Bacardi invests in Scotch facilities

Dewar’s maker Bacardi has completed a multi-million-pound expansion at Aultmore Distillery in Scotland and added three new warehouses to its Glasgow facility.

Bacardi owns a portfolio of single malt whiskies including Aultmore, Aberfeldy, Craigellachie, Royal Brackla and The Deveron, as well as blended Scotch brand Dewar’s.

The family-owned company has invested in the future of the category with the completion of several improvement projects at its production sites across Scotland.

Three new state-of-the-art ageing warehouses were added to its 200-acre blending and maturation centre, Poniel, in southeast Glasgow. The warehouses use a more efficient design that increases capacity by more than 15%. The expansion also means additional jobs have been created at the site.

The Aultmore Distillery in Speyside completed an expansion last month to drive efficiency and safety by installing new technology to help reduce energy and water consumption on site. The project includes a new tun room, still house, boiler house and closed-loop cooling tower.

The £15m (US$18.4m) expansion doubled Aultmore’s production capacity.

A new boiler was installed to enable a switch to hydrogen fuel in the future – a move that would cut the distillery’s greenhouse gas emissions.

The distillery now uses thermal vapour recompression (TVR) technology, which captures, compresses and reuses vapour in the distillation process to improve energy and water efficiency.

Last year, Bacardi completed improvements at Macduff Distillery, which is home to The Deveron whisky. The company renovated the mashing equipment, created a new air-conditioned control room, and implemented high-gravity mashing.

“Our investment in Aultmore and Macduff distilleries and our Poniel blending and maturation centre is an important step in the bold plans we have for our premium and ultra-premium whiskies,” said Keith Hogg, vice-president supply chain, Europe, Bacardi.

“We are so proud of the exceptional quality of our award-winning Scotch whiskies and are investing in its growth for the long term.”