Construction Update

The first task was to complete a vegetation scrape on the site and establish the ground levels. Foundations were then excavated and cages of reinforced steel were placed to support the building.

As the vegetation scrape commenced various rodents escaped and made new homes in the existing buildings: as we were inspecting one of the old stables a beautiful owl came through the window, landed for a moment to look at us, then flew off again – we just had time to snap a single shot.

To celebrate the commencement of construction we launched a very limited edition “Groundbreaker” bottling: a lovely whisky with a dark chestnut colour.

As board members toured the grounds, tangible proof of progress surrounded them. The blinding concrete lay cured and ready – a pristine canvas awaiting its structural brushstrokes. Vast quantities of rebar, the subterranean skeletal framework, had already been painstakingly fabricated and meticulously placed within the awaiting excavations.

Concrete trucks operated like heavy industrial choreographers, disgorge their cargoes into the foundation formworks.

For the board members watching this industrial choreography unfold, it was impossible not to be swept-up into the emotional of creation.

But the construction crew was undaunted, attacking the challenge with a feverish determination. Concrete trucks rumbled in and out of the site with military precision, disgorging their concrete into the excavations when temperatures allowed.

As the crew assembled before breaking up for the holiday break a cheer went up – the last pad had been poured in the nick of time.

The 2023 Scottish Whisky Awards provided a welcome reprieve from distillery construction. The team swapped hi-viz vests for kilts and glamour.

At Hescott Engineering’s Falkirk facilities, the hum and sputtering of welding machines and the screech of metal being ground paid the cold no heed.

The biggest hurdle arose not from the freezing temperatures, but from an architectural audacity – the sweeping, sensual curve demanded of the roof.

It was a geometric defiance that even the software programs used to digitise the designs simply refused to compute. Like abstract artists introducing their bold visions, the engineers grappled with convincing skeptical ones and zeroes to allow the metal of the purlins to twist in gravity-mocking arcs.

The purlin-impasse was resolved through ingenuity and sheer bloody-minded persistence. With the digital realm bent to their will, Hescott’s craftsmen proceeded to cut solid steel into 6,000 distinct pieces – each column, truss and beam imbued with a graceful, structurally-poetic curve. What had threatened to be an impossibility was now taking sculpted form, piece-by-piece.

February marked a pivotal milestone as the first shipment of steel arrived on site – the inaugural pieces slotted into place, aligning with the foundation bolts like a colossal jigsaw puzzle taking shape. Watching the initial skeletons rise, one could almost envision the building’s musculature emerging from the bare bones.

With each bolt tightened, the sense of bearing witness to an industrial genesis intensified. The new Ardgowan Distillery arising from the landscape into which the previous Ardgowan Distillery has been bombed and burned during WW II.

What had previously existed only as blueprints and computer renderings was materialising into a tangible, inhabitable form through sheer human ingenuity. While an overwhelming amount of work still loomed, that first frame erected stirred an undeniable feeling – this was no longer merely a project on paper, but a building in the making.

Across the trio of sections – distillery process area, malt storage, and tank farm – the crews of construction workers banged and clanged their tools and torqued bolts to bring form to the frame.

Each steel column was carefully leveled, aligned, and oriented – like gargantuan sculptures being precisely positioned by their creators.

Beneath each columnar foot, a special grout was cast – a dense, almost geological slurry entombing the base in a matrix of reassuring, load-transferring solidity. As the grout cured, the final torquing of the bolts marked the cosmic unification of structure and the earth.

As the days lengthened the frame was readied to start receiving its cladding, the first layer to be added is the protective roof lining.

Where once there had been but a fuzzy framed outline, a mighty physical rampart now stood resolute against the elements.

But cladding a structure of such magnitude is an inherently exposed endeavour. As the liner team initiated installation of the roof’s weathertight membrane, they found themselves subject to the fickle temper of the spring winds. On days when the wind gusted above the safety limit, all work at height was necessarily suspended.

The distillery section’s walls gradually disappeared beneath the resilient skin, their seams sealed against moisture’s intrusion. Finally, as April surrendered to May’s denouement, the liner sheet on the eastern elevation was completed.

Though weeks of arduous enclosing still remained, this initial taming of the structural Titan marked a symbolic inflection point. No longer was this merely an exposed arrangement of inert steel, it had begun to assume the visage of a building.

The roof of the distillery building is like a sandwich with a lower liner sheet, a vapour control layer (VCL), high performance insulation and finally an anodised aluminium cladding. The lower liner sheet works and VCL are already well underway.

Kalzip who are supplying the cladding have already formed all of the sheets, each uniquely curved to match the geometry of the roof. The Kalzip system uses 96% recycled aluminium in it cladding system sheeting and recycled glass bottles in its insulation, and what is installed can be recycled at the end of its design life.

June is also a critical time for the project and it is fair to say there is a lot of activity brewing at the site. During this month the long-awaited vessels shall make their grand entrance, poised to take their rightful place within the distillery’s Scandinavian long-house envelope. Yet, before the vessels can be installed, the floor must be poured and cured. A flurry of efforts is underway, ensuring this deck is primed to support the grandeur of the copper and steel behemoths.

Though the building now stands watertight and defiant against the elements, its true splendour remains veiled, awaiting the final flourish – the magnificent Kalzip cladding. A harmonious blend of copper and bronze, we hope this resplendent sheathing brings a new elegance to the distillery’s form, crowning a new jewel nestled within the valley.