The Galloway Distillery, Newton Stewart: Sam Heughan’s Venture

Overview

The Galloway Distillery is Newton Stewart’s small craft distillery. It has had two lives. It opened in 2017 as Crafty Distillery, a family business that made its name with the award-winning Hills & Harbour gin and began making whisky in 2022. In 2025 it was bought by the Outlander actor Sam Heughan, who grew up in Galloway, and his business partner Alex Norouzi, the team behind Sassenach Spirits. They renamed it the Galloway Distillery. Its first single malt is maturing in cask, and a larger production and visitor building has been approved.

It sits at the gateway to the Galloway Forest Park, one of the quietest and most beautiful corners of Scotland. Robert the Bruce, St Ninian and a ring of Bronze Age stones are all within half an hour.

Where it is

The distillery is on the Wigtown Road on the south side of Newton Stewart, the market town on the River Cree, where the A75 from Dumfries to Stranraer crosses into the Machars. Dumfries is about 50 miles east, Stranraer and the Ireland ferries about 25 miles west, and Glasgow about 2 hours north.

Address: Galloway Distillery, Wigtown Road, Newton Stewart DG8 6AS.

The full history

Crafty: a family build

The distillery was the idea of Graham Taylor, his father Billy Taylor and their friend Craig Rankin. Plans went in during 2015, and building began in February 2017. Billy did much of the building himself, using larch from the sawmill at nearby Kirkcowan. The first gin ran in spring 2017. Most new gin makers buy in neutral spirit, but Crafty made its own base spirit from scratch. Its flagship, Hills & Harbour, took 14 months to develop, with Galloway botanicals including noble fir and bladderwrack seaweed alongside mango and Sichuan pepper. Crafty became known for one-off ideas. In 2018 it made a batch with snow collected during the “Beast from the East” storm. It was named Scottish Gin Distillery of the Year in 2020. The site had a bar, a café and tours, and it became a much-loved stop on the A75.

Billy & Co.

In 2020 Crafty announced it would make whisky. The planned single malt was named Billy & Co. after Billy Taylor, who had died by then. The first whisky ran in 2022, using only Scottish barley and very long fermentations of up to 168 hours, which build fruity flavours. The distillery also joined a trial with Bairds Malt to test new barley varieties.

Sam Heughan & the Galloway Distillery

Sam Heughan, born in Balmaclellan and raised in Galloway, launched Sassenach Spirits with Alex Norouzi in 2021. The name comes from the word his Outlander character uses for the English. Sassenach began with a blended Scotch, and a Sassenach gin followed in 2023, made with Scottish botanicals including heather and Scots pine resin. In 2025 the pair bought Crafty and renamed it the Galloway Distillery, bringing Sassenach production home to Galloway. Plans approved by Dumfries and Galloway Council in 2024 provide for a new production and visitor building with a net-zero commitment.

How it’s made

This is a tiny distillery: five 250-litre pot stills, with a capacity of around 25,000 litres a year. That makes it one of the smallest whisky makers in Scotland. Scottish barley, slow fermentation and small copper stills give a fruity, characterful new make. Gin production continues alongside the whisky.

Clans, kings & the land

• The Stewarts of Garlies. Newton Stewart is named after William Stewart, a son of the Earl of Galloway, who founded the town in the 17th century. The Stewart Earls of Galloway held Garlies Castle in the hills above the town.
• Robert the Bruce. About 15 miles north, in Glen Trool, Bruce ambushed an English force in 1307. It was one of the turning points of his war. Bruce’s Stone marks the spot above Loch Trool. See Clan Bruce.
• The Douglases. The Black Douglases became Lords of Galloway in the 14th century and ruled from Threave Castle near Castle Douglas.
• The Wigtown Martyrs. In 1685, two Covenanter women, Margaret McLachlan and Margaret Wilson, were tied to stakes in the Bladnoch estuary below Wigtown and drowned by the tide. A memorial marks the place, 7 miles south.

Stones, saints & churches

• Torhouse Stone Circle: a ring of 19 granite boulders on a low platform, about 8 miles south near Wigtown. It is one of the finest Bronze Age circles in south-west Scotland. See our standing stones guide.
• Whithorn: about 18 miles south. St Ninian founded the “Candida Casa” here around 400 AD, often called the cradle of Scottish Christianity. You can see the priory ruins, the museum’s early carved stones (including the Latinus Stone) and St Ninian’s Cave on the shore.
• Cairnholy: two Neolithic chambered cairns above Wigtown Bay, about 15 miles east.
• Wigtown, Scotland’s National Book Town, with its own old church and martyrs’ graves.

Lochs & the forest

The Galloway Forest Park starts just north of town. It is Britain’s largest forest park and a Dark Sky Park, with some of the darkest skies in Europe. Loch Trool, below the Merrick, the highest hill in southern Scotland, is the classic walk, past Bruce’s Stone. Further north are Loch Dee and Loch Doon. See our lochs guide.

Visiting

Under Crafty, the distillery ran tours, a bar and a café. Since the 2025 sale and with redevelopment planned, check the official website before visiting for current opening, tours and the shop. The nearest distillery with regular tours is Bladnoch, 7 miles south.

Nearby distilleries

• Bladnoch (about 7 miles): Scotland’s most southerly whisky distillery, by the river near Wigtown, with tours.
• Ailsa Bay, Girvan (about 30 miles).
• Annandale, near Annan (about 60 miles).
• Lochlea, Ayrshire (about 60 miles).

Our Southern Scotland Whisky Trail joins them up, and the whisky hub covers every region.

Sources

• Galloway distillery (formerly Crafty) — Wikipedia.
• Sassenach Spirits: Galloway Distillery.
• Scotland Food & Drink: Sam Heughan unveils distillery.
• Scottish Gin Society: Beast from the East gin.