North British is a grain whisky distillery in Gorgie, Edinburgh, set up in 1885 on a 10-acre pig farm and run as a cooperative for 100 years.1,2,3 Blenders including Andrew Usher, William Sanderson and John Crabbie founded it to get grain spirit outside the monopoly of DCL, the Distillers Company.1,2,3Diageo and Edrington now own it equally through Lothian Distillers.3,4,5 Its grain whisky is used as the base for blended Scotch whisky brands.6,7,8
No grain, no gain: continuing from yesterday and the day before…
Producing, 1885–1917
Silent, 1917–1920
Producing, 1920–1939
Silent, 1939–1949
Producing, 1949–today
188519502000Today
Built by blenders
A gatehouse dated 1886 and a bonded warehouse range built around 1886 still stood in 2021.9 Production began in September 1887 with a single Coffey still, and it made 3.6m litres of alcohol in its first full year.1,2,4 Sources say its capacity doubled within three or four years.1,2,4 In 1905 a legal challenge claimed that only spirit made from malted barley in a pot still could be called whisky.1 Grain whisky won the right to the name in 1908.1
Two wars and a slump
Production stopped in 1917 for lack of grain, and the plant was nearly turned over to making acetone for munitions.3,4,10 It made spirit again from 1920 and was back to pre-war output by 1925.3,4,10 US Prohibition and the Depression of the 1930s then cut output to an all-time low of 1,200,000 litres a year.10 In 1935, with electricity still a year away, mashing ran from Wednesday noon to Saturday and the stills from Monday to Wednesday morning.1 It shut again in 1939 for lack of raw materials, and the site became a grain store and later a D-Day supplies depot.1,10,11 Scotland's first Saladin maltings, which malt barley in large boxes, were installed here in 1948.2,10,12 The distillery's own history dates the restart of production to 1949.1,3
Growing the site
In 1967 the Darney quarry in Northumberland was reopened so the buildings could be extended in the original stone.10 In 1970 the firm bought 30 acres at Addiewell, West Lothian, for six warehouses and a filling store, and added three more warehouses in 1975.10 The site was renovated in 1992.2
Joint owners and growing output
In 1993 Robertson & Baxter and International Distillers & Vintners formed Lothian Distillers, which kept the North British name and bought out the other shareholders for £84 million.1,10,13 In 1997 the merger that formed Diageo joined IDV with DCL, then United Distillers, so North British became part-run by the firm it was set up to oppose.3,4,5 It sold its Slateford Road maltings and warehouse site in 2002 and its Westfield Road warehouses in 2003, and now largely depends on its bonded warehouses at Addiewell.10,11 After investment in modernisation, its total output reached 2bn litres of alcohol in 2008, ten years after passing 1.5bn, and 2.5bn in 2015.
Next: Joint owners and growing output, Power from its own waste, Maize and Coffey stills
In 2010 it secured £3m toward a three-year, £9 million plan to make a third of its energy from renewable sources.14 The plan included a biogas boiler and gas engine to make electricity from its distilling residues.14 The last of three building phases of its anaerobic digestion plant was finished in 2012, and it made biogas from waste left from distilling for steam and electricity on site.15 The plant was later taken offline due to operational issues, and in 2025 a Scottish Government fund offered a grant to reinstate and upgrade it.6
Maize and Coffey stills
It says it is the only Scottish grain distiller to use maize all the time, which gives a sweet, heavier and buttery spirit.16 Fermentation lasts 72 hours.4 The spirit is made in patent or Coffey stills, continuous stills each made up of two columns, an analyser and a rectifier.4,16,17 A 2017 visit found 4 Coffey stills, three older ones and a newer one, while Whiskypedia lists 3; it uses Pentland water.4,18 It can make over 60 million litres of alcohol a year.1,4,16
