Glengoyne Distillery Renovations Mark Best Summer Season Ever with massive 48,500 visitors

Welcome to the page about the re-opening of the Glengoyne Distillery shop. Glengoyne Distillery offers visitors to the distillery an unique visitor experience. With the distillery only 30 minutes outside of Glasgow it would be an excellent day out for everyone who loves the Scottish Whisky industry and one that you should plan in the near future. With the distillery in a rural location with views over the West Highland Way this is a day out that the whole family will enjoy.

Glengoyne Distillery is celebrating the launch of a brand new shop and visitor centre upgrade on the back of its most successful summer season ever.

The changes at Glengoyne, which include a complete overhaul of the shop as well as updates to the visitor centre, were completed in time for the end of the summer season which has so far seen a massive 48,500 visitors through the doors of ‘Scotland’s Most Beautiful Distillery’ – a 6% rise on last year.

A total of £300k has been invested in the visitor facilities upgrade in 2011 with further renovations planned for 2012. This comes in addition to the £200k spent on renovating the Manager’s House in 2007 for use as an events space and more than £2.5 million spent on operational upgrades to the distillery such as new warehousing and stills.

New features inside the shop include a new tasting area and the ‘Pour Your Own Dram’ facility, where guests are given the chance to fill and label their own bottle direct from an exclusive single cask, before logging it in the customs book. The cask currently available is an American Oak First Fill hoggie from June 2000, cask number 1016. It offers great tropical fruit flavours and plenty of hands-on whisky fun, priced at £75.00.

Glengoyne Brand Heritage Manager Stuart Hendry said: “The old shop area was very dark and didn’t make good use of space. Our brief to retail design agency Contagious was to create a brighter, more organised shopping area which showed off our award winning range but without losing the distinct Glengoyne character.

“I think we have hit the nail on the head and we are extremely happy with the outcome. Feedback from customers has been great and we have seen an increase in sales as a result.”

The shop renovations have allowed for the creation of a new bothy area where groups can relax before and after tours. Cosmetic upgrades have also been made to the visitor centre enabling the distillery to continue offering first class conference and events facilities to corporate and private clients.

A new series of Glengoyne films was also commissioned from Republic Productions to present a fun and informative look into life at Glengoyne for use during tours and events at the distillery and throughout the world. The films range from a short two minute promotional film, tasting notes and cooking demonstrations to in-depth films on distillation and maturation, all highlighting what makes Glengoyne unique. The well known characters from around the distillery including Head Stillman Duncan McNicoll and Engineer & Warehouseman Billy Edminston were chosen to star in the film, rather than actors, to help communicate the unique character of Glengoyne.

Stuart Hendry commented on the film: “The two aspects that contribute most to the Glengoyne flavour are undoubtedly our SLOW distillation (the slowest in the industry) and our devotion to sourcing the finest possible sherry casks from Spain. In order to fully understand where those flavours come from we wanted to take consumers inside the stills and on a journey to Jerez.

“The feedback from viewers is hugely positive. They enjoy getting behind the scenes and meeting the people. Visitors take particular pleasure in speaking to the stars as they meet them around the distillery yard.”

Glengoyne continues to push forward its plans for new customer engagement and will be exhibiting at this year’s BBC Good Food Shows in both Glasgow and Birmingham. The brand has invested in a new exhibition stand will be occupying a large prime spot at the popular food shows in the SECC Glasgow 21-23 October and NEC Birmingham 23-27 November. The Glengoyne team will be offering visitors the chance to sample the multi award winning Glengoyne core range.

For more information visit www.glengoyne.com or call +44 (0)1360 550 254.

Information about the Glengoyne Distillery

Glengoyned Distillery is owned by independent family company, Ian Macleod Distillers and has been producing its unique and complex, Highland Single Malt Scotch Whisky for over 175 years. Using methods passed down for generations, Glengoyne has nurtured and perfected the art of producing the authentic taste of Malt Whisky, untainted by peat smoke. The result is a portfolio of multi-award winning whiskies including the core 10, 17 and 21 Years Old range, as well as special limited edition Single Malts, released each year.