GlenWyvis Distillery — Highland Single Malt Whisky

GlenWyvis Distillery is a Scotch whisky distillery located near Dingwall, in the Highland region of Scotland. It was founded in 2015 and opened on 30 November 2017, and is owned entirely by its local community through a cooperative share structure. GlenWyvis is recognised as the first 100% community-owned distillery in Scotland, and it also produces gin alongside its whisky.

History

Dingwall had a long distilling heritage stretching back to the Ferintosh distillery (1690–1784) and, later, the Ben Wyvis distillery (1879–1926), both of which closed and left the town without a working distillery for nearly 90 years. GlenWyvis was conceived by local farmer, green-energy advocate and helicopter pilot John F. McKenzie, who began planning the project at Scroggie Farm in 2013. Its name is a portmanteau honouring the area's earlier distilleries, Ben Wyvis and Glenskiach.

To fund construction, GlenWyvis launched a community share offer in 2016 that raised £2.6 million in 77 days from more than 2,000 backers, followed by a second offer in 2017 that raised a further £1 million, bringing total investor numbers to over 3,000. This made GlenWyvis the first distillery in Scotland to be wholly owned by its local community. GlenWyvis Gin was launched in 2015 to generate early revenue, and the distillery itself opened on St Andrew's Day, 30 November 2017, marking the return of whisky-making to Dingwall. Whisky production began in 2018 under founding master distiller Duncan Tait, and the first single malt release followed in 2021. The distillery is notable for being powered largely by renewable energy, including hydro, wind, solar and biomass systems.

Quick Facts

• Region: Highland
• Founded: 2015 (opened 2017)
• Owner: Community-owned cooperative (GlenWyvis Distillery Ltd, 3,000+ shareholders)
• Status: Active
• Stills: 2 wash stills, 2 spirit stills

Core Range

GlenWyvis's whisky range is released in small, non-chill-filtered annual batches rather than a fixed standard bottling, so each vintage varies in cask composition. Recent releases have included the GlenWyvis Single Malt Batch 01/19 (4-year-old, 46.5% ABV, matured across ex-bourbon, ex-red wine, ex-Moscatel, ex-Marsala and refill hogshead casks) and earlier batch releases such as Batch 02/18, also bottled at 46.5% ABV. Alongside its whisky, GlenWyvis produces a range of gins under the GlenWyvis Gin name.