Lochranza, in the north of Arran, made its first spirit on 29 June 1995, the first legal spirit on the island for 158 years.1,2,3 When its sister distillery, Lagg Distillery, began production in 2019, the plan was for Lagg to make all the company's peated spirit and for Lochranza to return to non-peated spirit.1,3,4
Trading losses went on for years, and Currie resigned as a director in June 1999, leaving the majority shareholders to decide how the company should develop.5 In August 2003 Currie's son Paul left the board and sold his remaining shares to Les Auchincloss, who had become the largest shareholder.3,5 James MacTaggart took over from Gordon Mitchell as distillery manager in June 2007.1,5 Euan Mitchell, formerly of Springbank distillery in Campbeltown, became managing director in 2008.3,5 In 2010 Isle of Arran Distillers finally moved into profit.4,5
Lochranza also made peated whisky, such as Machrie Moor, and Lagg manager Graham Omand says that from 2011 onwards it ran peated malt once a month.8,9 In 2014 two more washbacks, the vessels where the mash's sugary water ferments, let the stills run more often.10 In February 2017 the distillery went from two stills to four; one press report dates this to 2016.3,7,10 All four were made to the original still design, in the same shape, to keep the spirit's character, and Forsyth's of Rothes, maker of the first stills, helped install them.3,7,10
Lochranza was at capacity, so the company bought land for warehouses that became a second site, Lagg Distillery, which began production on 19 March 2019.1,3,4 In November 2021 Stewart Bowman, formerly site operations manager at Brora, took over as distillery manager from David Livingstone.11,12 In 2023 four more washbacks were installed beside the six existing ones.13,14,15
Its water comes from Loch na Davie, in the hills high above the distillery.4,7,16 Its malted barley comes from Glen Esk.7,8 Fermentation in Oregon pine washbacks lasts 75 hours on average.7,10,17 It has two wash stills and two spirit stills.4,7,10 The spirit is double-distilled in stills heated by indirect steam.7,17,18 Shell and tube condensers turn the vapour back into spirit.7
Every bottle in Peated with a vintage year.
Bottles in Peated distilled at Lochranza, by release year.
| Year distilled | Bottles |
|---|---|
| 2012 | 1 |
| 2014 | 1 |
| 2015 | 2 |
| 2016 | 1 |
| 2018 | 1 |
| 2019 | 2 |
| 2022 | 1 |
| 2023 | 2 |
| 2024 | 3 |
| 2025 | 7 |
| 2026 | 6 |
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