Celebration to mark the opening of the new still house and visitor centre

On Friday 21 February, Kilchoman celebrated with 150 invited guests – family, friends, colleagues and business partners – the opening of the new still house and visitor centre.

This marked the completion of the ambitious £6 million expansion programme of recent years, the aim of which was to double production capacity to meet the increasing demand for Kilchoman whisky in the future (we reported).

The new still house, extending out from the gable end of the old still house, contains two new stills, a new mashtun and six additional washbacks which doubles the production capacity to 480,000 LOA.  The stills and mashtun are an exact copy of the originals.  The new still house will also give Kilchoman the ability to experiment more during the malting process and change the peating levels, up and down, and look at the influence yeast varieties have on spirit character and follow specific spirit runs and monitor these as they mature in the warehouses.

The final phase of the expansion programme was the completion of a new visitor centre with shop and café. One of the former pony stables was converted into a café and a new spacious extension with a shop area, glass window tasting rooms and a bar was built.

Guests at the opening ceremony received a bottle of Kilchoman whisky specially bottled for the occasion.

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