Kingsbarns Distillery

Having already visited the Annandale and Edradour distilleries on Friday I was keen to see Kingsbarns Distillery in Fife, another new and small distillery that started production in March this year. It is always great to see new distilleries opening, not only it is a sign of a healthy industry but often the people that are behind the openings are passionate about whisky as well.

Leaving the coastal road from St Andrews and driving down the red surfaced track with woodland one side and fields the other, you sweep around the corner and at first site the distillery looks like a small defensive castle protecting Fife from invaders coming ashore from the North Sea which is less than a mile away.

We were welcomed by Douglas Clement, one of the owners/founders and the man who conceived the idea of Kingsbarns back in 2009. The tour was fairly well attended given the inclement weather outside and that Kingsbarns is a bit of a trek unless you happen to already be visiting St Andrews or the Fife coastal road.

The buildings were once part of an old farm but beyond some nice photography there isn't much else to learn about the site. The welcome desk, cafe and shop have all been finished to a high standard and first impressions are of a quality brand but as the tour got underway I personally felt that Kingsbarns was yet to find its groove.

Our tour guide described the decision to open a distillery in Fife as filling a void, 'Golfers with tight schedules just didn't have time to visit Edradour or Aberfeldy' so Douglas (a former golf caddy), came up with the idea of opening a distillery in Fife just down the road from a captive audience. The story is at odds with the website that puts a different slant on the reason for opening but sitting in the distillery listening to our guide the story lacked the passion for whisky that you want to hear about on such tours.

While Douglas Clement had the idea it was Wemyss family that provided the financial backing. Wemyss is already a familiar brand in the drinks industry as whisky blenders and they also have gin and wine in their portfolio. Douglas is certainly the friendly face on the ground and appeared to be getting stuck-in wherever needed to help visitors enjoy the experience. 

Back at the tour our guide was explaining that the vessels in the distillery house were stainless steel 'because they didn't feel the need to be traditional' because this was a modern distillery. And that may be right but it again it came across as being a very commercial decision and by this time I felt that I was in a business presentation. To be honest the main distillery area did feel very industrial and business-like, the rules and warnings before entering were such that you felt immediately detached from what was going on and that we were intruding rather than being invited to watched some magic at work.

With the tour of the distillery over we headed upstairs to the tasting room. The wood, soft lighting and leather chairs that gave it the appearance of a gentleman's club with some history, contrasted starkly with the steel, grey walls and harsh lighting of the distillery. Even the two copper stills, the only warm colour in the distillery, were dwarfed by the steel and looked insignificant rather than magnificent.

Tasting the new make spirit I found it difficult to identify any clear characteristics other than a pleasant peppery aftertaste but it has plenty of time to mature and I'm sure that people far better qualfied have already formed an opinion as to how the finished product will taste. It's going into ex-bourbon mainly at the moment and other cask fillings are planned. Output is 140,000 litres per annum.

In the shop Douglas was on-hand to offer advice, take money at the till and chat to visitors. Kingsbarns will undoutedly do very well because of its unique position but if it wants a reputation as a great place to visit beyond the Fife boundary, it needs to find a way of spreading some of Douglas's warmth and enthusiasm into the distillery itself and maybe think again about the story it wants to tell.

Good luck Kingsbarns.

Swords and Words at Annandale Distillery

Friday September 11th, a day after its Royal opening, I visited the recently opened Annandale Distillery, which is now the most southerly distillery in Scotland, being just across the border and 7 miles west of Gretna Green.

Alfred Barnard visited the distillery as part of his comprehensive tour in the 1890s and at the time described his own journey and arrival: 'We drove 1½ miles from the hotel to the Distillery, along a pretty country road, from which we diverged down a private carriage-way, crossing a bridge over the Annan Burn, and found ourselves at the gates of the works.' Today the gate is before the burn but at first sight of the distillery buildings little has changed since Barnard's visit.

The distillery was built and first opened in 1830 by George Donald a former excise officer and was then taken over, in 1883, by John Gardner, a Liverpudlian who inherited handsomely upon his father's death and decided to give up his day job in Liverpool to pursue a different type of challenge.

'We spent a pleasant afternoon on this little estate.' Barnard wrote 'Mr. Gardner himself was our guide, and conducted us first of all over the farm buildings at the back of the works, higher up on the stores of the hill. It is quite a model farmstead, the cowsheds, piggeries, and stables being ranged round a square yard; and we saw upwards of twenty fine head of cattle almost ready for the butcher, and a considerable number of pigs, all fed from the draff or grains from the Distillery.'

Today the distillery is 'reborn' as it says on the door to the cafe. By the early 20th Century the distillery had changed hands again and was owned by Johnnie Walker and no doubt the whisky made here ended up in his famous blends. However, production stopped during the first World War and the distillery never really recovered to full production, so it was mothballed.

Stripped of its equipment, the original still house was demolished but the footprint remains, even showing the outline of where the stills once stood. The remaining buildings were left to nature or returned to farm use until they were discovered by David Thomson and his wife Teresa Church in 2009. Thomson is a local lad but the couple now live in Oxford where they run MMR Research Group, a global consultancy business that helps companies maximise the success of product launches by 'using our understanding of consumer decision making to turn brand promise into winning products and packaging'. And it is very evident that they've applied their work to the £10.5 million redevelopment of Annandale Distillery.

Waking around the site and through the rooms as part of the tour, Annandale is a very touchy feely experience. There's lots of wood but it is beautifully carved into shapes that make you want to stroke and feel it. The doors are heavy and solid, the craftsmanship to the floors, walls, stairways and lighting are all of excellent quality. In places it feels more like an art gallery than a working distillery and in some areas it literally is.

But they are serious about the whisky too. A copper topped mash tun, six Oregon pine wash backs (none of your industrial stainless steel here) and three new copper stills, a large wash still and two 4,000 litre spirit stills.

Currently mashing and distilling 12,000 litres a day and alternating between peated and unpeated spirit, the whiskies celebrate a man of Words and a man of the Sword (notice one is an anagram of the other). The man of words is Robert Burns, national poet and former excise offer in these parts. The man of the sword is King Robert the Bruce, also known as the 6th Lord of Annandale. The new make spirit was available to taste and is already branded and for sale in the visitors centre. The unpeated spirit promises to be light and fruity and the peated spirit will probably be subtle and mellow, rather than going head-to-head with the big players from Islay. The branding for now is interesting and I wonder if they'll bottle the matured spirit in matt black bottles as well?

A modest warehouse is being filled with ex-bourbon casks and whilst there are plans to find more warehousing locally, nothing was said about experimenting with different cask types. All of the spirit is planned for single malt with none being sold for blending. The owners are clearly in this for long term and the distillery is certainly built to last.

As I was leaving, the car park was filling up and the next tour looked as if it was going to be busy. Annandale Distillery and its whiskies could soon be another successful case study for MMR Group.

The Lakes Distillery Tour

Whilst on holiday in Cumbria and enjoying the wonderful scenery and hospitality that the Lake District has to offer it seemed only right to make a visit to The Lakes Distillery, which opened for business in December 2014 but will be officially opened next week by HRH The Princess Royal.

From the same people that started the Arran Distillery, The Lakes has taken five years to get from idea to filling the first cask and it is an impressive set-up.

The renovation of the former Victorian farm buildings have been done with great care and attention to detail. The commissioned artwork that adorns the site adds to the experience and you are left in no doubt that the team behind it are committed for the long term.

The tour itself started with an audio visual treat in the shape of a video shot from a helicopter following the source of The Lakes' water supply down the hills, into the Derwent and out to sea on the west coast. There was also a rather odd video of a Yorkshireman in period dress playing the part of a local distiller from 200 years ago. The point being that distilling in the Lake District is not a new concept.

The distillery was very shiny and new. One mash tun, six wash backs, wash still and spirit still. Plus a smaller dedicated still for the batch production of gin and vodka.

A great deal of the casks in the warehouse are small sherry casks and the hope is that the non-age statement trend continues and that a 3, 5, 7 year old will appeal to consumers.

Light on details and not sure whether the final single malt will be peated or unpeated, our guide was otherwise charming and enthusiastic about the spirits being produced. Perhaps the most interesting detail was the aspiration to mature spirit in different types of wood. I thought this had been done in the past without great success but maybe it's time someone tried again.

Without a whisky product of their own (even a liqueur which I thought was a prerequisite for new distilleries?) The Lakes has instead produced a blend called The One. This is apparently the only blend that features whiskies from England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland. It didn't do much for me but it has won awards so what do I know?

The gin, on the other hand, was very acceptable and a bottle accompanied me out of the door as I left.

A great visitor experience, probably not yet ready for the whisky aficionados who might be disappointed by the lack of detail and 'new make' available but worth a visit if only to support one of the few independent distilleries we have.