OA Meets Big Peat

Have you ever driven along the M8 and wondered what goes on inside the building with the giant Big Peat mural on it?

Wonder no more...

On 24 June, Douglas Laing kindly gave the Scottish Section of the CIBD a tour of their new bottling and warehousing facilities at Hillington. Unfortunately, one of the site rules was no photographs, so you’ll just have to imagine it!

It’s always interesting to get access to some of the facilities that support the wider whisky industry. We’ve previously worked on bottling halls, cooperages and warehouses, but seeing how these functions have been accommodated within existing buildings is always worthwhile.

A new bottling line has been installed which can get through a serious amount of liquid pretty quickly, taking spirit through filling, labelling and packing with minimal intervention. What was particularly interesting, though, was seeing how parts of the automated line could be bypassed to accommodate different bottle shapes, closures, labels and packaging.

That flexibility is a fairly common requirement for many of the new distilleries we work with, where relatively small production runs and a changing range of products mean that a completely standardised bottling process isn’t always the answer.

The dispatch warehouse was equally impressive, with the full range of Douglas Laing products giving a sense of just how much variety passes through the building. There was also a fairly impressive “who’s who” of ageing whisky stock tucked away on site.

Seeing the complete journey from liquid arriving on site through bottling, packing, storage and ultimately dispatch to the customer was really worthwhile.

Another great study trip from the CIBD, and another useful reminder that there is a lot more to producing whisky than what happens inside the stillhouse.