North British Distillery

The North British Distillery stands in the Gorgie area on Edinburgh’s western edge. Built on a former pig farm of just ten acres, it opened in 1887 to turn grain into spirit for whisky blenders. The site was chosen for its railway link, its closeness to the Port of Leith, and the city’s main sewer for effluent disposal. Major shareholders Andrew Usher, William Sanderson and John M. Crabbie led the founding company. Production reached 3.6 million litres in its first year and climbed to 9 million litres by the start of the First World War. The distillery’s output has shaped Scotch whisky for over a century. During the First World War it stopped distilling because grain supplies ran short. After the war it switched briefly to making acetone for munitions before resuming whisky spirit in 1920. In the late 1950s the old tram depot next door became extra warehouses. By 1979 the plant could produce 36.4 million litres a year, and further expansion brought capacity to 61.6 million litres by the mid-1990s. Visitors find a working industrial complex of stills, mills and warehouses. The main buildings include the original stone structures and later extensions from the 1960s. Most whisky is matured in the six racked warehouses at Addiewell, twelve kilometres south-west of Edinburgh. The site still receives maize by rail and ship, and the husks are turned into cattle feed.