18 • AGENDA
• FEATURE: DAFTMILL “On the other gable there is
a gargoyle which came from Ramornie House, Ladybank, a gothic mansion built by the Haigs of Cameronbridge, now demolished.” I asked Francis what
inspired him and his brother to build a distillery. “We had to repair the mill and
thought about several uses for the building – flats, joiner’s workshop, etc. One of the more hairbrained ideas was a distillery: it would be appropriate and would look good, also we grow a lot of malting quality barley… I happened to meet a retired distiller and asked him to look at the building with a view to converting it. “He put us in touch with an engineer who had worked on Kininvie and Kilchoman distilleries and he did a feasibility study and rough costing…
Apart from
the stills and condensers, all the fabrication was done by local firms
“We started building work
in 2003. Apart from the stills and condensers, which were made by Forsyth of Rothes, and a couple of second hand tanks, all the fabrication was done by local firms, within a five mile radius of the farm.” Not the least remarkable thing
about Daftmill is that the Cuthbert brothers created the distillery without any grants or loans or outside investment. I thought it impertinent to ask Francis how much it cost, but know from other sites that it is in the region of £5 to £7 million. In recent years there have been several distillery projects which have foundered for lack of funding. Ladybank, just down the road from Daftmill, and the ill-fated Shetland project immediately come to mind. How did they do it? “My father, who was trained
as a civil engineer, began to quarry gravel on the farm in 1961. The deposits turned out to be substantial and the quarry has made a very useful contribution to the farm’s income…”
THE SCOTCH MALT WHISKY SOCIETY
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