Blackwood to take plans for most northerly distillery to Shetlands

The move will be a first for the islands, better known for their oil production than whisky.

The plans are being drawn up by Blackwood Distillers, which is set to spend 5 million on the scheme.

Caroline Whitfield, the chief executive of Blackwood and a product development guru who previously worked with Diageo and Unilever, said they hoped to get the project up and running by next spring, with the first production coming out in 2007.

She said: "We have just finished the environmental impact study, which was supported by Shetland Enterprise, and the planning application will go in this week at a site just ten miles north of Lerwick called Catfirth, South Nesting, the site of the old Second World War RAF base."

The distillery plans annual production of 40,000 cases of premium single malt, in peated and unpeated versions, and a variety of wood finishes.

In terms of benchmarking and style it will be more similar to a lighter Islay.

Mrs Whitfield said: "Conditions on the island are just extraordinary and I think it has genuinely been overlooked.

"The islands’ unique mix of water, air and peat will produce a lightly smoked single malt, which will be distinctive from mellow, lowland malts, the more earthy flavours of Islay and Orkney or the smooth Speysides."

Shetland has never had a distillery on its shores before, something Mrs Whitfield says is down to a lack of locally grown barley.

Blackwood will be sourcing barley from the mainland and in addition is looking at old strains of barley that will be more robust to survive Shetland’s extreme conditions.

But a lack of whisky distillation was more than made up by the distillation and smuggling of illicit white spirits.

Blackwood plans to create a range of Shetland-branded vodka, gin and liqueur products. Due to be launched at next month’s Highland Show, the brands will be made largely from homegrown ingredients.

"The gin has ten botanicals in it, four of those specifically from Shetland, and we have made the recipe as close as we can to a northern gin ... a Shetland gin," Mrs Whitfield said.

"We also hope this will generate some botanical interest in the island, which is a place of rare flora and herbs."

Mrs Whitfield, who first had the idea for a distillery when searching for property on the island, has drafted in a wealth of talent to help her with the project.

Among the six directors are Dr Arthur Davies, who inspired the building of the Gwalia distillery in the Brecon Beacons in 1999, John McDougall, a master distiller, and Bill Rankin, one of the world’s leading experts on distillery construction.

To help her launch the branded products she has performed something of a coup with the recruitment of Tom Jago, the mastermind behind Bailey’s and Johnny Walker Blue.

With the whisky market worth about 3 billion a year in the UK, and with single malts growing at 10 per cent per annum, Blackwood is confident the project will work.

Presently it has raised enough capital, but small-scale investors will be able to put money into the project with the issue of a FSA approved public prospectus in June. Rather unusually, as it is a private company, there will also be the opportunity for people to trade shares in the company online.

Mrs Whitfield added: "The reason we are doing this is because a lot of people from Shetland approached us to invest in the project and we were very keen to promote that. The more local investment, the more scope there is for this project to integrate in the local community."