The Bonnington Distillery

About the distillery

The Bonnington Distillery is located in Leith, Edinburgh, and is a modern single malt distillery with roots in the Crabbie name. It was commissioned in 2019 and began production in March 2020. With its location in an area that hasn’t had a single malt distillery for almost a century, it marks a new era for the neighbourhood.

History

The Bonnington Distillery was brought into service in 2019 as the result of a multi-million-pound investment. The following year, in March 2020, production began, making the distillery the first single malt distillery in Leith, Edinburgh, in almost 100 years. Behind the day-to-day operations is a young and innovative team led by distillery manager Jamie Lockhart, who joined the distillery in 2018 as an operator and was soon promoted to lead distiller. He has been there from the start—supporting the build of the distillery, helping to launch Bonnington’s Inaugural Release, increasing the team from five to 12, and working to make production more efficient and less demanding on the environment. At the same time, he works with Master Blender Jill Boyd to build a cask inventory with different ages and cask types for the upcoming flagship single malt and the planned limited releases.

Raw materials and production

The production is based on malted barley, which is filled into a single 2.5-tonne mash tun, and on water from an old aquifer 147 meters below the distillery. The facility has two large 30-tonne grain silos, and the mash ferments in six 10,000-liter fermentation vessels for at least 48 hours. The distillery also uses two custom-made squat-neck stills from Speyside Copper Works. A distinctive feature of the facility is the Twin-Linked Receivers, which make it possible to create two different types of spirit from the same distillation. This gives the distillery technical flexibility, allowing it to shape the house style from batch to batch and support the work with multiple spirit profiles.

Whiskies

The documented range is still being built up. The focus is on the upcoming flagship single malt and a series of limited releases, while the warehouse is being built with different ages and cask types. This approach points to a distillery that, above all, works long-term to shape its style rather than presenting a broad, established core range already now.

Philosophy and craftsmanship

Here, the young team and hands-on development are at the centre. Jamie Lockhart and colleagues work both to build a more varied cask inventory and to reduce the environmental impact of production. At the same time, there is a clear ambition to use the distillery’s technical flexibility to develop both the upcoming flagship single malt and smaller, special releases.

Sustainability

The environmental impact of production has been reduced under the leadership of distillery manager Jamie Lockhart.