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 The Port Charlotte Distillery
We are pleased to announce our plans to
rebuild the Port Charlotte Distillery.
Two defunct distilleries will come together Phoenix-like to create a third in
the village of Port Charlotte, 2 miles from Bruichladdich.
This was the site of the Lochindaal Distillery built in 1829 where it dominated
the village for a hundred years before closing in 1929 due to Prohibition.
Mark Reynier, CEO of Bruichladdich – itself a reborn distillery as recent as
2001 – explains the project:
“As progressive Hebridean distillers, we believe strongly in the Islay
Appellation, and artisanal distilling. One set of stills was never going to be
enough for us.”
“This new distillery will allow us to diversify our skills, provide new options
and allow further scope for our new ideas. We rather enjoy distilling.”
The distilling equipment for the Port Charlotte project, already acquired, comes
from another closed distillery.
“It was Jim’s idea. In 2003 Inverleven Distillery was to be demolished, so why
not bring it to Islay? Obvious really…”
The entire single malt plant was dismantled, bolt by bolt, by a team of ten of
Bruichladdich’s finest “engineers” (crofters) under Duncan McGillivray.
The machinery was shipped to the island on barges where it has been in storage
ever since - with some parts used for spares.
The new full-sized Port Charlotte distillery, once re-erected within some of the
original 1829 distillery buildings, will have a maximum capacity of 1.2m litres.
This is no micro-distillery.
“We have the chance to create an entirely ‘green’ distillery, with a genuinely
zero carbon footprint by using all the latest environmentally sustainable
concepts.”
“The environmental movement is strong on the theory, but weak in the practice.
It will be quite an engineering challenge to see what really is possible.”
In a further twist, when a new distillery is built usually a decade passes
before there is anything to sell. In this case when the stills run there will
already be eight years’ stock in the warehouses. Port Charlotte whisky, a
heavily peated single malt, has been distilled since 2001.
With Diageo, the industry’s biggest player, announcing a whopping £40m plan for
a new mega distillery in Speyside, some fear the dawn of an era of distilling
centralisation. Bruichladdich, true to form, is going in the entirely opposite
direction - again.
“We’re kind of used to going against the grain. But our distillery, of course,
will be an altogether more modest affair.”
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| Proposed
New Site |
Proposed
New Site |
Inverleven
Bits & Pieces |
Barge |
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| Docking |
Inverleven
Tank |
The Big
Lift |
Gently
Does it.. |
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