Muckle Brig, owners of the new Port of Leith Distillery, has passed its £2m crowdfunding target that includes its vertical nine-story distillery which is already underway and due to open in 2023. Muckle Brig have raised almost £2.2m from over 335 investors with almost a month of the fundraising campaign on seedrs left to run.
The new Single Malt, which will be distilled in Port of Leith, follows on from a research project with the International Centre for Brewing and Distilling at Herriott Watt University which looked at the role of yeast and fermentation in whisky production. Out of this work, the company invested in growing its own barley and developed the concept of a vertical brewery. Their Port of Leith Distillery will use a gravitational whisky production system over the first 5 floors.
As well as producing the new single malt, the building will feature a top-floor bar and restaurant and intends to become ‘an extraordinary new architectural landmark, visitor attraction, and pioneering production facility for Scotch Whisky’.
The company, currently valued at £27.7m, generates most of its revenues from its award-winning Lind & Lime Gin, launched in 2018, which generated £1.8m in revenue in 2021, including exports to 24 international markets recently moving to a new larger facility in Leith, and close to its Port of Leith Distillery, to accommodate the growth.