ardgowan

The distillery is also in discussion with a loan provider that will provide additional debt funding for the flagship project in the coming weeks.

Grain (47) is the founder, owner and CEO of IT company Grain GmbH which operates in 17 countries worldwide. He has a long track record of investment in distilleries.

“My passion for whisky began as a teenager in Austria when I began to collect Scotch whisky and today I am thrilled to become the major shareholder in the Ardgowan Distillery.

“My wish is for this project to create a lasting connection to the community and produce the highest possible quality whisky and over time achieve the lowest possible CO2 footprint,” Grain says.

“The company founders Martin McAdam, Alan Baker and I have a shared vision of what we can achieve. Already they have built a strong team around them – not least their chairman Willie Phillips and their whisky maker Max McFarlane – and together we will craft the finest quality single malt whisky based on the extraordinary location of the Ardgowan Estate and the unusual microclimate of the Inverkip area.

“My hope is that the distillery will become a landmark building and a significant tourist attraction in the years ahead, and I very much look forward to seeing work commence this year,” Grain says.

“Ardgowan Estate is less than an hour’s drive from Glasgow and in 2019 Greenock welcomed more than 100,000 cruise ship visitors, so I believe there is a great opportunity to capture this market with a first-class food, drink and retail tourist experience. We estimate the distillery and visitor centre will create up to 30 new jobs within five years,” Grain concludes.

Grain has a highly successful record of investing in the spirits industry. He started with a small investment in the Cotswolds Distillery and continued with investments in Manly Spirits (Sydney, Australia), the East London Liquor Company and Potstill Spirits Trading – Austria´s largest whisky importer. Most recently he has become a 20 percent shareholder in UK spirits business Distil Plc.

Distillery CEO Martin McAdam said:

“Roland Grain is a brilliant and passionate cornerstone investor who has global experience in investing in a whole range of spirits businesses. He is a genuine whisky enthusiast who has visited distilleries all over Scotland, and he has a clear vision for the project which is very much aligned with ours; based on place, provenance and people.

“This is terrific news for the project and for Inverclyde. We have put a lot of the uncertainty of Brexit behind us and we hope that Covid will also soon be a distant memory.

“Over the past few years, we have used the time well to build up our team and craft some fantastic, blended malt whiskies, sourcing some of the finest casks from across Scotland. We are hugely proud of our Expedition and Clydebuilt whiskies which have won industry recognition and continue to gather a growing fanbase of customers,” McAdam concludes.

Local MSP Stuart McMillan commented:

“I welcome this large investment in the Ardgowan Distillery project and my constituency. The Ardgowan Distillery will not only create 30 new jobs but will put Inverclyde on the global whisky map once again. This is an exciting project and I look forward to seeing the business grow, with Inverclyde being found in many more homes and businesses across the world.”

Sir Ludovic Shaw-Stewart the 12th Baronet at Ardgowan Estate also welcomed the news:

“This project is an important contribution to the continuing re-development of Ardgowan Estate. Together Ardgowan House, Castle & Gardens and Ardgowan Distillery will create a compelling destination which can draw visitors from all around the world.”

The first phase of the distillery will incorporate two copper stills and six washbacks, with a planned output of one million litres per annum. Future output can be doubled via the addition of two further stills plus washbacks in an already-approved second phase.

The new distillery will resurrect the name of the Ardgowan Distillery, which was founded in 1896 and located in Baker Street, Greenock. After a few years of whisky production, the distillery was used to make grain spirt and industrial alcohol until it was destroyed in the May Blitz of 1941.

The Clydebuilt series aims to celebrate the pride shown by generations of shipbuilders on the Clyde.

Shipwright is non-chill filtered, non-coloured and has been bottled at 48% ABV.

It has been created by Ardgowan’s master whisky maker Max McFarlane and follows the success of the distillery’s first Clydebuilt release, Coppersmith, which won a silver medal in the 2020 Scottish Whisky Awards (in the blended malt category).

“The feedback we’ve had from Coppersmith gives us great confidence in our ability to craft premium whisky with broad appeal,” says distillery chief executive Martin McAdam [pictured].

“We see a real appetite for quality blended malt and Max has continued this theme with Shipwright – which solely comprises top drawer single malts. I think it is our best dram yet.

“Looking ahead we will continue to source the finest quality casks to develop the next release in the Clydebuilt series, and also for ultra-limited releases in our Discovery series,” McAdam says.

Distillery plans

McAdam also spoke about the distillery’s construction plans.

“Since the moment we launched the business, our goal has always been to build a world-class distillery and visitor centre on the Ardgowan Estate near Inverkip and we are really grateful to everyone who has supported us thus far.

“Naturally, our plans have been on hold for some months due firstly to Brexit and then Covid- 19, but now I am confident we will start work later this year on our one million litre distillery, and we will be in operation by 2023. Of course Max as an Inverkip resident tells me he is ready to start walking to work!

“Ardgowan is en route to the islands, it’s near the sea and I think this will help us create a coastal lowland malt of real character.”

Meanwhile, McAdam and Max McFarlane plan to keep developing new whiskies and bringing them to the market – both in the UK and overseas.

“Until we have our own product on shelves it is very important to generate revenue and demonstrate we have a team that can create great whiskies and forge routes to market around the globe.

“We must never forget that 93 percent of Scotch whisky is exported. We now have distribution in Belgium, The Netherlands, Taiwan and China. We hope to announce progress on distribution in Germany and the USA in the near future,” McAdam concludes.

Discovery 1 – a sherry finish single malt, distilled in 2011 – was selected by Ardgowan’s whisky maker Max McFarlane (formerly at Highland Park) as too good to miss.

Max [pictured], whose Inverkip home is around a mile from the future distillery, said:

“I came across it by chance. It’s a lowland malt, which had been sitting in Pedro Ximénez sherry casks for over two years and it tasted just superb – rich and warm with a long fruity finish.

“However, there were only two casks – just enough for a small run.

“We decided to bottle it as the first in our new limited edition Discovery series, and our growing fan base quickly snapped it up. The feedback so far has been superb.”

The success of Discovery 1 comes weeks after Coppersmith – the first in the company’s new Clydebuilt series – secured a silver medal in the Scottish Whisky Awards in the blended malt under twelve years category.

They also secured a gold medal in 2019 for their ultra-limited-edition Expedition 20-year-old.

Commenting on the sales, Ardgowan Distillery CEO Martin McAdam said:

“Anyone who has enjoyed the richness of our Coppersmith blended malt will know how vital sherry oak casks are to Max’s whisky making process and Discovery 1 is no exception.

Martin McAdam continued:

“We now have real confidence we are producing whiskies that our customers love and our business can only grow from here. We are building confidence with our customers and our investors. Next spring we will reveal the next in our Clydebuilt series and I hope to be making an announcement on our distillery plans in the near future.”

He was managing director of The Macallan Malt Whisky from 1978 until the company was bought by Highland Distillers in 1996. During this period, his team’s passionate adherence to the proven quality of The Macallan Single Malt established it as an international brand.

However, when Willie joined the Macallan Distillery in 1974 – moving to Craigellachie from Edinburgh with his wife Margaret and two young children – it was not the global brand it is today.

Joining the team as the distillery’s first accountant, Willie quickly learned the ropes. First, he was given a pair of wellies (he hadn’t been told his role included being farm manager!), and in these early months he worked shifts to understand how the business operated, and to bond with the team. This was helped no end by the fact he also handed out the wage packets – getting to know everyone by name.

“At the time it was a premium product – and possibly the most respected single malt in Speyside – but it wasn’t known abroad,” says Willie, from his home in Balfron.

“It was renowned as the most popular of Speyside’s single malts in bottle, and certainly one of the top three malt whiskies for the blending trade.”

By 1976 Willie was finance director and by 1978 – when the distillery’s major shareholder Peter Shiach became chairman – Willie was appointed Managing Director.

“At the time Peter was very unwell, in fact he was dying,” says Willie “and one day he shared his vision with me.

“He wanted to grow The Macallan into one of the best-known single malts in the world, and he said to me ‘go and do it!’ – so, with Peter’s older brother, Allan at the helm, that is what we did.

“I was very fortunate that we had an amazing team around us. We had a superb marketing director Hugh Mitcalfe, with whom I just clicked, a dedicated production team (two leaders of which were malt whisky afficionados) and we built our brand with quality at the core.

“We had an in-house nosing panel for every bottling where we compared the current bottling with the previous bottling and ones from three years and five years before – to ensure no product drift.”

“It was a very egalitarian operation – with one of the office ladies on the panel, as she had a really good nose,” Willie says.

It was also great timing. Some years earlier, in 1968, the distillery has started laying down stocks in their newly constructed warehouse, so by 1980 they were well and truly ready to go.

It was the start of The Macallan’s meteoric rise.

Allan, Willie, Hugh and the team spearheaded a highly innovative PR and marketing campaign, including renaming their whisky The Macallan – which, as awareness grew, became The Macallan, The Malt.

They ran a series of funny, quirky (and relatively cheap) adverts – including a series of ads beside the Times crosswords – and did a major PR push in the US.

This included weeks spent stateside where Willie and Hugh independently would – quite literally – walk into retailers to convince them to carry their malt.

Willie recounts going into Sherry Lehmann’s liquor store on 5th Avenue, New York, no less than four times before the store owner relented and gave Willie an audience.

They also brought their US PR and sales people to Scotland for a top-drawer trip of a lifetime, where they toured Edinburgh, played golf in St Andrews, visited Glen Coe, ate at Rogano, went to ceilidhs and enjoyed the very finest food and drink on offer – as well as trips to more colourful venues such as the Drovers Inn by Loch Lomond!

This was topped off by a visit to The Macallan.

“As I said to them at the time,  I just wanted them to return to the US with a wee bit of Scotland in their hearts, and truth be told there were tears in many of their eyes as they left from Glasgow airport,” Willie recounts

The plan was a vast success – sales stateside and world wide continued to rise and in 1988, The Macallan won The Queen’s Award for Export.

And this success has continued to today – where The Macallan remains one the world’s best known and respected whisky brands.

The distillery was subsequently bought by Highland Distillers in 1996, and the year after Willie and his wife Margaret moved to France to start a new adventure with a role as Managing Director of Janneau SA, an Armagnac company, where they stayed for six years.

Since then he has retained a passionate interest in whisky and the industry, leading a consortium in an unsuccessful attempt to buy Tamdhu distillery, appointed as an early non-executive director during the construction and the completion of the Isle of Harris distillery, and then in 2017 he took a call from his old friend and colleague, Max McFarlane.

“Max and I have known each other many years and he was very enthused about the Ardgowan Distillery which is taking shape on his doorstep at Inverkip.

“He introduced me to the business owners Martin McAdam and Alan Baker and I was impressed with their plans. I asked them how I could help, and they asked me if I would be Chairman – which I accepted.

Since then Willie has worked closely with the distillery team – and was instrumental in the selection of the whisky used for Expedition 20-year-old, which he selected and blended from his own industry sources.  It was subsequently awarded a gold medal in in the 2019 Scottish Whisky Awards.

Together with Max, he has stressed the impact of quality casks on the finished product – advice which has gone into the release of Coppersmith – which comprises only single malts wholly matured in first-fill Oloroso sherry casks.

“You can do all of the marketing and all of the promotions that you like – but ultimately it is the spirit in the bottle that counts. Quality is the key,” Willie concludes.

To that we should always be able to raise a second glass!