Girvan Distillery

Distillery

Founded in 1963

Info
Bottles

About

This grain Whisky distillery is located on the Clyde, in the coastal Lowlands.

William Grant & Sons decided to build Girvan Distillery after a dispute with Distillers Company Limited. WGS decided to run a TV ad for Standfast Whisky from Grant's, DCL was against this, so WGS decided to build the Girvan distillery. They did it in just 9 months.

Original Coffey stills were used until 1995. Nowadays Girvan uses 6 column stills for its production. The distillery mainly produces grain Whisky for brands as well as Hendrick's Gin. It was also a site for Ladyburn Whisky at one point.

Flavor Spiral™

About The Flavor Spiral

caramel

sweet

berries

port

smoky

vanilla

sherry

oak

spicy

What does Girvan taste like?

The Flavor Spiral™ shows the most common flavours that you'll taste in Girvan Scotch. It's based on all Girvan drinks in our large database and gives you a chance to taste Girvan before actually tasting it.

We invented Flavor Spiral™ here at Flaviar to get all your senses involved in tasting drinks and, frankly, because we think that classic tasting notes are boring.

Distillery Details

Country

United Kingdom, Scotland
Region

Lowlands
Established

1963
Owner

William Grant & Sons
Type

Grain
Visitor center

No
Status

Inactive
Address

Girvan Distillery Grangestone Industiral Estate Girvan Ayrshire KA26 9PT United Kingdom
Phone

+44 1465 713091
Website

thegirvanpatentstill.com

Dog Dogson's

Smartass
Corner

The distillery was a home for the Ladyburn single malt, for 10 years. Today, it is a home plant for Hendrick's Gin and Ailsa Bay malt Whisky distillery.

The first spirit from the distillery ran in Christmas of 1963, as a memoir to William Grant, who managed to produce the first spirit of Glenfiddich, on Christmas day.

The distillery uses Quercus Alba wood for its barrels, to ensure a fruity, vanilla boomer Whisky.

About

Lowlands

Perching just above England, the Lowlands can play truant from peat or salinity.

Triple distilled malts are characteristic of the Lowland region, offering a gentle, elegant palate reminiscent of grass, honeysuckle, cream, ginger, toffee, toast and cinnamon.

The Lowlands are master of the Whisky blend and are also known for their silent stills, which sadly no longer produce.

Learn more about Lowland distilleries.

Video from Girvan

Video transcription

Distilling our tale into a couple of minutes isn't easy, but then again we'd like to be different. In 1963, William Grant's great grandson created the most advanced distillery in the world at that time in just nine months. In the spirit of innovation which runs through the distillery to this day, we then perfected the Girvan patent still. A two column distillation system that helps make our Whisky patently different.

Fermented grain liquid, a bit like beer, is fed into the top of the first column. Where it passes through a series of perforated plates. Rising steam heats the liquid, evaporating the alcohol which then flows into the second column. Here it cools on similar perforated plates, and condenses into grain spirit that is around 94% alcohol by volume. The system allows us to vaporize the spirit, capturing every precious drop before it burns. This results and then you make grain spirit that is sweeter, fruitier, and lighter than most malt Whiskies in other grains. The newborn Whisky is then matured in cask carved from American white oak. The veneer in rich wood actually imbues the pure clean spirit of flavours of vanilla, toffee, honey and caramelized fruits.

Ours is a unique story, set in a unique distillery. A tale in which the signs of the still meets the magic of nature, to create a range of single grain Whiskies which are neither malts nor blends. But deliciously different.