit more copper contact, which removes impurities and leaves a sweet and fruity spirit.¹² The distillery says whisky production rose to around 200,000 litres of alcohol a year in 2019.^1,2,8

Sources

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