🥃 Clydesdale Distillery
- Jun 19
- 5 min read
Whisky From Wishaw
Following last week’s email about Leechman & Gray and Glenkinchie Distillery, one of our subscribers, John Lamond, kindly shared some additional information - along with this remarkable photograph:
If you look closely at the cask, you’ll spot the distillery name: Clydesdale Distillery, together with the filling date: 1911.
Now, while some women did work in distilleries in the past, their numbers were relatively small. So, as John quite rightly suggested, this photograph was most likely taken during the First World War, when the shortage of manpower opened up roles that women would not usually have held.
The real mystery, of course, is the woman herself. Who was she? Unfortunately, despite some digging this week, I’ve not yet been able to uncover her identity. But - as so often happens - the twists and turns of the research led me down some interesting paths, which I’ll share with you in this week’s email.
Clydesdale Distillery was founded two hundred years ago in the town of Wishaw. The premises were demolished in 1988 and, as far as I’m aware, no trace of the distillery remains; the site is now the location of a retail park. Still, Wishaw is still worth a visit thanks to the amazing Artisan run by Derek Mather - expect generous food portions and one of the most extensive Scotch whisky selections to be found anywhere. What’s not to like?
Clydesdale - also known as Wishaw - Distillery was established in 1825 by Robert Montgomery who was the 8th Lord Belhaven. He built the distillery for a reputed cost of between £60,000 - £90,000, which is the equivalent of between just under five and just over seven million pounds today i.e a lot of money.
In 1848, Patrick Chalmers’ Wishaw Distillery Company took over and continued running the distillery until Chalmers’ death in 1855. Chalmers’ daughter - Eliza - had got married two years before her father took over the distillery. And it therefore fell to her husband - not her - to become the proprietor of Clydesdale Distillery.
Her husband John Munro Mackenzie was a native of Lewis who moved to Wishaw to take over the running of the distillery. He continued to run it under Chalmers’ name until about 1870 when he changed it to J.M Mackenzie & Company, which was, indeed, the company’s name when Alfred Barnard paid the distillery a visit in the 1880s.
From Barnard’s account, we know that the Clydesdale Distillery had eight malting floors with the malt dried in large kilns using peat. The mash tun held 15,271 gallons (approximately 70,000 litres) and the distillery used two Morton’s refrigerators.
There were four washbacks, each one containing 18,000 gallons (nearly 82,000 litres). There were four pot stills - two wash stills of 5,500 and 3,500 gallons (25,000 and 16,000 litres) and two spirit stills of 2,700 and 1,000 gallons (12,000 and 4,500 litres). The spirit was triple distilled and there were three worm tubs located outside.
At the time of Barnard’s visit, there were 3,500 casks housed in ten warehouses. By 1890, a report in the Wishaw Press mentions that this had increased to 5,000 casks.
In total, the distillery’s annual output was 170,000 gallons (just over ¾ million litres) which is on a par with the new Lagg and Port Ellen distilleries.
John Munro Mackenzie died in Wishaw in November 1893. Although he didn’t live there at that time. He had moved to the island of Mull and chose to spend the winter months in his villa in Cannes - due to the nicer weather, no doubt.
It was not long after he started his journey to Cannes that he became ill and stopped off at his daughter’s gaff in Wishaw. I say ‘gaff’ - it was Garrion Tower. Mackenzie’s daughter, Harriet, had married James Scott and, by this point, Scott was running Clydesdale Distillery as well as acting as Chairman of the West of Scotland Malt Distillers’ Association.
In August the following year, the Clydesdale Distillery Company Ltd was incorporated, with the aim of purchasing and taking over the distillery buildings and the business as a going concern.
To work out exactly who all the directors of this new company were will need a wee trip to the National Archives. But so far, I’ve managed to work out that one of the directors must have been James Scott himself. Another was Robert Lowson Watson of the Scotch whisky firm James Watson & Co of Dundee. Robert actually died two years later and his half-brother, John Jabez Watson, took over his directorship.
Another of the original directors was William Alexander Robertson of the firm of Robertson & Baxter. He died in 1897 and I don’t know who took over from him. But I bet whoever it was, his name wasn’t as cool as John Jabez Watson’s.
James Scott died in March 1912. And just less than four months later, the report of the Clydesdale Distillery Company Ltd stated that “the directors regretted that on account of the high cost of production during the past season, the inevitable result of the exceptionally high price of barley and other raw material, they are unable to pay a dividend on the Ordinary shares“. This was despite the amount of business undertaken showing an improvement on the previous year.
Thankfully, the following year a dividend of 6% was paid. Phew!
At the time, Lowland malt whisky was especially popular - not only because it was inexpensive, but also because it was of good blending quality. As a result, it made up a relatively high proportion of the malt used in certain firms’ flagship blends.
But this wasn’t an easy time for the Lowland malt distilleries, for reasons outlined above. And, so, in July 1914 - with war looming - the Clydesdale Distillery Company, along with the owners of Glenkinchie, Rosebank, St Magdalene and Grange distilleries, made the decision to amalgamate and become Scottish Malt Distillers.
I’ve written more about Scottish Malt Distillers - and the key figures behind it - but that content is available exclusively to paid subscribers.
The final distillation at Clydesdale took place in 1916.
Three years later, in September 1919, Scottish Malt Distillers acquired Andrew Usher & Co’s Edinburgh Distillery. In that same year, SMD decided they no longer needed Clydesdale and so decided to sell it to Distillers Company Ltd for use as bonded stores.
The following year, Scottish Malt Distillers acquired a controlling interest in Glenlossie Distillery. And then in 1922 they took over two other distilleries: North Port Distillery in Brechin (in the May) and Dean Distillery (in the December - which they subsequently closed).
Less than three years later, in July 1925, Scottish Malt Distillers was absorbed into (dum-dum-dum) Distillers Company Limited.
Slà inte! Justine