Lerwick Distillery will open its doors later this year making it Shetland’s first whisky distillery and the most northerly whisky distillery in the world.
The concept began more than a decade ago between friends Martin Watt and Calum Miller who found a site in 2022. Since then they have been joined by Caroline MacIntyre and Ian Millar who take on the roles of sales director and master distiller respectively. Caroline has extensive experience in hospitality and sales, while Ian has worked in the whisky industry for over 50 years and has worked with a number of major whisky brands, including almost 25 years at William Grant & Sons.
The distillery plans to bottle a ‘new make’ spirit to cover operational costs while they wait for their first whisky to be ready. Called Haad Still, the name is a traditional Shetland phrase for ‘hold on’, encouraging people to wait for the whisky to mature.
The business initially accessed a start-up grant from Shetland Islands Council, and ran a social media campaign to raise share capital towards the opening of the distillery, accessing business advice from Business Gateway, and adviser, Diana Abernethy.
Martin Watt, Director of Lerwick Distillery said, “The support that we received from Business Gateway has been excellent. Diana was able to point out things that we had missed in our business plan, and gave us access to great contacts to help us develop.
“If it hadn’t been for the funding Business Gateway signposted us to, we would not have raised enough share capital to be able to expand the business so quickly. The £4,000 funding resulted in an extra £682,000 share capital investment that really wasn’t expected. We truly couldn’t have done this without Business Gateway.”
Picture: Visual of Distillery shop