Stillhouse Expansion Nears Completion
August 20, 2019BY ANTHONY WILLS, KILCHOMAN FOUNDER & MANAGING DIRECTOR
I’m delighted to announce that we’re approaching completion of our stillhouse extension and hope to conclude commissioning within the next few weeks. The new building, extending out from the gable end of our original stillhouse, contains two new stills, a new mashtun and six additional washbacks which will double our capacity to 480,000 LOA, though it remains to be decided what production level we’ll settle at.
The stillhouse extension is the latest phase of an expansion that started last year with the completion of our new malt floor and kiln, we hope to complete the final phase; a new visitor centre, shop and café within the next 3-4 months. At a time when I thought I might take a step back we’ve invested around £6 million in upgrades, that said, without an increase in capacity we would be heading towards a situation where all Kilchoman would be sold purely on allocation. With my three sons heavily involved in the business we want to continue building on the success of the last 15 years without the risk of running out of whisky.
New
The investment amounts to almost an entirely new distillery in itself however we wanted to ensure that the new equipment was a mirror image of the original stillhouse and we’ve been delighted with the quality of the spirit, with no discernible difference in the character of that produced from the new compared to old stills.
The new equipment will also allow us to experiment more during the malting and peat phases as well as in the stillhouse with yeast varieties and isolating specific spirit runs.
Please get in touch with me directly if you would like to discuss any of the above. My email is anthony.wills@kilchomandistillery.com telephone number (+44) 01496 850 011.
For further comments and enquiries please contact either Anthony (details above) or James Wills james.wills@kilchomandistillery.com
Images of the new areas can be viewed and downloaded here
READ NEXT
Loch Gorm 2024 is here!
The much-anticipated annual launch of Loch Gorm is finally here! Named after the famously dark, peaty loch overlooked by the distillery, our annual Loch Gorm limited edition is our only regular expression matured entirely in oloroso sherry casks. The 2024 edition was distilled in 2014 and matured in oloroso sherry…
April 22, 2024
