Fife distillery Eden Mill now fully operational - look inside as first cask is filled

Scottish distiller Eden Mill has filled its first cask on site of its brand new, fully operational, distillery.

The first cask of Eden Mill spirit has officially been filled to commemorate the brand’s new distillery being fully operational.

Filled on Monday, Eden Mill’s first cask – made from Scottish Oak – marked a huge moment for the St Andrews company. It is the end of 21 months of building work following the handover from the University of St Andrews in June 2023.

Eden Mill was established in 2012 on the banks of the Eden Estuary, and was the first distillery to make spirits in the region in more than 150 years.

The new Eden Mill distillery is now operational | Eden Mill

The huge distillery, described by the team as like “Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory” given its scale, holds a mash tun, six washbacks, a gin still, wash and spirit stills, hot liquor tanks and a cask warehouse with space to store 300 casks.

The state-of-the-art space has a capacity of one million litres of pure alcohol (LPA) per year and is a modern addition to the vibrant distilling scene that already exists within the region of Fife. It is an area that is making strides to be recognised as a whisky-producing region in its own right, spearheaded by InchDairnie distillery in Glenrothes.

With just under 400 casks remaining from the single malt distilled at the original Eden distillery located on the same site, the team is now turning their attention to restarting whisky production, with a view to filling hundreds more casks with their new-make spirit, ready to be laid down to mature.

Eden Mill (Pic: Graeme McCubbin)

The whisky is expected to be light and sweet, given the influence of the onion shaped wash still and boil-ball spirit still, which were put in place in January.

Euan Kinninmonth, brand home manager, described what the flavour profile of the whisky will be, saying: “By regionality, we are a lowland distillery. Our spirit will be a combination of lowland and Highland style and we designed our spirit still to give us much more robust spirit, while still maintaining the core flavour profile of our 100 per cent Fife malted barley.”

The new make spirit from these stills will mainly be matured in first fill sherry and bourbon casks, making the first cask, the Scottish wood, even more unique for the brand.

Eden Mill’s core gin range, comprising Golf, Love and Original Gin, will also be distilled at their new premises and will soon be relaunched in a redesigned bottle for an eye-catching look.

The Golf Gin will be made to a slightly new recipe, and include botanicals hand foraged by the head distiller from the famous Old Course in St Andrews, designed to give even more of a sense of place to this popular spirit.

Located just ten minutes from St Andrews town centre on the University of St Andrews ‘Eden Campus’, Eden Mill will open a new visitor centre to cater to tourists.

The facility will offer immersive gin and whisky experiences, a retail space and a top-floor cocktail bar featuring scenic views over the Eden Estuary. The work on the visitor centre is expected to be completed this summer, with a planned opening date of August.

The stills in the new Eden Mill distillery | Eden Mill

Rennie Donaldson, chief executive officer at Eden Mill, said: “The new distillery marks a step change for our business and follows years of hard work by the whole team. To be able to announce that our new distillery is now fully operational is incredibly exciting and we are just a few short months away from being able to open our doors to the public and welcome visitors from all over the world.

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“It’s not very often you get to effectively build a new distillery and for myself and the team it has been so rewarding to be part of that, especially in this really special area.To bring it to life now and go from what was an empty shell of a building to coming inside and seeing a fantastic visitor centre and distillery is really special.”

Eden Mill’s head distiller Scott Ferguson added: “Following the installation of our copper stills in January, we have been progressing towards getting the distillery operational and refining our new-make spirit. My objective is to replicate the profile of what we used to distil at our original site – a light, sweet spirit with floral and grassy notes. I am looking forward to coming to work at this beautiful location every day and to overseeing the distillation of our excellent products.”

(left to right) Kirsty Wainwright – Head of Operations, Rennie Donaldson – Chief Executive Officer, Scott Ferguson – Head Distiller, Danielle Doran – Head of Strategic Projects | contributed

All electricity at Eden Mill’s distillery will be 100 per cent renewable, coming from either the solar farm belonging to the University of St Andrews or from renewable tariffs on the grid.

The business is working on various other sustainability initiatives, including their partnership with MiAlgae, which was announced in October last year.

Earthshot Prize finalists, MiAlgae will work with the distillery to repurpose whisky effluent, a by-product of distillation, to grow microalgae as a sustainable source of Omega-3s. Global demand for Omega-3s, traditionally sourced from wild-caught fish, is driving unsustainable overfishing - with 16 million tonnes of wild-caught oceanic fish annually.

Eden Mill distillery is now operational | Eden Mill

Mr Donaldson said the plans for sustainability did not end there, saying: “We’re on the Eden campus of the University of St Andrews, so all the power to the building will come from their solar farm, and if there’s not enough power from that we’ll flip to a renewable tariff on the grid.

“We’ve also put in place C02 [carbon dioxide] capture from our fermenters for future capture of C02 further down the line.”