“The days of people queuing outside overnight to acquire limited edition releases are gone. […] Many lots at auction don’t meet their reserves. The void between a buyer and seller’s expectation of things has grown bigger and bigger. Trying to close that gap has become more difficult for those involved in the broken market.”
That’s Ben Odgers, founder and CEO of Spirits Sourcery, talking about the current state of the whisky market. He has 25 years of experience in the drinks industry, with senior roles across the UK and Middle East, and is now based in Spain. Odgers’ assessment may seem harsh, but it’s backed by news stories of distilleries cutting back or temporarily pausing production, staff being made redundant, and decreasing profits for parent companies. Despite all this, Scotland’s new distilleries are weathering the storm — but it’s not over.
After decades of prosperity, for many of the young producers this is the first time they will have to navigate challenging market conditions. How these junior distilleries tackle the downturn will be crucial for their future viability. “This year has been pretty tough for a lot of people,” says David Ferguson, commercial director at Lochlea Distillery. “To me, it’s still a hangover from post-Covid with too much stock in every market. Things get backed up. We’re trying to keep doing the right things.”
But what does that look like? The right thing for one upstart distillery can be the wrong approach for another. There certainly is no one-size-fits-all solution. Each has their own difficulties to overcome depending on their situation. Some new distilleries are releasing their first 10-year-old single malt, while others have no mature whisky yet. Take Port of Leith Distillery in Edinburgh, which only began production in early 2024. It had to build during the pandemic, distribute through Brexit, and face soaring energy costs amid the Ukraine war.
It’s not always easy to stay focused when your future product is still mostly abstract, but Port of Leith is fortunate to have many other strings to its bow. The main one is Lind & Lime, a gin brand that has risen strongly through the crowd of the gin boom. For many years it was a key element for helping raise investment. “Investors saw the success we were having and it gave them great confidence in what we were going to do,” explains Ian Stirling, co-founder of Port of Leith Distillery. Another piece is Table Whisky, a single grain whisky borrowing from the concept of a table wine. “I would be very nervous running this business without at least one of those products behind us.”
Other newcomers are a bit further along. Lochlea in Ayrshire has just reached a milestone with the launch of its first core range. The distillery’s inaugural release in 2022 was followed by a series of seasonal bottlings, but now its flagship Our Barley is joined by three permanent expressions: Orchard & Oak, Dark Briar, and Smoke Without Fire.
These whiskies were developed in response to feedback from partners and customers — both in the UK and abroad — who felt the brand would benefit from a core lineup. By the time Lochlea began planning the range, the market had already started to cool. “Otherwise, we might have bottled more of each one at the start,” says Ferguson. “But because of the way things are, we’re being more careful.” That prudence extends to every aspect of production. “We basically bottle based on the orders we’re getting. It means we’re more cautious with dry goods, labelling and such.” In uncertain times, Lochlea’s approach reflects a growing emphasis on flexibility and realism among Scotland’s younger distilleries.
Kingsbarns, near St Andrews, has a head start on most other young whisky distilleries. Owned by the Wemyss family, Kingsbarns has been in production since 2015 and from the start aimed to craft a classic Lowland whisky. The distillery recently launched its first-ever 10-year-old single malt. “Time passes very quickly,” says Isabella Wemyss, production director for the distillery. “It’s exciting to see how it has matured and to see that the flavour profile came out as we would want it to. Initially it was challenging to get the spirit style right, and it took longer than we thought, but we did eventually get there. Keeping faith in our vision kept us on track.”
Following in the footsteps of Kingsbarns, Torabhaig is carefully working its way towards a first 10 Years Old. It set out on a meticulously thought-out journey called The Legacy Series, starting with its Inaugural Release almost five years ago. It was supposed to be the first of four limited releases before finally launching a 10 Years Old. Then, Torabhaig Sound of Sleat hit the market earlier this year, which was never part of the distillery’s original outline. And now there are even plans for a first permanent, non-age-statement expression to be released next year. “It’s a bit like planning to drive from New York to Los Angeles,” explains Bruce Perry, Torabhaig’s head of brand advocacy. “One, you’ll get to Los Angeles. And two, you won’t stick to the plan. That’s how it is with us and our journey to a 10-year-old.”
The revised journey isn’t necessarily to do with the changing market, says Perry. The market is going to change no matter what plans you make. (“It’s always changed. It’s forever changing.”) But being open about a different direction — and being open in general — is a critical part of Torabhaig’s philosophy. This strategy fits with Odgers’ advice for (young) distilleries as well. He preaches building loyalty through transparency. Whisky drinkers are more discerning than they have ever been, demanding transparency and authenticity from the whisky brands they support. He believes producers should emphasise their production methods, provenance, and sustainable practices. According to Odgers, “The market is flooded with many multitudes of releases. In some cases, they’re not really telling the customer what is in the bottle. You’re almost buying the marketing rather than the liquid.” More honesty about how limited a whisky is, or what makes a bottle special, not only enthuses whisky drinkers but also retail staff. They are kind of mini ambassadors who don’t work for a brand directly but are often the only person stood in front of a customer, says Odgers. “Giving them all the tools to make it as simple as possible to sell your product is crucial.”
It’s advice Lochlea doesn’t need. Ferguson describes their philosophy as “maybe too open sometimes”. Being one of only a few farm distilleries in Scotland, Lochlea wants to share its process, warts and all. When a tractor breaks down or if the harvest was bad, Ferguson has no issues at all with sharing that. “We just tell people what happens, and they seem to like hearing that rather than being part of some brand story. It builds a kind of trust.” The distillery doesn’t have a visitor centre, but no area is off-limits when customers visit the site. “I can’t think of anything that we’ve had to hide or not talk about because something’s gone wrong. That’s part of the brand.”
Being transparent is a very conscious decision for Port of Leith. Not yet having any whisky to sell, it can be challenging to get people excited when there’s nothing to taste yet. Stirling wants to master the road towards a first age-statement whisky without confusing customers and by explaining what Port of Leith and its whisky are all about. “Transparency as much as possible is the answer to that. I don’t want to hoodwink anybody by hiding everything within brand and golden pictures, whatever it might be.”
By being open about age, even if it is a younger malt, how it is made, and what went into a whisky, Stirling believes that will draw people into the journey of Port of Leith. It is exactly what Torabhaig has already been doing — almost since before it was producing whisky. Torabhaig is owned by Mossburn Distillers, which also has its own line of independent bottlings. Early releases of its blended malts included a detailed explanation of the cask bill on the label. “We wanted to show the world, anyone who cared to listen, that we were going to be very transparent,” says Perry. “We didn’t believe there was any reason to not tell people everything.”
Torabhaig has delivered on its promise. All its early releases include details not often shared. It’s not uncommon to share peat levels of malted barley, but Torabhaig also details the residual phenols after distillation, or the barley and yeast varieties. It will even share exact breakdowns of phenolic compounds — cresols, guaiacols, and phenols — in its whiskies at different stages, including the pre-maturation or new make stage. Perry describes Torabhaig’s “real identity” as being transparent. But Torabhaig’s identity was partly built-in, because it was the first distillery to open on the Isle of Skye in nearly two centuries. “Links to things aren’t tenuous or contrived because of that. Yes, the marketplace was crowded when we first launched, but it wasn’t crowded with whisky from Skye. Location, location, location.”
Looking back, Perry believes Torabhaig has been “luckier than anybody else” with its location, but that’s something Stirling might disagree with. While it was challenging to find a site and build a distillery in Edinburgh, those early hardships are already paying dividends. Port of Leith gets a lot of footfall: it was one of the most visited whisky distilleries in 2024, which was an incredible boost for a new single malt brand. The limited footprint of Port of Leith’s site was also a blessing in disguise. It meant building a vertical distillery — the only one in Scotland — was pretty much the only option. Stirling says, “Our location and the very architecture of our building were calculated to help build that brand awareness in a way that building a shed in the middle of the countryside would make things a lot more challenging, I think.”
Far from a shed but located in the middle of the countryside, Lochlea has a strong identity exactly because of it. It’s a single estate distillery with every part of the whisky-making process taking place on site. It gives Lochlea a unique advantage, even when markets are tougher. “It’s not like we’ve just appeared, made a brand, and then tried to pump whisky.” Ferguson believes Lochlea has an easy-to-communicate ethos and philosophy. He finds the difference between Lochlea and any new brand in the drinks world, is that while most brands have cool stories, they’ve created them. “That’s absolutely fine, but for Lochlea our story is literally just us telling you what we do. It makes my life much easier. There’s no need to embellish anything.”
It’s not something Kingsbarns and the Wemyss family have had to do either. They’ve embraced their Lowlands location. It’s now one of the most vibrant whisky-producing regions in Scotland, but that wasn’t necessarily the case when the first plans for Kingsbarns were drawn up. Yet because of longstanding family ties they couldn’t resist the opportunity to build in the Lowlands. Wemyss Castle in Fife has been the seat of the chiefs of Clan Wemyss since the 12th century. “We’re an old Scottish family,” says Wemyss. “We’re from Fife, so we wanted to be true to where we come from and where the distillery was.” Not many distilleries produce an outspoken Lowland-style whisky, not even those located in the Lowlands, but the family never saw that as a risk. Instead, it has become part of Kingsbarn’s identity. “To us it means staying true to our roots.”
That sense of rootedness seems to define a new generation of Scotch distilleries. Facing shifting market conditions, they appear less focused on rapid growth. Resilience is key. Their approaches differ, but there is a common thread: a preference for transparency, measured ambition, and a strong sense of identity. It is a pragmatic response to a market correction that has exposed the limits of hype and overextension.
If the broader Scotch industry is entering a period of consolidation, these smaller producers offer a glimpse of what sustainable success might look like. For them, survival is not about weathering a single storm, but about learning how to navigate whatever comes next.
