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  1. #1
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    Arrow Imperial Distillery, Aberdeen, Report, 29/06/08 ARCHIVED

    Built in 1897, by Thomas MacKenzie and planned by Charles Doig, the construction coincided with the diamond jubilee of Queen Victoria, which is thought to have been the reason for the distillery being named Imperial.

    Plagued by problems throughout its life, the distillery has spent a lot more time closed than it has open, sometimes lying dormant for up to 20 years between productions.

    Unlike most of the other stone built distilleries in the area, the Imperial Distillery was built from red Aberdeen brick with iron beam and pillar framework to aid in making the site fire resistant after a number of fires had plagued other distilleries in the area prior to its construction.

    As any whisky drinker will know, the quality of the water supply is one of the most important factors in deciding where to place a distillery, both for the water input for the actual product, but also for the massive amounts of cold water required in the cooling of the stills during the distilling process. Having a direct water feed from the Bannintom Burn which originates in the Mannoch Hills and being built directly next to a station on the Speyside railway meant that Imperial should have been in an ideal location for production of whisky, even having its own railway sidings for the finished product to be shipped out of.

    Unfortunately the distillery was built to cater for the increasing whisky desire in the late 1890's, however no one could foresee the crash of Pattison’s, the blender from Leith, in 1898 which lead to a massive downturn in the market, just two years after the construction of the Imperial Distillery which lead to its first closure.

    Even such innovative measures such as gravity fed water cooling systems and passive long canal walled damn water re-cooling before it was reintroduced to the burn could not make the site profitable and it was 'silenced' in 1898 and remained that way until 1919. After the end of the First World War the taste for whisky was increasing again, and the Imperial Distillery was brought back online by its then owners, Dailuaine-Talisker Distilleries Ltd. Production carried on at the site for 6 years, until in 1925 the site was once again closed, and passed to new owners Distiller Company Ltd. Distiller Company Ltd left the site closed after acquiring it and this is how it remained until 1955 when it was taken over by Scottish Malt Distillers Ltd and re-opened.

    Scottish Malt Distillers completely rebuilt the equipment at the site expanded the site in 1965 taking the number of stills to 2 wash stills and 2 spirit stills, but it was the size of these stills that would lead to its next closure. The capacity of 36,000 litres that these stills provided meant that they could not be operated very flexibly or produce small batches, so faced with a flood of production or produce nothing situation it was not able to provide the flexibility needed in the market as well as other local distilleries could with their 11,000 and 3,600 litre stills.

    In 1969 the stills were converted to be steam heated which afforded the site a perhaps prolonged life than it would have had otherwise, keeping production continuing for its longest open stint of 30 years through till 1985. On one occasion the myriad of belts and pulleys that were usually driven by a large on site turbine became still as the turbine broke, and a local farm tractor was brought in and used as a makeshift drive train for the pulleys and belts while the turbine could be repaired.

    The distillery enjoyed one last attempt at being open from 1989 through to 1995, at which point it was finally mothballed and stands in its current state of dereliction. Imperial has had a chequered history, but has been instrumental in whisky making to some extent, being the original site which researched and developed the process of turning waste produce from the whisky distilling into usable high protein animal feed, an innovation that was brought about by its own need to easily dispose of the waste produce which was hampering efficient work at the site.


    On with the pics:









































    ~Shepy

  2. #2
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    Default Re: Imperial Distillery, Aberdeen, Report, 29/06/08

    And some HDR:











    ~Shepy

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