20 | New Kids on the Block
GLASGOW DISTILLERY LIAM HUGHES, CEO & CO-FOUNDER
We found the perfect site for the Glasgow Distillery two and a half years ago. It’s an old warehouse just outside the city centre, in Hillington. Glasgow hasn’t had a new malt whisky distillery for more than 100 years, so we found a place that we could get up and running relatively quickly. There’s no visitor centre and it’s not open to the public, it’s a working site modelled on the Brooklyn Distillery in Manhattan. From the outside you wouldn’t know there was a distillery in there, until you open the doors and are hit with this amazing wall of copper and steel. We have two stills, named Tara after my daughter and Mhairi after one of the other director’s daughters. The stills are almost as beautiful as the girls. We frequently fi nd ourselves standing around staring at them and then thinking ‘oh gosh, we’d maybe better go and do some work!’ I’m not sure if whisky stills are all female, a bit like ships, but that’s what we’re telling our sons! My background is in the
drinks industry. I’ve worked with beer, cider, spirits and on the import and export side. For the past 14 years I’ve run my own business providing brand ambassadors and sales people for some of the big drinks companies, such as Pernod Ricard and Heineken. That propelled me into this project; I saw the opportunity and took it. We launched Glasgow’s fi rst gin, Makar Gin, in October last year and we started laying down our fi rst whisky casks in January. We’re using a range of casks, from bourbon, sherry and port, including some smaller 50 and 100 litre sherry casks from Spain. We’re not tied to one specifi c type of cask, which is very exciting, as the smaller casks will mature more quickly. Our whisky won’t reach the marketplace
for at least three years and when it does we will produce up to 100,000 litres a year. The unique character will be modelled on the whisky
It’s a working site modelled on the Brooklyn Distillery in Manhattan
Liam Hughes has named a still after his daughter.
produced at the distillery which was built on Dundas Hill, just outside Glasgow, in 1770. It was one of the oldest distilleries in Scotland and was demolished in 1903. It used water brought from Loch Katrine by horse and cart. Our water also comes from Loch Katrine. I love all whisky, but if you had to nail me to a favourite, I would say
Macallan. So the taste profi le will be modelled on a Speyside whisky, but because of the water we use we hope it will be a Glasgow metropolitan whisky that hasn’t been made this way for 112 years. We haven’t decided what the whisky will be called or how much it will cost to buy, although we have plenty of ideas. We have the luxury of a few years to think about it and, like a good whisky; these are decisions not to be rushed.
www.glasgowdistillery.com
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