Driven by Drams - Campbeltown 2025 - Glen Catrine

This year's DrivenByDrams gang trip had us heading up to Campbeltown

On the way back home we'd been invited to visit Glen Catrine Bottling Plant and Bonded Warehouse in Ayrshire.

This is Loch Lomond Group's bottling plant where they bottle all of their spirits including whisky, vodka, gin, rum and brandy on the same premises.

If you've bought anything from Loch Lomond or Glen Scotia you've probably received a beautifully wrapped and boxed bottle with a signed card from Wilma, Mo, Andrea, James, Tony, Kirsty or Pauline. Sometimes it seems a shame to remove the branded paper!

The Glen Catrine bleach works were originally part of the Catrine Cotton Mill complex in East Ayrshire, Scotland, established by Messrs Finlay & Co. in the 1820s. The large waterwheels that powered these works are now a Scheduled Monument and a Local Nature Reserve owned by the Catrine Community Trust. The works closed in 1972.

Alexander (Sandy) Bulloch & Co set up operations in 1974 to supply their chain of retail shops in Scotland. Sandy bought Loch Lomond distillery in 1986 and the site was used to bottle their brands.

We were given a really interesting introduction to the plant, it's history and capabilities by Alan Henderson (Head of Bottling) before being booted and hatted ready for a tour! The numbers are mind boggling! The site contains 30 huge vats which store the spirits delivered from LLG' distilleries, 7 bottling lines fill over 60 million bottles a year.

Bottles arrive stacked on pallets.

The outer packaging is removed manually before the bottles are automatically removed from the stack and fed into one of the bottling lines

Depending on the type and size of bottle being filled, different 'changeparts' can be fitted to the line.

Bottles are filled and capped automatically

Each bottles is weighed and it's fill level measured.

Before labels are stuck on

The bottles then seem to whiz around the factory before being boxed and palletised ready for distribution.

Box feeder

Palletiser

Huge amounts of Glen's Vodka is also bottled here!

As you'd expect there's a huge safety culture in the plant.

Glen Catrine is also home to the e-Commerce team, as well as the huge bottling lines there is a smaller line for single casks and high end bottlings.

Single casks can be bottled, packaged and distributed from here.

The label store is massive!

They are also experimenting in bottle engraving. This was a prototype of the Glen Scotia 25yo bottling which was given to the King on his recent visit to Campbeltown!

Bottles are wrapped and boxed by the team and handwritten cards included!

We got to meet Wilma & Mo!

A huge thanks to Alan, his team and Gary for showing us around and the lovely gift!