Ailsa Bay Distillery, Girvan: The Hidden Ayrshire Malt

Overview

Ailsa Bay is a big malt distillery that hardly anyone sees. It sits inside William Grant & Sons’ grain distillery complex at Girvan on the Ayrshire coast, looking out to the granite island of Ailsa Craig. Built in 2007 to supply malt for Grant’s blends, it has sixteen stills and a capacity of around 12 million litres a year, which puts it among the largest malt distilleries in Scotland. Its malt is also bottled as the peated Ailsa Bay single malt and as Aerstone.

It is not open to visitors, but the coast around it is one of the finest in the south-west: Ailsa Craig, Culzean Castle, Turnberry and the Kennedy lands of Carrick.

Where it is

The Girvan complex stands just north of Girvan on the A77 coast road, about 22 miles south of Ayr and 55 miles (around 1 hour 20 minutes) south of Glasgow. Ailsa Craig rises from the sea 10 miles offshore, and on clear days you can see Arran, Kintyre and Northern Ireland.

The full history

Girvan: a grain distillery by the sea

William Grant & Sons, the Dufftown family behind Glenfiddich and Balvenie, built a big grain distillery at Girvan in 1963. They needed their own grain whisky for blends such as Grant’s. Between 1966 and 1975 a malt distillery called Ladyburn also ran on the site. It was then closed and dismantled, and its whisky is now extremely rare.

2007: Ailsa Bay

By the 2000s, demand for Grant’s blends and the family’s single malts was rising fast. Rather than buy malt from others, the company built a new malt distillery inside the Girvan complex. It began in 2007 and was formally opened in 2009 by Prince Charles. Its stills were made in the shape of those at Balvenie, so it can make a range of spirit styles for blending, from light to heavily peated.

Ailsa Bay and Aerstone

The first Ailsa Bay single malt appeared in 2016, a peated Lowland whisky described as having a “sweet smoke” character. In March 2019 it was among the first Scotch brands to use blockchain tracking against counterfeiting. In September 2019 Grant’s launched Aerstone, made at Ailsa Bay, as an easy-drinking single malt in two styles, “Sea Cask” and “Land Cask”. The Girvan site also makes Grant’s gin, including Hendrick’s.

How it’s made

Ailsa Bay has eight wash stills and eight spirit stills, all modelled on Balvenie’s. It can switch between unpeated and heavily peated malt and between different cut points, so the blenders can get many spirit styles from one plant. Water comes from the Penwhapple reservoir in the hills behind Girvan. Capacity is around 12 million litres a year.

Clans, kings & Carrick

• The Kennedys of Carrick. This coast was ruled by the Kennedys, Earls of Cassillis, the “Kings of Carrick”. Their great house, Culzean Castle (rebuilt by Robert Adam in the 1770s–90s), stands on the cliffs 14 miles north and is now run by the National Trust for Scotland. Their feuds were notorious. In 1570 the Earl of Cassillis had the abbot of Crossraguel roasted at Dunure Castle to make him sign over the abbey lands.
• Robert the Bruce. Turnberry Castle, 6 miles north and now a ruin by the lighthouse on the golf course, was the seat of the Earls of Carrick. It is one of the places claimed as Bruce’s birthplace in 1274. Bruce landed here from Arran in 1307 to begin his war. See Clan Bruce.
• Robert Burns. Alloway, where Burns was born in 1759, is about 20 miles north. Burns’s old farm at Lochlea, now home to the Lochlea distillery, is further inland.

Churches, stones & the sea

• Crossraguel Abbey, near Maybole, about 10 miles north-east: the finest medieval abbey ruin in Ayrshire, founded in the 13th century by the Earl of Carrick.
• Ailsa Craig, the volcanic plug offshore, has a gannet colony and is the source of the blue hone granite used to make most of the world’s curling stones. Boat trips run from Girvan in summer.
• Loch Doon, about 25 miles inland, has a castle moved stone by stone to the shore when the loch was dammed in the 1930s. See our lochs guide and standing stones guide.

Visiting

Ailsa Bay is not open to the public. It is inside a secure industrial site with no visitor centre or tours. For a distillery visit on this coast, try Lochlea near Mauchline or head south to Bladnoch. Our Southern Scotland Whisky Trail covers the route.

Nearby distilleries

• Lochlea, near Mauchline (about 30 miles): Burns’s farm, now a distillery with tours.
• Galloway, Newton Stewart (about 30 miles): the former Crafty, now owned by Sam Heughan.
• Bladnoch, Wigtown (about 40 miles), with tours.
• Annandale, Annan (about 90 miles).

The whisky hub covers every region.

Sources

• Ailsa Bay distillery — Wikipedia.
• Aerstone (William Grant & Sons).
• National Trust for Scotland (Culzean); Historic Environment Scotland (Crossraguel, Turnberry).