Major milestone for Fife's Eden Mill distillery as new stills installed

The wash and spirit stills have now been installed as the brand gets ready to start production on the Eden Campus.

The two hand-crafted copper stills – the beating heart of the distillery – were manufactured by LHS in Speyside and designed in collaboration with Eden Mill head distiller Scott Ferguson to achieve a light, floral and grassy new make similar to that which he distilled back in 2014 on the original stills.

The onion shaped wash still (15,000 litres), boil-ball spirit still (11,500 litres), and shell-and-tube condenser were all selected by Ferguson to produce a lighter and sweeter spirit with a delicate flavour profile.

Commissioning will begin in March, kicking off the process of fine-tuning the new make spirit before filling the first casks of the new distillery.

The distillery will open its doors to visitors this summer, offering immersive tours, a shop and a third floor cocktail bar where guests will be able to sit back, relax and enjoy views across the Eden Estuary.

Rennie Donaldson, Chief Executive Officer at Eden Mill, said: “Installing our copper stills on-site is a momentous occasion for the brand and the start of a new chapter in Eden Mill’s story. We have come so far as a business, and we’re now just months away from filling our first whisky cask at our new distillery, which is testament to all the hard work the team has put in behind the scenes.”

Located on The University of St Andrews Eden Campus, the Eden Mill distillery is being built with sustainability at its core. In October, the brand announced a partnership with MiAlgae to recycle effluent - a by-product of whisky making - into micro-algae, with the aim of eliminating reliance on wild caught fish as a source of Omega-3.

The distillery will also power its gin still using 100 per cent renewable energy, including power from the university’s own solar farm. Additionally, the CO₂ produced during the fermentation process of distillation will be captured for future use.