The proposed Kingsbarns Distillery is situated in the Kingdom of Fife (2011 European Golf Destination of the Year) 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 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 horse / ox mill, stables, byres and farmhouse. The farm 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.
In 1781 private distillation was prohibited which drove illicit distillers underground transforming whisky-making into a more industrial, commercial process. Since then the whisky industry has grown and grown to the point today where it is our biggest export (£3.5 billion – SWA) excluding oil and gas. Today the vast majority of Scotland’s 92 malt distilleries are owned by mighty multinational conglomerates, indeed one alone now owns 28 distilleries and produces 29% of all our whisky produced.
With the help of Bill Lark, “world whisky master” (Dominic Roskrow) and “pioneering spirit of world whisky making” (Scotch Malt Whisky Society) we intend to break free from the large volume, mass produced industrial distillery model that dominates the Scottish whisky industry today and instead create a unique “barley to bottle” craft distillery producing single malt single cask scotch whisky as well as a range of non-matured spirits such as gin. By keeping all our production processes on-site and using the highest quality Scottish ingredients we hope to satisfy consumers growing demand for authenticity, ‘slowness’, flavour and provenance. “Consumers are becoming more and more aware of not only where a product is made but also how it is made“ (The Good Spirits Company, Glasgow).
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 although Heritage Consulting suggest we can expect a “best case” of 80,700 paying (for tour) visitors a year. Our tour will be unique in that we shall show our guests every step of our innovative craft production process from “barley to bottle” up close and then share with them the final flavours of the different whiskies and spirits produced.
With full planning permission and listed building consent now granted by Fife Council we are currently fundraising via Crowdcube to enable us to commence and complete the transformation of the East Newhall Farm Steading into the Kingsbarns Distillery.
