The team at Arran’s Lowland distillery share their latest update; February 2022

Lagg Distillery - Updated Release February 9th, 2022

Lagg Distillery, established by Isle of Arran Distillers Ltd in 2019, is situated eighteen miles southwest of Brodick which is where the island’s main ferry terminal is. Very much at the southern point of the island, the Visitor Centre offers some of the most incredible views – visitors can see in front of them Ailsa Craig and looking right the Sound of Kilbranan, Kintyre, Northern Ireland on a clear day and looking left the Ayrshire Coast.

The design of the distillery blends in with the rolling hills of the south end of the island, which is much flatter than the northern part. There is a mixed seed green roof which really helps to imitate the environment around. Apart from the Visitors Centre and the Stillhouse, there are three bonded warehouses on site and three more are currently under construction. Behind the building there is our orchard, two thousand apple trees, as the team hopes one day to make their own cider and experiment in different ways when the fruits are ready for use. 

The construction of the distillery started back in 2017 and, a couple of years later, there was the very first stills run on 19th March 2019. The whisky is made with barley which is peated at 50ppm with highland peat. Lagg Distillery’s plan is to experiment in the future with peat from different areas, not just different parts of Scotland but even further afield. Barley experimentation is also on the cards as fields next door have been prepared to eventually create Arran barley which will be used to produce a one hundred percent Arran whisky in the future.

The Inspiration  

Visitor numbers were at an all-time high to the Lochranza Distillery Visitor Centre, older sister distiller of Lagg located in the northern part of the island and then called the Isle of Arran Distillery. Recent renovations to the visitor centre had been completed, including a complete re-design of the reception area and a tasting bar to help accommodate larger groups of visitors. In the distillery itself, four brand new stills had been installed with a new spirit safe which supports the production at present of 600,000 litres per annum.

To allow for even greater production levels, increased storage, and a site which would allow the welcoming of more whisky visitors to the Isle of Arran, the hunt was on for a new site which could accommodate a brand-new distillery. A site on the southern tip of the Isle of Arran, a once whisky production hub, was identified and work began.

In response the popularity of the peated Arran Single Malt - Machrie Moor - plans were put in place to dedicate production at this new distillery to heavily peated single malt spirit.

Speaking at the beginning the construction of Lagg Distillery, then Master Distiller James MacTaggart said:

“Having been at near capacity at Lochranza for some time, the prospect of starting production at Lagg is extremely exciting. The Arran Malt continues to grow in popularity – the extra storage alone will enable us to lay down more of the award-winning Arran spirit and, by concentrating the distillation of peated malts on the south of the island, it will also be freed up to create more of our extremely popular core range at Lochranza.”

The History 

In the southern part of the Isle of Arran, the history of whisky production goes back generations. During the years of high taxation, the hills and glens of Arran provided ideal cover for illicit distillers to produce ‘uisge beatha’ away from the watchful eyes of the Customs men and the reputation of the ‘Arran Water’ quickly spread to the mainland where it was in much demand and regarded as amongst the best in Scotland. In 1793 there existed three legal distilleries on Arran whilst there were estimated to be at least 50 illicit stills operating in the south end of the island. Smuggling was rife in the waters around Arran and many locals lost their lives either in armed conflict with the Excise or in transporting their wares to the mainland in treacherous conditions. Following the Excise Act of 1823, which reduced taxes and encouraged the legal production of whisky, illicit distillation began to fade away and the modern whisky industry emerged. The legal distillers on Arran found they could not compete with the better organised distilleries on the mainland and in 1836 the island’s last licensed distillery of that era, at Torrylin near Lagg, closed. With the opening of Lochranza Distillery in 1995, Isle of Arran Distillers marked the first legal distillery on the island after more than 150 years. With Lagg they follow the rich island’s history of whisky making very much up close in the area where the “Arran Water” was actually produced and smuggled for survival in the olden days.

The Whisky

The heavily peated Lagg Single Malt will come of age soon and be released for the first time in June 2022. The team are excited to present to the world for the first time their inaugural Single Malt, and if their new spirit is anything to go by, it’s going to be very much worth waiting for. 

In anticipation of their first Single Malt, the Lagg team have been hosting tastings at their Visitor Centre featuring a heavily peated Lochranza Single Malt from their sister Distillery to whet the appetite of those guests who are keen to see what the future holds.  Produced in Lochranza, the Machrie Moor Fingal’s Cut Quarter Cask and Sherry Finish editions are both heavily peated at 50PPM, and are a great indication of the sort of robust smoky character we should expect from Lagg.

Dramface readers can obtain a 10% discount on these Lagg Exclusive bottlings from the Arran Whisky web site by using discount code DRAMFACE10. Have a dram whilst you wait!

This discount is offered as a gesture of goodwill by the team at Isle of Arran. It is not part of any partnership or paid promotion with Dramface.

Provided by Isle of Arran