The most beautiful distilleries in Scotland

It’s a question often asked:  Which is the most beautiful distillery in Scotland?  But if beauty is in the eye of the beholder, how does one assemble a definitive list of Scotland’s most beautiful distilleries that adequately captures all the subjectivity from amongst the whisky community?  And when it comes to distilleries – which are nothing more than factories to produce alcohol – what metrics do we use to define beauty?  Is it architectural flair?  Aesthetic lines and symmetry?  And how do we compare architectural and construction fashions across timelines?  Many would suggest that the classic, quaint, stone-built distilleries of the Victorian era have a romantic advantage, but purists are correct to assert there is beauty in the functional architecture of modern behemoths such as Roseisle or Dalmunach.

There are further complexities:  How much does the surrounding environment impact our assessment of a distillery’s beauty?  For example, Lagavulin is, in reality, just a clump of relatively plain, white-washed buildings nestled together.  However, put them in a coastal location on the water, add some colour from the local vegetation, and throw in the ruins of a medieval castle nearby for good measure, and you have one extremely beautiful distillery.

A further difficulty arises when you look at the many distilleries that have been bastardised over the years with unsympathetic expansions, often resulting in clashing, jarring visuals.  There are many such examples that mix their original old-world Victorian charm with 1960’s modernism or 1970’s brutalism.   

Following a poll that Whisky & Wisdom ran on Twitter a few weeks ago to gauge public opinion, we offer you – in no particular order – the following list of Scotland’s most beautiful distilleries:

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The challenges of starting a new whisky brand

When new businesses are founded and launched, there are numerous financial and business models that help get the product to market.  There might be schemes to raise capital; funds assigned to support marketing and promotion; and then comes the down-and-dirty process of actually selling the goods.  It’s obviously a very diverse and varied minefield to tread.  If you’re wondering how to start a new whisky brand, or even how to start a new whisky distillery, the minefield is particularly tricky to navigate…

The whisky industry is an example of a sector where that diversity and variation is most evident:  There are brands and businesses that go large scale and are backed by investors who put up millions of pounds/dollars, and there are – quite genuinely – “mums and dads” businesses that are launched off little more than sweat and elbow grease in combination with passion to create a craft, artisan product.  And, in more recent times, there are distilleries that get established off the back of crowdfunding or barrel investment schemes – with mixed degrees of success.

William Grant and his wife
William Grant and his wife.  Were the challenges of establishing a whisky distillery and brand much different in 1887 to today?

A question often pondered is whether or not the process of getting a whisky business off the ground is easier or harder than it was in the past?   There’s a multitude of different factors and considerations.  William Grant, together with his family, spent over a year physically building Glenfiddich with his bare hands and started distilling on Christmas Day in 1887 to establish his own brand.  In contrast, if you’re armed with a website, a social media account, and access to some spirit distilled at Cooley, it seems you can quite easily launch an Irish whiskey brand overnight – complete with an impressive backstory!

In the harder basket, distilleries setting up today have planning and environmental controls that their predecessors didn’t have to worry about.  Council and municipal applications and approvals can take years to get through, and the days of casually discharging distillery effluent and by-products back into the river downstream are long behind us.

In the easier basket, as we’ve seen already, the internet and social media marketing means you can broadcast and promote your brand to a wider audience than ever for relatively little money.  Online sales via your own website mean you don’t even have to fight anymore with wholesalers or distributors to get your product on to the shelves of retail liquor outlets.   The days of Tommy Dewar hopping on a ship and spending months sailing around the globe to get sales are also well and truly behind us.

Let’s look at a few distilleries and brands from around the world that have forged very different steps in very different landscapes to see how the process unfolded….

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Ardnamurchan – The western jewel of Scotland

(Or everything you wanted to know about Ardnamurchan but were afraid to ask!)

In this digital age of whisky websites and social media activity, there are very few secrets left in the whisky industry.  Once upon a time, a new distillery would suddenly appear and no one knew much about it except for what might have been published in a subsequent book.  Today, by the time a new distillery’s first release is bottled, it seems we’ve all followed the journey of the distillery breaking ground; building the stillhouse; installing the stills; starting production; and filling the casks.  We’ve done the virtual tour of the distillery before the Visitor Centre has even opened its doors!

One of the primary reasons for this is simply because most of us will never get to make the journey to the distillery, and thus we live and drink vicariously through what we read and view online.   Consider, also, that not all distilleries are blessed by geography:  Auchentoshan and Glenkinchie, for example, are an easy bus ride from the big city centres of Glasgow and Edinburgh respectively, but things are trickier for the more remote distilleries that sit well off the tourist trail or are located on the fringes of Scotland’s reaches.

Ardnamurchan is one such distillery.  If you’re looking to start up a new distillery, your choice of location is fairly critical.  In addition to the most obvious requirement (i.e. a good water source), other considerations will be existing infrastructure, convenient access, shared resources, a ready-made tourist trail for visitors, and ease of transport for both the delivery of materials and the departure of spirit and filled casks.  So – with all these essentials being key to a successful distillery venture – why would you choose to locate your distillery in one of the most far flung, remote, and inaccessible parts of Scotland?  In the case of Ardnamurchan, the answer is pretty simple:  Because they can.

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Ardnamurchan 2016/AD

It’s hardly shiny or earth-shattering news to write that new distilleries are popping up all over Scotland.  In fact, such a statement is unlikely to pique any interest amongst the more learned whisky enthusiasts.  However, what does become interesting is when you start to look at the geography of these new distilleries.  Many are now re-populating the Lowlands, such as the Glasgow Distillery, or the wee-explosion of distilleries in Fife (e.g. Kingsbarns, Daftmill, etc).  Others are adding to the spectrum of Speyside, such as Ballindalloch or Dalmunach.

When starting a new distillery in these current times, the owners will be looking for some key necessities when deciding upon the site of their distillery.  In addition to the most obvious requirement (i.e. a good water source), other considerations will be existing infrastructure, convenient access, shared resources, a ready-made tourist trail for visitors, and ease of transport for both the delivery of raw materials and the departure of spirit and filled casks.  So – with all these essentials being key to a successful distillery start-up, why would you choose to locate your distillery in one of the most far flung, remote, and inaccessible parts of Scotland?  In the case of Ardnamurchan, the answer is pretty simple:  Because they can.

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Are you paying too much for your whisky?

Is whisky too expensive?  How much should you pay for a good bottle of single malt?  How much should you pay for a bad bottle of malt?   Why are some distilleries or labels so expensive, whilst others seem so much cheaper?  Why do NAS whiskies cost so much, when all you ever hear about is that their vattings contain mostly young malt?  In fact, when it all boils down: Why is whisky so expensive?

That’s a lot of questions. So what are the answers?

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