This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.
News
Formerly dormant distillery releases 10-year-old whisky
The Annandale Distillery is toasting its first 10-year-old single malt whisky since resuming operation following almost a century of disuse.
The Scotch whisky site formerly owned by Johnnie Walker ceased production in 1919, shortly after the end of World War One. Originally built in the early 1830s, the distillery lay unused for decades before it was purchased for renovation.
Owners Prof David Thomson and Teresa Church bought the Scottish distillery buildings in 2007. They began producing spirits seven years later.
Annandale Distillery also underwent multi-million pound renovation and the site was officially opened by the Princess Royal in 2015.
Now its owners have reached a new milestone in the revival of the Victorian whisky distillery, having bottled a new expression from a cask that was filled a decade ago.
Co-owner Thomson told the BBC of the milestone: “From an emotional point of view, it’s when it becomes not young whisky — it’s considered to be mature whisky at that point — and that’s big for a distillery, that’s where you want to get to.”
The pair became curious about dormant distilleries after Church bought Scotch Missed for Thomson, a book which details the remnants and ruins of almost every Victorian working distillery in Scotland.
“It’s about whisky distilleries — a lot of them were developed after the Excise Act of 1823,” Thomson said. “But come the First World War, quite a lot of them had stopped production and it’s a shame in many ways. Some were demolished, some were turned into nice housing and some to very gross things that didn’t look nice at all. We found out about Annandale, we came and saw it, it was a beautiful day and we got all dewy-eyed about it.”
Thomson and Church now employs around 90 people across the business, which includes the Globe Inn in Dumfries and Comlongon Castle at Clarencefield, two towns in Scotland.
The Annandale Distillery’s export markets include Austria, Australia, Belgium, China, Denmark, Germany, Holland, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and Taiwan.
Related news
Vignobles Cruse-Lorenzetti shuffles roles across its four Bordeaux chateaux
Haacht moves UK distribution to Morgenrot
Bourgogne wine see global growth despite difficult market conditions