THE RECORD / STUDY 03
A Victorian distillery and a borrowed still.
The still in Study 03 is not a whisky still and was not built for Islay. It is a Lomond still, an experiment of 1955 that Hiram Walker installed at Inverleven, in Dumbarton, and abandoned in 1985. Bruichladdich rescued it from a demolition site, rebuilt it in its 1881 stillhouse in 2010 and gave it a new job: The Botanist gin. This is the record behind both the still and the distillery around it.
The Harvey brothers build for scale, 1881
Bruichladdich was built in 1881 on the western shore of Loch Indaal by three Glasgow brothers, William, Robert and John Harvey, who had inherited the Yoker and Dundashill grain distilleries from their father. Robert, aged 23, designed it; William paid for most of it; John was the distiller. They built on an industrial scale, larger than the island's farm distilleries, with a stillhouse tall enough for six-metre stills by Bennet and McLaren of Glasgow, a courtyard plan and mash tuns set above the tun room so the slope did the pumping. The walls were cavity construction and concrete made with pebbles from the shore.
The brothers fell out before the distillery was finished. Robert and William ran it alone, cut off from the Glasgow plants, and it struggled to pay its way. The site still works to its 1881 layout.
Bruichladdich Distillery: History · Bruichladdich (Whiskypedia) · Breaking the Mould: 25 Years In to our story · The Revival of BruichladdichOwners, closures and the 1994 mothballing
Distilling stopped in 1907, restarted in 1919, stopped again in 1929 and resumed in 1935 after a fire. Joseph Hobbs bought the distillery in 1937 for £8,000 and sold it on at once for £23,000. Ross and Coulter took it in 1952, AB Grant in 1960, and Invergordon Distillers in 1968; Invergordon doubled the stills from two to four in 1975. Whyte and Mackay won control of Invergordon in a hostile takeover in October 1993 and judged Bruichladdich surplus to requirements.
The date of the mothballing is given three ways. Difford's Guide says two months after the takeover, so late 1993; Undiscovered Scotland and the company say 1994; scotchwhisky.com says 1995. What is agreed is that the Victorian plant was never modernised and sat silent for the rest of the decade.
Bruichladdich Distillery: History · Bruichladdich (Whiskypedia) · The Revival of Bruichladdich · Bruichladdich Distillery · Breaking the Mould: 25 Years In to our storyMark Reynier, Jim McEwan and the 2000 revival
Mark Reynier, a London wine merchant, wrote to the owners every year for nine years. In 2000 Jim Beam Brands agreed to sell for £6.5 million, with the money due at noon on 19 December. Reynier and Simon Coughlin raised it from private shareholders and a bank through their bottling firm Murray McDavid. scotchwhisky.com gives the price as £6 million and the buyers as Islay landowners and a London wine merchant.
Reynier persuaded Jim McEwan, then manager at Bowmore after 38 years there, to become production director, and brought back Duncan MacGillivray, at Bruichladdich since 1974, to rebuild the plant on a small budget. The company dates the reopening to 29 May 2001; the first spirit was heavily peated Port Charlotte, not Bruichladdich. Difford's Guide gives 11 September 2001 for the first distillation.
Breaking the Mould: 25 Years In to our story · Bruichladdich Distillery: History · Bruichladdich (Whiskypedia) · The Revival of Bruichladdich · Rémy Cointreau completes acquisition of Bruichladdich single maltThe Lomond still and the Inverleven rescue
The Lomond still was designed in 1955 by chemical engineer Alistair Cunningham and draughtsman Arthur Warren at Hiram Walker. In place of a swan neck it has a short rectifying column with three movable perforated plates and an adjustable lyne arm, so one still could make light or heavy spirit for Ballantine's blend. Ramsden of London built the first for Inverleven, inside the Dumbarton grain complex, in 1956 by scotchwhisky.com's account or 1959 by most others. The plates were hard to clean: Glenburgie and Miltonduff gave theirs up in 1981, Scapa runs without them, Lomond was mothballed in 1985.
Inverleven closed in 1991, Dumbarton in 2002. During demolition a contractor spotted the three stills and told Reynier, who bought them; the company says 2005. The two whisky stills never ran on Islay and went to Waterford in Ireland in 2015.
Lomond (Whiskypedia) · Inverleven (Whiskypedia) · Glencraig (Whiskypedia) · Mosstowie (Whiskypedia) · Scapa (Whiskypedia) · The Botanist Islay Dry Gin · Ghost In The Machine · The BotanistPort Charlotte and Octomore
Bruichladdich itself is unpeated, a house style the blenders who owned it wanted. The new team set out to prove the distillery could also make peated malt. Port Charlotte, peated to 40 parts per million, was the first spirit distilled after the reopening in 2001; its first bottling, PC5 Evolution, came in 2006.
Octomore, named after a farm above Port Charlotte, was first distilled in 2002 as an experiment to see how heavily malt could be peated. The first release followed in 2008. The company now describes it as the most heavily peated Scotch whisky, released annually at 80 parts per million and above; Difford's Guide quotes 160 and above. In 2019 the company announced its own maltings and bought 30 acres for barley trials; it says 52 per cent of production now uses Islay barley.
Bruichladdich (Whiskypedia) · The Revival of Bruichladdich · FAQs · Bruichladdich Distillery · Breaking the Mould: 25 Years In to our storyUgly Betty and The Botanist, 2010
In January 2010 a wash still repair and the removal of three vessels freed the stillhouse floor for a fifth still. Photographs from April and June 2010 show the Lomond still being rebuilt there in sections. Its shape earned it the name Ugly Betty. McEwan had the top two neck sections altered, added a section of 80 copper tubes, and set a botanical chamber into the lyne arm for the more delicate plants.
The company announced the first Islay gin in August 2010: 31 botanicals, 22 gathered on Islay, distilled for 15 hours at very low pressure in a still it said had been saved from a scrap yard and unused for 30 years. The first 2,500 cases were due at the end of September 2010. The company's FAQ now dates The Botanist to 2011; its brand timeline says 2010.
Bruichladdich Distillery · Incomplete Ugly Betty still at Bruichladdich, Isle of Islay · Ugly Betty still at Bruichladdich, Isle of Islay · Friday Islay Picture #160: Ugly Betty Still at Bruichladdich · The Botanist Islay Dry Gin · FAQs · The BotanistRémy Cointreau, 2012, and B Corp, 2020
On 23 July 2012 Rémy Cointreau agreed to buy Bruichladdich Distillery Company for £58 million: £48 million for the shares and £10 million of debt assumed. The purchase completed on 3 September 2012. Chairman Sir John Mactaggart said the company had gone from a derelict distillery in 2001 to more than 55,000 cases in 2011. Reynier left after the sale and went on to found the Waterford distillery in Ireland.
In May 2020 the distillery became, in its own words, the first single malt Scotch whisky distillery and the first whisky and gin company in Europe to be certified as a B Corporation, scoring 83.2 against a pass mark of 80, and 100.7 on recertification in 2023. Chief executive Douglas Taylor called it validation of the business run since 2001.
Rémy Cointreau acquires Bruichladdich, the Single Malt Whisky · Rémy Cointreau completes acquisition of Bruichladdich single malt · Strong "savoir faire" sees Rémy Cointreau seal Bruichladdich whisky deal · Ghost In The Machine · Inverleven (Whiskypedia) · Bruichladdich first Scotch distillery to gain B Corp status · B Corp · We are B Corp CertifiedWhat Islay single malt means in law
The Scotch Whisky Regulations 2009 define Single Malt Scotch Whisky as Scotch whisky distilled in one or more batches at a single distillery, from water and malted barley without any other cereal, in pot stills. Scotch whisky must be distilled in Scotland at less than 94.8 per cent alcohol, matured in Scotland in oak casks of no more than 700 litres, and aged for at least three years.
Regulation 10 names Islay as a protected locality, "comprising the Isle of Islay in Argyll", alongside Campbeltown, and the name may only be used for Scotch whisky distilled there. The regulations say nothing about peat: an unpeated Bruichladdich is as much an Islay whisky as a heavily peated Octomore. The Botanist, being gin, falls outside them entirely.
The Scotch Whisky Regulations 2009, regulation 3 (definitions) · The Scotch Whisky Regulations 2009, regulation 10 (localities and regions)Made at Bruichladdich
- Bruichladdich
- The unpeated house style, which scotchwhisky.com describes as sweet, honeyed and floral with a lemon-butter note. Not produced for blends. Bruichladdich (Whiskypedia)
- Port Charlotte
- The heavily peated single malt at 40 parts per million, first distilled in 2001 and first bottled as PC5 Evolution in 2006. The Revival of Bruichladdich
- Octomore
- Released annually at 80 parts per million and above; the company calls it the most heavily peated Scotch whisky. First distilled 2002, first released 2008. FAQs
- The Botanist Islay Dry Gin
- Made in the Lomond still with 22 wild botanicals foraged on Islay; the first distillation was run by Jim McEwan, Adam Hannett and Allan Logan in 2010. The Botanist
- PC5 Evolution
- The first Port Charlotte bottling, five years old, released in 2006. The Revival of Bruichladdich
Questions people ask
What is a Lomond still?
A pot still with a short rectifying column in place of the swan neck, designed in 1955 by Alistair Cunningham and Arthur Warren at Hiram Walker. Three perforated plates in the column and an adjustable lyne arm let one still make lighter or heavier spirit. They were installed at Inverleven, Glenburgie, Miltonduff and Scapa, and the plates proved hard to clean.
Lomond (Whiskypedia) · Glencraig (Whiskypedia) · Mosstowie (Whiskypedia)Why is the Bruichladdich gin still called Ugly Betty?
Because of its shape. A squat drum of a pot carries a wide column of bolted sections, then a narrower neck and a lyne arm with a chamber set into it. Difford's Guide says the name comes from its unshapely appearance. A pin-up and the name are painted on the column.
The Botanist Islay Dry Gin · Ugly Betty still at Bruichladdich distillery, Isle of IslayWhere did Ugly Betty come from?
From Inverleven, the malt distillery inside Hiram Walker's Dumbarton grain complex, where it was installed as the first Lomond still in 1956 or 1959, sources differ. Inverleven closed in 1991. When Dumbarton was demolished, Mark Reynier bought its three stills for Bruichladdich; the company dates that to 2005.
Inverleven (Whiskypedia) · The Botanist Islay Dry Gin · Ghost In The Machine · The BotanistDoes Ugly Betty still have its plates?
Difford's Guide says it is the last Lomond still operating with its baffle plates still in place, and that Jim McEwan added a section of 80 copper tubes above them and a botanical chamber in the lyne arm. Scapa's Lomond still, by contrast, had its plates removed.
The Botanist Islay Dry Gin · Scapa (Whiskypedia)When was The Botanist first made?
The first distillation was in summer 2010; the company announced it in August 2010 with 2,500 cases due at the end of September. Rémy Cointreau's brand timeline gives 2010 as the first distillation. The Bruichladdich FAQ dates the gin to 2011, ten years after the distillery reopened.
Friday Islay Picture #160: Ugly Betty Still at Bruichladdich · The Botanist · FAQsWho owns Bruichladdich?
Rémy Cointreau, which bought Bruichladdich Distillery Company for £58 million in 2012. From December 2000 to 2012 it was owned by private investors led by Mark Reynier and Simon Coughlin; before that by Whyte and Mackay, Invergordon and a series of earlier owners back to the Harvey family.
Rémy Cointreau acquires Bruichladdich, the Single Malt Whisky · Rémy Cointreau completes acquisition of Bruichladdich single malt · Bruichladdich Distillery: HistorySources are linked under each section. Company statements are attributed as such. Where sources disagree, the page says which figure it uses and why. Corrections: hello@stillbound.ai.