Ailsa Bay Distillery — Lowland Single Malt Whisky

Ailsa Bay Distillery is a Scotch whisky distillery located in Girvan, South Ayrshire, in the Lowland region of Scotland. It was founded in 2007 and is currently owned by William Grant & Sons. Unusual for its era, Ailsa Bay was purpose-built with a bank of sixteen stills to produce several different spirit styles simultaneously, primarily to supply malt whisky for the company's blends.

History

Ailsa Bay was constructed by William Grant & Sons on the Grangestone Industrial Estate at Girvan, immediately next to the company's long-established Girvan grain distillery (built in 1963). Ground was broken in 2006 and the distillery was completed and commissioned in 2007, with an official opening in 2009 attended by Prince Charles (now King Charles III). The distillery draws process water from the nearby Penwapple reservoir.

Ailsa Bay was designed from the outset for large-scale, flexible malt production, with a capacity of around 12 million litres per year. Its eight wash stills and eight spirit stills were modelled on the shape of the stills at William Grant's Balvenie distillery, allowing Ailsa Bay to replicate "Balvenie-style" new make spirit at industrial volume for use in the group's blended Scotch whiskies, including Grant's. A small portion of production is also peated, giving the distillery the ability to produce both peated and unpeated spirit runs. The first official single malt bottling under the Ailsa Bay name was released in 2016, followed by later batches such as the peated "Sweet Smoke" edition. In 2019 the distillery also became notable as the source of one of the first Scotch whiskies bottled with blockchain-based anti-counterfeiting technology, and the same year saw the launch of Aerstone, a separate entry-level single malt brand produced at Ailsa Bay and aimed at newer whisky drinkers.

Quick Facts

• Region: Lowland
• Founded: 2007
• Owner: William Grant & Sons
• Status: Active
• Stills: 8 wash stills and 8 spirit stills (16 total), modelled on Balvenie's still shapes

Core Range

Ailsa Bay's own-name single malt range centres on limited, numbered small-batch releases rather than a fixed core line-up. The best-known is the Ailsa Bay Release 1.2 "Sweet Smoke", a peated Lowland single malt bottled at 48.9% ABV without chill-filtration or added colouring, and labelled with both its peat (phenol) and sweetness parts-per-million readings. The distillery also supplies the entry-level Aerstone brand (Land Cask and Sea Cask expressions), and its output forms a component of William Grant & Sons' blended whiskies, most notably Grant's.