The future Kingsbarns Distillery is situated in the East Neuk of Fife not far from St Andrews, the home of golf, on the beautiful Cambo Estate overlooking some of the richest agricultural land in Scotland, much of it barley, to “Scotland’s 2011 & 12 Golf Course of the Year” (Golf Tourism Scotland Awards)  Kingsbarns Golf Links and the North Sea beyond.

Our site, the historic and charming, category “b” listed East Newhall Farm Steading consists of a doocot (dove-cot), octagonal gin gang / horse mill, cart sheds, byres and farmhouse. The farm steading provides us with the ideal venue to take whisky making back to its artisan “barley to bottle” origins and reconnect it with the land, back to a time (16th to late 18th century) when farmers themselves would save their spare crops that would otherwise spoil and distill them in small batches in their byres.

We will be the first distillery in our region, The Kingdom of Fife, to open its doors to the public. With the nearest visitor distillery (Tullibardine) to the home of golf over an hour’s drive away receiving 130,000 visitors a year and 2.73 million visitors a year to Fife we predict a “worst case” scenario of 25,000 paying (for tour) visitors a year.

We have recently been awarded a grant from the Scottish Government through their Food Processing, Marketing and Cooperation Scheme of £670,442. This is a capital grant which provides assistance towards the construction of buildings and purchase of plant and equipment. Securing this grant has resulted in the Wemyss family taking over the project (Scottish Television News Feature) and we are now looking to begin building work this Spring and be in production in mid 2014.