Loch Lomond Distillery 60th Birthday ?

As you all probably know I'm a huge Fanboy of Loch Lomond Distillery ever since my first tour there in 2018 and this year is their 60th birthday!

They don't seem to be celebrating it in any way so let's do it for them!

Loch Lomond Distillery was built on the site of a former dye works in Alexandria near the southern shore of Loch Lomond, about 20 miles north west of Glasgow. 

"Constructed in the former United Turkey Red Factory for £1m in Alexandria, the site houses the distillery, whisky warehousing, bottling plant and cooperage."

The distillery was built in 1965/6 in a joint partnership between American entrepreneur and chemist Duncan Thomas, the owner of Littlemill, and Chicago-based Barton Brands.

The distillery continued in Thomas and Barton Brands hands until 1971 when Barton Brands took full ownership.

In 1984, Argyll Group bought Barton Brands and closed the distillery. In 1985 they sold it to Inver House for £7m

In 1986 the Bulloch family who owned Glen Catrine Bonded Warehouse Ltd bought the distillery and re-opened it, restarting production in 1987.

Grain whisky production started in 1993.

In 1994 Alexander Bulloch bought Glen Scotia distillery in Campbeltown and Littlemill distillery through his purchase of Gibson International.

In March 2014, the group was bought in a Management Buy In led by CEO Colin Matthews alongside the London based private equity group Exponent for around £210m.

In 2019, the company was acquired by the Hong Kong-based investment fund Hillhouse Capital Group for around £400m.

In May 2025, the group announced the acquisition of The New York Distilling Company.

There's not a lot of evidence for the exact day or even year when it opened!

The Loch Lomond Group website says:

"Loch Lomond Distillery opened in 1964, with production beginning the following year. In 1984, the distillery closed - or fell silent, to use the traditional term. Happily, though, Alexander Bulloch and the Glen Catrine company acquired the business and resumed malt production in 1987. Grain whisky production began in 1994, with two new malt stills added in 1999 and a further two in 2015."

The Loch Lomond Distillery website says:

"The current Loch Lomond Distillery owes its creation in 1965 to the former proprietors of Littlemill Distillery, situated in Bowling, merely a few miles towards Glasgow.

and 

1966: a new chapter was penned as the Littlemill Distilling Company opened the Distillery on its current site. The Distillery initially had only Straight Neck Pot Stills based on the designs developed at Littlemill earlier in the 1960s."

Whiskydrinks.net suggests:

"During the general distillery construction boom, the Littlemill Distillery Company Ltd. established a new production facility for malt whiskies in the buildings of Britain's largest textile dye manufacturer, which had been vacant since 1961. The owners, American-born entrepreneur Duncan G. Thomas and Chicago's Barton Brands, purchased the property in 1963 to produce additional malts for their blends alongside Littlemill whiskies. After the first mash on March 9, 1966, the first Loch Lomond new make spirit flowed through the spirit safe."

Unfortunately there's no evidence of this 9th March '66 date.

The earliest 'real' evidence I can find is a bottle label found by my friend Mark for the SMWS's first Loch Lomond bottling 112.1, .3 .4, .5 & .6 which were all distilled in July '66 (112.2 was distillery in 1980!)

Whiskybase list an entry for a 44yo, distilled on 22nd September 1966 and bottled as a 44yo in June 2011

There's also an entry for a bottle distilled the following day:

"The 1966 Loch Lomond Single Highland Malt Whisky was drawn from cask No. 2322, which was filled with spirit produced from our malt stills at Loch Lomond Distillery on the 23rd September 1966"

2,322 casks is a lot to fill in 7 months of your first year of production but this bottle from 14th October 1966 was from cask 2,800:

Loch Lomond themselves recently released a £24,000 54yo:

"Distilled in 1967, just one year after our signature Straight Neck Stills began production in 1966, Loch Lomond 54 Year Old Single Malt Whisky has been expertly crafted from unpeated malted barley and collected at high strength. As the only distillery in Scotland to use straight-neck stills, we are truly unique in our craftsmanship, using innovative techniques to explore flavour in a distinctive way."

So I'm pretty sure the distillery has been distilling for 60 years in 2026 but not so sure of the exact date, it's probably sometime in the first few months of the year, and they were definitely distilling in July, so I'm going with Whiskydrinks.net suggestion of the 9th March - Happy Birthday Loch Lomond Distillery!

The distillery was officially opened in on 2nd September 1966 by Lord Sherfield, a British diplomat who served as British Ambassador to the United States from 1953 to 1956

Some clippings from the Scotsman newspaper of that day.

One question has always been around the "Since 1814" which Loch Lomond indicate  on their bottles...

"The first site of the former Loch Lomond Distillery dates back to 1814, sited at the north end of Loch Lomond near Tarbet (known as Tarbat). Sadly in the old days relatively few paper records were kept and the closing date of this Distillery remains unclear."

So Loch Lomond are suggesting whisky has been distilled around the Loch since 1814 rather than by them!

So what's special about Loch Lomond?

For me it's the range of whiskies that they can make on the four different still types they have with the eleven different spirit styles they can produce, either as single casks or by blending the different spirit styles together? Then there's the yeast! As well as normal distiller's yeast then use Chardonnay Wine Yeast, Abbaye yeast and Brewers yeasts in some of their fermentations!

This can be confusing to the new-comer but are fairly easy to understand if you take the time! Honestly it's not that difficult!

They have 6 copper straight neck pot stills with rectifying plates (1 in a wash still and 17 in a spirit still) - the straight necks are up to 4 meters high, this allows collecting a wider separation of flavours. Unlike column stills these have a head cooling system. These are not Lomond Stills!

Wash Still on the left, Spirit Still on the right.

There are 2 traditional copper pot stills with swan necks but one of these has had it's Swan Neck replaced by a Straight Neck - just because they can!

There is one continuous (Coffey) still for malted barley (A continuous still consists of a pair of columns - an analyser column and a rectifier column. They are made of copper but covered in protective stainless steel.

Take away the stainless steel cover and you'll see the Copper Stills:

The grain distillery has a two sets of stainless steel continuous stills for wheat (look through the window!). The original set, from 1993, producing 2,000 litres alcohol per hour and a new set, from 2010, producing 1,000 litres per hour.

The spirit comes off of a pot still at around 70% ABV, spirit can be collected from the straight-necked stills at between 65% and 85% ABV offering a low and high strength spirit. The use of three levels of peated malt and unpeated malt and these still types give the huge range of spirit styles. 

Captain Haddock

Loch Lomond was the favourite whisky of both Captain Haddock and Tintin’s dog, Snowy (who is seen enjoying drops from leaking barrels of Loch Lomond in The Black Island in 1937) 

Some other news clippings from over the years (thanks to Pete @UKWhisky for these!) :