Witchburn Distillery planned for Campbeltown

Petra Milde |

The building boom of new whisky distilleries is also taking hold on the Kintyre Peninsula

 

Independent bottler and whisky blender Brave New Spirits has submitted planning application to Argyll & Bute Council for a new whisky distillery about 6 kilometres west of Campbeltown. The Witchburn Distillery is to be built on the former Royal Air Force site at Machrihanish by the end of 2024.

These plans are not to be confused with those already in place by R&B Distillers, the owners of Raasay Distillery, who are building a whisky distillery at Dhurrie Farm in Machrihanish (we reported).

Plans for the Witchburn Distillery include a five-tonne mashtun, 16 wash backs of 30,000 litres each, two wash stills of 16,000 litres each and two spirit stills of 7,000 litres each. The distillery is planned as a net-zero distillery, to be operated exclusively with renewable energies and to run around the clock in order to reuse the heat produced as far as possible in an energy-saving way.

In terms of whisky style, Adam Hochul and Alexander Springensguth, owners of Brave New Spirits, want to position themselves broadly: They want to produce unpeatedy, lightly peated and heavily peated single malt whisky. A triple package with which the long-established Springbank Distillery in Campbeltown is already extremely successful with their Hazelburn, Springbank and Longrow.

Maturation is to take place on site at the Witchburn Distillery, mainly in Bourbon casks, Oloroso Sherry casks, Tawny and Ruby Port casks and Bordeaux red wine casks.

About 30 new jobs are to be created at the Distillery. Andrew Nairn, who has already worked at Glenkinchie, Strathmill and the Borders Distillery, has been recruited as Master Distiller of Withburn Distillery.

 

Pictures: Brave New Spirits

Petra Milde is a freelance author of books and specialist writing about spirits and food. She has been supporting the Whisky.de editorial team since 2015 and creates informative and entertaining articles in the news section.

Besides her writing work, she moderates tastings and can be met at spirits fairs, both behind the stands and in front of them, looking for new products and interesting people to talk to.

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