The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
New distillery taking shape at Eden Mill
Plans for Fife-based gin, whisky and beer firm Eden Mill’s new distillery and visitor centre have been revealed.
The £8 million project, which will be based at St Andrews University’s site in Guardbridge, is already well under way, with around half of the money already secured to help bring the distillery vision to life.
Currently working with the university to be running the distillery as carbon neutral by 2024, the power and heat for the stills will be supplied by a local energy network generated by biomass plant and field electricity. Solar panels will also be installed by the university on the roof of the distillery.
The whisky-making process will use water for distillation straight from the biomass and, once used, the leftover water will journey back to the biomass to be reused.
Carbon produced in making the spirit will be captured for the university’s chemistry department for academic use on site. With a prominent year lined up for St Andrews with the 150th Open Golf Championship taking place in July 2022, Paul Miller, co-founder of Eden Mill, is determined to see the visitor centre open its doors by late spring next year.
Mr Miller, who launched the brand in 2012, anticipates around 36,000 visitors through the doors of the new premises in its first year, with 100,000 estimated by year three.
He said: “The project is
on schedule to be opening in late spring 2022. We have a clear idea and are pretty confident about it. We need to be open by July 2022 as that is when the 150th Open is in St Andrews and the town will be showcasing itself to the world.
“I think we have a great package to offer people. In addition to the whisky production, we’ll also have the gin production and we’ll also be looking to create a botanical centre of excellence.
“We utilise a lot of local botanicals in our gin, from honeyberries from Cupar, to sea buckthorn from the east coast and seaweed from Crail, but we also know there’s some botanicals we simply can’t get locally.
“We’ll be doing some bioponics and vertical farming to show people some of the different, interesting botanicals that you wouldn’t necessarily get around the local area. We can grow them and use them in our gin.
“The interaction with the university is really
important to us and the site is looking incredible just now – it is really taking shape.”
The distillery and visitor centre will create around 40 jobs between full-time and part-time vacancies, complementing the Glasgow site which is similar in numbers for bottling and administrative roles.
It will also welcome
thousands of visitors to the area, further promoting St Andrews and the surrounding Fife attractions as a primary location for tourism in Scotland.
Rod Stewart, Celtic footballer Scott Brown and professional Scottish golfer Stephen Gallacher, among others, are already owners of one of Eden Mill’s 300-odd whisky casks.