Progress Blog

All the equipment is in and only minor plumbing and the commisioning of equipment left to do ...

ALMOST THERE :-)

Finally we got a long enough dry spell to allow the fabulous Dumfries signwriting squad (Katie and the girls) to finish our roof lettering

Looks amazing

The steam system install is continuing this week. Really getting there now .. 

All looking very industrial... Could host a steampunk convention with all the knobs valves and coils in the distillery now 😊

LOVE IT

All equipment is now in and in place (well apart from small ancillary things). 

M&E installation is also well underway. 

We should hopefully be functioning by the end of the summer with test runs and recipe/method testing possible 🙂

Wow the day is almost here .. will have been 3 years of setup but well worth the wait

Another big step forward.

We have now replaced the doors and windows and have taken delivery of a new temporary office

Hopefully be up and working soon 😀

Well today saw the arrival of our main still and the start of it's install

What a piece of equipment it is... 

Our main still has now completed manufacturing at McMillan Briggs in Prestonpans.

We went to visit last week to see it before delivery and we could not be more pleased. What a fabulous bit of engineering.

Cannot wait to put it into action... so excited 😊

Today also saw the moving of our LPG tank to a better location for connection to the plant room. 

This has been another thing we have been waiting for somits good to get it ticked off the list . Unfortunately this also meant digging a huge 40m trench for the pipework. I'll have my work cut out next week filling it back in.

It's all coming together.

After about 18 months of work we are almost there. Today our washback (from J.B. Vats) arrived all the way from Dufftown in the heart of Speyside. 

Was a tight fit getting it in through the doorway as we only had about 50mm to spare but, with help from McPherson Engineering, in it went!

Today the first of our equipment is being installed. At last 😊

Thankfully the boys from McPherson engineering have all the correct toys for getting our big equipment into our little distillery building ...

Today our gates eventually arrived and were installed. 

THEY LOOK FANTASTIC 😊

We still need to give the posts a final paint but will get that done tomorrow

Well this week has been productive...if making my head spin a little.

We are now on final preparations inside the distillery (on the distilling side anyway... The public facing side will be at the same stage this time next year hopefully).

Walls are all limewashed, in the traditional manner, and we are painting the floor with a lovely epoxy paint to seal the concrete and make it pretty 🙂

Almost ready to put equipment in here now !!!

This week we have been getting our services trench dug to deliver our fresh spring water to the distillery building.

Won't be long now until we are putting stills in place 😃

Today we starting the painting on the outside of the main distillery building.

Tere is a lot to do but it will look great painted the traditional white/black of buildings in the area.

Hwre's hoping the rain stays off 🙄

The boys from Nith Valley Construction are helping us out with tidying up the front of the distillery today. 

Things are starting to take shape 

Our new 1000 litre Lauter Tun has finished manufacturing. It looks great and should do the job nicely ... cant wait to see it in place

We finished the distillery ceiling today.. and gave it a varnish.

Looks MUCH better now ?

Well it's been a long December and January and, while it's been slow on the construction front, things finally feel like they are progressing again.

This week Ian, our joiner, has been helping to put up the new distillery ceiling. After all the months of tearing stuff down it's now great to see some improvements taking place. 

Today's task is to start on anlayer of varnish on the ceiling while we still have the hire of the scissor lift... I can see lots of varnish in our hair after this..?

Today we have been opening up original door openings that had been bricked up and covered over. 

These openings are gorgeous with original huge sandstone and timber lintels. Look at the depth of the walls .. 

We are having wooden doors made, eventually, to fit the opening to show off the stonework

We just got word today that the stopping up order has came through for the distillery.

Basically this means the old public road that dead ends at the Distillery is no longer Public access and we can install our gates.

Another thing ticked off ...

At long last planning permission has been granted for the distillery. So onwards and upwards now. A million things left to do but we are getting there. 

Met up with David Stirk of Stirk consulting (and the Creative Whisky company) last week. What a lovely guy and well known to all those in the whisky industry. Being a local to us he offered his help if we needed it. What a lovely guy and unbelievable offer given his experience in the field.

Cheers David ?

Great visit to Claxtons today. https://www.facebook.com/claxtonsspirits

They are our local bond and independent bottler as well as producing some fabulous whisky of their own by recasking and/or extra maturing.

What a great place it was and look forward to over-running our storage and needed to store our barrels there too ?

While leaving we were gifted a bottle of whisky. Can't wait to try it tonight 

After two solid weeks of work the gabions are done.

That was hard work but they look great. Now we can give the new gates the go ahead. 

Another job off the list ?

Half way!!

We finished half of our entrance gabion wall today. That was a full weeks hard work... Look good though. 

Can't wait to see the other side done too

We started work on the gabion walls at our entrance gates today. Hot work in 31c temperatures but at least it wasn't raining ?

We have had a new borehole drilled so we can have fresh Dumfries spring water to make our whisky from.

The hole has been drilled down to 99m. Wow ... long way down. 

Today we are doing a supply test and will then do the usual bacterial/chemical analysis.

The well doesn't seem to produce huge amounts of water but enough for our purposes. Fingers crossed :-)

Roofing works started this week ... 

We have replaced the roof on storage building 1 and started repairs to the main distillery building.

Storage building 2 need completely replaced so that will be done early next year hopefully.

It's slow but we are getting there

We got a mock-up of our gate signage this week. It's so nice we painted it and mounted it on a black board for contrast. Looks like it will be an internal feature now ? 

Now that we have removed all of the old plasterboard, and glass-wool insulation, we have started on the timber frame. 

50% of the ceiling down and will hopefully finish it this weekend leaving only the wall studwork to remove.

After that I'm hoping the work will go into improvement rather than destruction ?

Great day today. We starting ripping down the plasterboard ceiling. Hard work but exposed a very good condition roof with lots of original timbers. 

This will look amazing once we are finished.

Check out Jessica's safety goggles ?

Been ripping off plasterboard all day today and exposeling the original walls. Found a couple of old windows and doorways that have been blocked up over the years so may have to reinstate these and make a feature of the gorgeous wooden lintels supporting the openings...

Great progress today. The whole family were busy.

The electrics were isolated and stripped ready for the rewire. 

The walls were stripped of cladding and the rest of the vinyl floor tiles removed. 

The old post office section was completely removed (kept the lovely old safe).

Next thing is to start stripping the plasterboard and returning the building back to it's original stone walls...

Our Gabion stone arrived today from Nith Valley Construction. Can't wait to see it in the actual gabions but that's another job on the list. Will be a slow and steady job for those sunny summer days ?

Yesterday we started on ripping up the old vinyl floor tiles. The plan will be to get it back to the concrete floor and then re-screed the floor before painting it. 

Next move will be to remove the plasterboard walls and ceiling to return to the basic building framework. That's gonna be a lot of work ?

Work started on our new entrance this week. Supports for the new gabion wall have gone in and now just need the stone to arrive so we can fill them up ..

Our new gates are still being designed ?

Had a great visit to NinefoldDistillery yesterday. 

What a great place and setup Kit has there for his rum making. 

Thanks to Kit for all his time onsite and, as always, has given us even more to think about.

? I hope to be 50% as organised as he is... ?

What a great visit to Annandale distillery we had today. The place is gorgeous. Great history, and whisky, and the people could not have been friendlier.

Special thanks to Frederick (our tour guide) and especially to Darren (senior distiller) for all their time and information today. 

Great visit and will definitely be back.

I'm so jealous of the setup they had..but oh well.. we can dream... Just have to make sure I make good whisky, just on a much, smaller scale ?

Darren Irving from Annandale distillery dropped by today to introduce himself on behalf of Annandale distillery and to give us a voucher for a free tour.

I can't wait to take them up on their generous offer. They also dropped off a sample of their new make spirit (rascally liquor) and I was MIGHTY impressed by its flavour and smoothness for a completely unaged spirit.

We popped by last week for lunch and their buildings are gorgeous so can't wait to see the insides.

Thanks again to all at Annandale for being so welcoming ... Hopefully we can reciprocate soon ?

Former Auldgirth store to be turned into micro-distillery and visitor centre.

https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/local-news/former-auldgirth-store-turned-micro-26822147

We are getting there ... Planning is in ... and now we are starting to prepare the building. !st thing was to find and fix a water leak that has been causing issues.

Found and fixed now ? First of many issues. Next is to remove ALL the existing plumbing and electrical wiring and do it properly and safely this time.

On a brighter note we had interest from the local newspaper this week wanting to do an article on the conversion of our old shop/cafe into a distillery. Nice to see we are already getting noticed.

We have found our still. A 1000litre beauty from Macmillan-Briggs coppersmiths in Prestonpans. The photo isn't of our still but one like it as ours has still to be made.

HUGE investment but since it's the backbone of the whole operation went for the best we could get.

Can't wait to taste what comes out of it now

Now the weather has changed construction is starting on the main building... 1st of all we have to strip out all the old stuff before we can start to shape it the way we want

Today we planted 500 beach trees around the distillery. Not only will this help with our carbon footprint going forward but also makes the place look pretty. Win win ?

Had a nice visit to McMillan copper fabricators today to see if they can supply a still. Very taken with a 1000l still that is just a smaller version of the stills used in the big whisky distilleries. They are tall though...circa 4m so need to see if I can take out part of my ceiling to accommodate ?

Historic maps showing the distillery building (Holm head area) in late 1700's.

Well we are in and settled at last.

Lots of work to do before the distillery can be up and running. We have a new roof to put on one outbuilding and another to rebuild completely. And the main building needs a rewire and replumb before we can start installing the distilling equipment.

Lots to do... As you can see half of the main building is being used as storage come art room presently ?

Hopefully lots of updates soon .. presently waiting on quotes for building works, electricity supply upgrades, solar panels