A micro distillery in Sutherland has outlined plans to move to larger premises in an effort to meet growing demand.
Brothers Phil and Simon Thompson made their life-long dream a reality in 2016 after opening their own whisky and gin distillery in an 135-year-old fire station in the grounds of Dornoch Castle Hotel.
Following two successful rounds of crowd funding, the entrepreneurs have now lodged plans to transform an old slater’s yard near their existing premises into a new distillery after purchasing the land from former owner Michael Banks.
Phil Thompson said the need for larger premises came from the growing demands of the business.
He said: “It kind of came about because we are running out of space, it’s kind of a natural progression for the business. We struggle to fill orders and so on and our space is pretty tight so that’s kind of one of the main reasons.
“We can produce what we want to produce here but the problem is its things like storage space and warehousing. If we end up getting larger orders for gin, we have to stop production to fill the order because we don’t have the space to work.”
If approved, the premises on the corner of Station Road would house a tasting room and on-site shop, whilst giving the team additional space to launch tours.
The 32-year-old added: “Obviously we are not open to the public but we take crowd funders round, friends and people in the industry but it’s becoming more and more difficult.
“We want people to see what we do but, we can’t really do that at the moment with the current set-up. It’s really cramp and difficult so we tend not to unless we have to.”
Within two years, the business has now become an international success, winning the top accolade at this year’s World Gin Awards.
The brothers hope their new premises will bring additional business and visitors to the local community.
Mr Thompson said: “Dornoch is a really busy place but that end of town there are shops and business there and I don’t think the get the footfall the other businesses get in town. If we can find a way to bring people down to that end of town then hopefully we might encourage more businesses to set up down there so that might be something good for the area as well; bringing more wealthy people to the area in the off season.”
