Resurrecting the Rosebank Whisky
Rosebank whisky is alive again. After 30 years of shelf absences, the distillery rolled out its first cask. The famous whisky brand was founded in 1798 in Camelon on the banks of the Forth and Clyde canal between Edinburgh and Glasgow.
However, in 1993, the owners, United Distillers, decided to close the distillery. The problem laid with the optimization requirements for an upgrade of the distillery based on Europen-compliant laws. The owners considered the investment of £2m to be financial suicide.
For many years the distillery remained closed until the owners decided to sell the property, equipment, and trademark. In October 2017, Ian Macleod purchased what was left of the distillery and the trademark. This was however the beginning of hard work.
As expected, Macleod started over from scratch including the remaking of the processing equipment of the distillery. He is aware that he must wait several years more before bottling his own produced whisky. Nonetheless, when the old distillery closed down, it left the cured and processed whisky almost as a museum. It is his hope to maintain the sparkle of the famous Lowland whisky brand.
The first cask that was filled by Rosebank Distillery is a refilled bourbon barrel. It is intended to shape the fruity, floral character of Lowland whisky. It is just the beginning of a long road to recovering a legendary whisky that disappeared for too long.
Nonetheless, we will have to wait a few more years for the first whisky from Rosebank, in the meantime Ian McLeod Distillery sells exclusive bottlings from the production before the closure in 1993. And already next year they want to open the doors for visitors, a visitor center including a huge car park is currently being built in Falkirk.
As the Rosebank Distillery reopens its doors the whisky community looks on and wonders if IanMacleod will be able to reach the bar set by a two centuries year old whisky.