THE BIG PROFILE: PAUL MILLER, EDEN MILL
http://www.insider.co.uk March 2020 INSIDER 21I
T IS FITTING that the idea for
what would become the Eden
Mill drinks brand was formed
in a bar, the fourth floor bar of
the Old Course Hotel in St Andrews
to be exact – and at three o’clock one
morning.
Eden Mill’s co-founder Paul Miller
takes up the story. “There’s myself
and a guy called Pete Coors [the
American drinks tycoon] having
a beer. He has all his American
distributors over and he very simply
said ‘Paul, tomorrow I don’t want to
play golf ’. He actually said two things:
can you get me a chiropractor and
the second thing was take me to the
nearest brewery and distillery.”
Miller had worked for the Coors
family multi-billion dollar drinks
empire for about eight years at the
time. He says: “He was right into
production, he was really into seeing
where the stuff was made. I thought
he really means this. I need to think
where there is somewhere.
“And it reminded me of back when
I used to work at Glenmorangie I
used to drive people all the way up
to Tain [in Ross-shire] to see a lovely
distillery there, but by God it’s four
hours up to Tain and then you had to
hire a private jet to get over to Ardbeg
[on the isle of Islay], which was the
other one we owned at the time.
“So I thought: Why don’t we have
distilleries where we have people?“I love St Andrews. I’d lived in
Fife since I came back to Scotland in- We always walked dogs on the
beach and everything else. I thought
St Andrews is the perfect place – why
is there no distillery here, why is
there nothing close by? I thought it
was the perfect place to have a brand.
So that was the light bulb moment.”
But Miller says that turning that
idea into the growing brand that we
know today was a long haul. He says
that by a couple of years later he had
discovered why nobody had built a
distillery in the area he was thinking
of. “It was impossible to find land
and get permissions to do anything
around St Andrews,” he laughs. “It’s
quite well protected.”
Miller cast his net wider and still
wider and then found at Carrbridge
an old paper mill site, which had all
the necessary planning permissions
for industrial use.
He says: “[St Andrews] University
owns it but they move at an academic
pace; great people with an idea ofwhat they can do with the site. The
site was a terrible example of what
was wrong with the old British
industry, a paper mill decaying and
all higgledy piggeldy, thrown together
and rotting, basically.”
Miler persuaded the university to
let him use a corner of the site and
in fact discovered that it had a very
relevant history. “It had been a Haig’s
[whisky] distillery from 1810 to 1873
and it had been a brewery as well
after that. We discovered that history
which a lot of brands would make
up,” he laughs.
“The uni said the only condition
that we will let you in is that you
don’t put your roots down too deep
because we are going to have a
masterplan for this site eventually.”
He started with a brewery in 2012,
which Miller says was an easier way
of establishing a connection with
the local area. He gave up his job as
programme director and chair of
the Scottish Government Alcohol
Industry Partnership and took the
plunge running what would grow
into Eden Mill.
From the early days Miller’s vision
included trying to provide something
else for visitors to St Andrews to do
“apart from playing golf or eating in
one of the great restaurants we have
there”.
“People wanted to come and
they were quite happy to pay what
we called a St Andrews premium
for good quality product that wasDISTILLER MOVES ON FROM
TRADITIONAL BASE TO GO IN
SEARCH OF ‘BRAND NIRVANA’
By KEN SYMONIt had been a Haig’s distillery
from 1810 to 1873 and it had been
a brewery as well after that. We
discovered that history which a
lot of brands would make up