For many years – decades, in fact – if you were a whisky enthusiast visiting either Edinburgh or Glasgow and you only had half a day spare to visit a distillery, your options were pretty much limited to either Glenkinchie or Auchentoshan. With the explosion of Lowland distilleries in recent times, there are now a few more options. If you’ve got your own set of wheels and you’re moving between Edinburgh and Glasgow (in either direction), there’s a new distillery you must check out: Falkirk Distillery.
Falkirk Distillery is more-or-less midway between Edinburgh and Glasgow. Depending on the time of day and the traffic, it’s about a 35 minute drive from either starting point. Located close to two other renowned Falkirk tourist attractions, namely the Falkirk Wheel and the Kelpies, you can make a day trip to the area and take in several of the local sights.
Falkirk Distillery is among the new wave of distilleries to have opened up in the last ten years, although its story and origins go back a little further. Planning permissions, logistics, and infrastructure all play a long and arduous role in getting a new distillery off the ground, and it took more than 10 years from “Hey, let’s start a distillery” to the day the first spirit flowed off the stills….which occurred in 2020.
The distillery is the brainchild and passion project of George Stewart, a businessman and entrepreneur with a strong background in engineering. Together with his daughter, Fiona, it is very much a family-owned distillery and a family-run affair. Entirely self-financed, the cost of establishing the distillery was reportedly £9M.
All the buildings and facilities are new and purpose built, but the distillery boasts some much older kit – the mashtun and the two stills are ex-Caperdonich! Caperdonich closed in 2002 and was demolished in 2011. Courtesy of George’s relationship with the Forsyths of Rothes, who acquired the old Caperdonich site, the stills and mashtun were purchased for George’s distillery plans. The spirit safe is also decades-old and was sourced from Diageo…although the exact distillery it previously worked at remains an unsolved mystery. The mashtun is worth commenting further on – it is the original 4.5 tonne mashtun from when Caperdonich was first built in 1898; it is thus one of the last Victorian-era rake mashtuns operating in Scotland.
(Click on either image to enlarge)
Production at Falkirk Distillery is traditional; even “old school”. Unlike so many modern distilleries, there are no density or flow meters off the back of the stills or spirit safe; the cuts are measured and made by hand. But let’s go back a few steps first…
The distillery is currently using Laureate barley, and is entirely unpeated. An artesian bore was drilled on site; the distillery currently draws 25,000 litres per day for production needs. There are six stainless steel washbacks, each charged with 20,000 litres of wort, to which 10kg of fresh, creamed yeast is added. Fermentation is an unusually long 120 hours, producing an extremely floral and fruity wash. The two stills – 12,000L and 7,000L respectively – are steam heated and both feature horizontal lyne arms.
(Click on either image to enlarge)
Spirit is being filled into ex-Heaven Hill 1st-fill bourbon barrels and ex-Oloroso sherry casks. A brick, dunnage warehouse was built just behind the stillhouse; the same building also houses the bottling hall. Every bottle of Falkirk Distillery whisky is hand-bottled and hand-labelled.
With the oldest spirit only being six years old, the current core range is small and limited by design; the main expression features a bourbon cask to sherry cask ratio of 80:20. Non-chillfiltered and bottled at 48% ABV, the whisky’s development, character, and depth of flavour belied its relatively young age. Whisky & Wisdom sat down to try three of the releases, and all impressed. In fact, significantly impressed.
By fluke more than design, I’d timed my visit with both George and Fiona being present on site, and I had a brief chat with both. The passion for what they’re doing and how they go about it rings out. Everything has been meticulously planned and nothing is done by halves. The Visitor Centre features a fantastic and well-laid out shop and tasting area, and a fully-fledged café and restaurant is currently under construction. (The fit-out for the kitchen was underway at the time of my visit).
So….with close to 150 whisky distilleries currently operating in Scotland, why should you include Falkirk Distillery on your travel itinerary? A simple answer is this: The tour is fantastic and the whisky is delicious! The tour takes you through all parts of the production process (even the milling room, where you can see the four-roll Buhler mill in action), and then the production room itself has mashing, brewing, and distilling all taking place in sequence in the one, easy-to-follow area. Exiting the production room, the next room is a museum and shrine to coopering, featuring an impressive collection and display to the art of coopering and how the casks are assembled. And, if you’re lucky to have Ray Dundas, the distillery’s Operations Manager, as your guide for the tour, you’ll be thoroughly entertained – his balance of humour, interspersed through conveying the facts and figures of production, struck the perfect chord. Add to this the family touch, the brilliant Visitor Centre, and the great-tasting drams at the end of your tour…the nearby Falkirk Wheel isn’t the only thing in the area lifting people up!
And if this new distillery looks strangely familiar to you? Yes, it was used for the fictional “Glen Nairn” distillery in the recent Brian Cox-directed film, Glenrothan. Falkirk Distillery may be one of many new kids on the block; it may be one you’ve not heard of yet. I can’t help but feel you’ll be hearing about it before too long….whisky this good shouts pretty loudly.
Cheers,
AD
