Ardgowan distillery has taken delivery of its copper stills. The site, at Inverkip near the River Clyde, which is on the Ardgowan Estate, 30 miles west of Glasgow, was given planning consent in 2019, and submitted new designs in 2021.
The building, dubbed a 'cathedral to whisky' is hoped to be completed in the spring of 2025, and the stills arriving to be installed, marks a huge milestone in the history of this distillery.
Martin McAdam, CEO of Ardgowan distillery said: “I’m so happy, I’m so delighted. This project has been eight years in the making so I’ve got to tell you, it feels really good. That building site, which we’ve been working on for just over a year, becomes a distillery as soon as those copper stills go inside.”
The stills, which were made by McMillan Coppersmiths in Prestonpans, were piped into the site during an event attending by locals, press and the provost.
With the stills now in the distillery, whisky fans will be wondering what the final spirit will taste like.
Of the spirit that’ll soon run from the stills, and the whisky that’ll be matured on-site, Mr McAdam explained the character that they’re hoping to achieve and it’s all about location.
He said: “Here at the distillery we’re only 1500 metres from the mouth the river Clyde so just across the water we have Ireland, and just across the river itself we have the Highland and here we’re Lowland so we’re sitting at a nexus point between Highland, Island and Lowland.
"What we want to make is a great robust spirit, very fruity, able to stand up to a lot of sherry maturation - so something Highland Speyside is what we’re going for.”
Max Macfarlane, master whisky maker at Ardgowan agreed that location is key and said: “The new spirit we’re going to create, we’re hoping will have an element of the sea air, which is more or less behind us here. It’ll be a sweet, ester-y, new spirit.”
Mr Macfarlane is the man behind the sherry cask maturation, as he’s used his years of experience - and contacts - at Erdington to obtain casks and create the whisky for sale from the distillery so far.
Of this, Mr Macfarlane said: “The cask programme we have here is very unique. We’re filling the majority of our first year casks into infinity casks - 700 litre casks - first fill sherry casks.
"They’ve already been built in Spain and have been seasoned with sherry. The casks we’re filling, no one else has filled these before. With the size of the casks, it just means that the maturation takes longer. If we fill these casks next year, they probably won’t be ready until 2032 or 2033.”
While there won’t be Ardgowan single malt for a number of years, the distillery has bottled some whisky including the Clydebuilt and Potstill ranges.
Of these, Mr Macfarlane added: “Most of the whiskies we’ve bottled so far have won national or international awards, so we’re on the right track at the moment.”
The distillery is also making Blackwoods gin, via a small copper pot and column still. The team are hoping to use this smaller still for pilot or experimental whiskies, such as peated liquid. These can either be made for the Ardgowan brand or for other private individuals or companies.
The distillery’s stunning look, net zero credentials and especially-made infinity casks will be what sets it apart.
Of these casks, Mr McAdam said: “We had this crazy idea for infinity casks. They’re based on specifications we have at Ardgowan distillery.
"The idea behind the casks is that they’re big, they will stand up to long maturation periods and what we hope is that this will give us an exceptional spirit.
"The infinity cask was made specially for us, normally people use a range of casks for maturing their whisky but about 75-80 percent of our whisky will be matured in sherry casks so what we wanted to do was create a cask that was slightly different, is a little bit bigger than the traditional sherry butt.
"It’s also toasted precisely to our specification so we’re looking for something really special from that wood.”
The design for the Ardgowan distillery uses low environmental impact composite cladding, timber and steel materials to create a light-filled modern Nordic long hall.
The building is designed to provide an ergonomic energy efficient distillery and to maximise the visitor experience and will incorporate a glass-walled ‘sky platform’ with views of the Clyde.
The sustainability efforts have also been applied to the stills, which have added thermal vapour recompression - this allows the team to recover about 40 percent of the heat that’s used in the distillation, recycle that and use it again. Mr McAdam said: “It’s about us creating a lower carbon, more sustainable distillery.”
Distillation at Ardgowan should start April/May next year - all being well with the build, and the team hope to welcome visitors from summer 2025. Find out more via the distillery website.
