FDBusiness.com

Inverclyde Council has approved plans for a new £12 million distillery and visitor centre on the Ardgowan Estate near Inverkip, 30 miles west of Glasgow in Scotland. The council green light means the Ardgowan Distillery Company can now advance its proposal to build a world-class lowland malt whisky distillery and visitor attraction on the estate, with plans to be operational in 2019.

“The lands around the estate have been occupied nearly continuously for over 4,000 years and the history of my family at Ardgowan stretches back over 600 years. In that time, Ardgowan has played its part in the story of Scotland,” says Sir Ludovic Shaw-Stewart, the 12th Baronet and owner of Ardgowan Estate.

Work on the £12 million distillery will begin this year, and will see the construction of a state-of-the-art facility on the site of an old sawmill on estate land near Inverkip.

Martin McAdam.

“Our goal is to produce a truly outstanding seven year old lowland single malt,” says Martin McAdam, the distillery’s chief executive. “In the coming weeks we will commence detailed design and procurement work for the construction of the distillery, and this will give us the opportunity to engage with local businesses and the public in order to develop our plan and start to employ the staff that will be engaged during the construction and operational stage.”

The distillery recently announced the appointment of former Macallan managing director Willie Phillips as company chairman, and the addition of ex-Bruachladdich and Diageo veterans Gordon Wright and Michael Egan in commercial and product engineering advisory roles.

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 spirit and industrial alcohol until it was destroyed in the May Blitz of 1941.