The Clydeside Distillery, Glasgow: Whisky Returns to the River

Overview

The Clydeside Distillery brought whisky-making back to the heart of Glasgow, in the beautifully-restored Queen’s Dock Pump House on the river. Opened in 2017, it makes a light, unpeated Lowland malt and, with its glass stillhouse looking straight out over the Clyde, it is one of the best city-centre distillery visits in Scotland.

The history

Clydeside was founded in 2017 by Tim Morrison, of the Morrison whisky family, in the old hydraulic pump house that once worked the gates of the Queen’s Dock. Its first single malt was released in 2021. It was part of a wider revival that saw single-malt distilling return to Glasgow after many decades, and it deliberately celebrates the city’s shipbuilding and dock heritage.

The water & the land

The Clyde beside the distillery is far too dirty to distil with, so Clydeside — like Auchentoshan — uses soft water piped some 65 km from Loch Katrine. There is a neat historical twist: Loch Katrine’s level was raised by the engineering firm of John Morrison, an ancestor of the distillery’s founding family.

Clydeside has no clan story — it is a modern, urban, Lowland distillery, and its heritage is industrial rather than clan-based: the Morrison family firm helped build the Queen’s Dock and worked on the Loch Katrine waterworks. It is a distillery about Glasgow, the Clyde and the age of shipbuilding.

Visiting

Clydeside runs a tour and tasting of about an hour and a quarter, seven days a week — book ahead. It generally opens daily, roughly 10–5 in summer and 11–5 in winter with the last tour around 4; check the website. It sits beside the Riverside Museum, so the two make an easy day out on the Clyde.

Nearby & more whisky

• Glasgow’s other malt: Auchentoshan
• Lowland — the region overview
• The whole picture: Scotch whisky — regions, distilleries & the oldest of all

Sources

• The Clydeside Distillery — Wikipedia.
• The Clydeside Distillery / Morrison family.