Whisky City Edinburgh
28 Whisky Magazine | Issue 161also producing the eponymous Green
Ginger Wine for which John Crabbie
& Co. later became famous. Today, the
brand is best known for its alcoholic
ginger beer.
Having been owned in turn by The
Distillers Company Ltd, LVMH and now
Halewood International, John Crabbie
& Co. is returning to its whisky roots,
releasing a number of age-specific
single malts sourced from third parties,
and undertaking an ambitious distillery
project in its old Leith heartland.
Managing director of John Crabbie
& Co. is whisky industry veteran
David Brown, who explains, “The pilot
distillery in Granton gets us trained
distillers when we come to open the
new one, and we’re making gin and
malt and grain whisky there, but only in
small quantities.
“We have Holstein stills from
Germany, and it has been great to have
this pilot plant, as it enables us to do
some of the development work in a
controlled environment. For example,
we have been able to conduct our
yeast trials and also develop our cask
strategy, which is so important for a
new distillery. When the main distillery
is up and running, we may close it, and
use the premises for warehousing.”
Halewood is spending some £7m on
bringing whisky-making back to Leith,
and Brown says, “The site selected is as
close as possible to the original Crabbie
site at Yardheads in Great Junction St,
next to what was Bonnington Distillery.
Indeed, our new distillery will be
named Bonnington.”
Liverpool-based Halewood
International already has interests
in Irish whiskey, but, as David Brown
notes, “The senior management and
family owners of Halewood felt that the
time was right to bring Crabbie back
to its roots in Edinburgh and in Scotch
whisky, and the decision to build the
distillery, in Leith was taken.”
Like Holyrood, the new Bonnington
Distillery is being equipped by LH
Stainless and Speyside Copper Works.
“They are making the stills and many ofthe other vessels as well,” says Brown.
“Our wash still is 10,000 litres and the
spirit still 7,500 litres, which should
give us an annual capacity of circa
500,000 litres of alcohol per year.
"They have worked with us on the
still shape and design to ensure that
the spirit we end up with is to the
specification we have planned.
"I don’t want to give away too much
about the style of whisky that we are
aiming for at Leith, save to say that it
won’t be a traditional ‘Lowland’ style.”
He adds that, “All the vessels are in
place now, and we hope to be distilling
in September. We will have a glasswindow between the production area
of the distillery and the visitor centre,
so people can safely take photos of the
stills and we want an event space in
there too.”
When it comes to the whisky itself,
Brown says, “Our intention is to focus
on single malts. John Crabbie was
both an independent bottler and a
producer, and we intend to follow in
that tradition.”
Brown explains that he and David
Robertson of Holyrood Distillery are old
friends and former colleagues, and they
have discussed the idea of swapping
casks between their warehousesOpening pages:
The Edinburgh
skyline at dawn.
These pages, from
left to right:
Jack Mayo of
Holyrood Distillery;
Jack Mayo and
David Robertson at
Holyrood Distillery.026-029-Edinburgh-WM161.indd 28 27/06/2019 12:27