A new distillery has been launched in Royal Deeside, believed to be the first after almost 200 years.
Banchory-based Twin River Distillery comes from the team behind Deeside Brewery. It is now expanding its craft drink offering with the production and laying down of its first casks of Twin River Whisky.
Twin River has recently invested over £200,000 in the facility to accommodate the production of its spirits, with plans for new premises in 2018.
Some £1.4million will be invested to build a new brewery, distillery and visitor centre with taproom in the heart of Banchory.
The distillery uses the brewery’s by-product – grain neutral spirit – in the production of its craft drinks, to ensure a completely authentic offering.
Funds for the centre are going to be sought through both internal and external sources including private investment and crowdfunding.
Ryan Rhodes has been recruited as brand director. He said: “To create a whisky, you firstly need a wash which is fundamentally an 8% beer. We’ve used our brewing knowledge to create a wash which includes chocolate malt before distilling it to cask strength and laying it down in 55-litre virgin charred American oak casks. This type of cask ages the whisky much quicker.”
The team has already released Twin River Gin, which debuted earlier this month at Sessions – Aberdeen’s first outdoor craft beer and gin festival. They say they are now keen to highlight the misconceptions about the creation of Scottish craft gin.
Mr Rhodes added: “The thing that differentiates Twin River products from our competition is that almost always, with the exception of two other distilleries in the north-east (LoneWolf and Arbikie) we are focusing on true Scottish provenance, using 100% of our own spirit.”
The firm said they appointed Andrew Tulloch as a distiller, using his brewing knowledge to try to make the brand a key contributor to the craft drinks industry.
