Should you ever find yourself heading south along the A7 through the wee town of Langholm, in Dumfries and Galloway, take a minute or two to stop and admire the buildings, best viewed from Skippers Bridge, of the now lost Langholm Distillery.
Established in 1765, this distillery was in production for the best part of 150 years albeit with a short stint as a paper mill towards the second half of the 18th century and the start of the 1800s.
It reopened as a distillery in 1818 and then later, in 1832, it was purchased by a certain John Connell whose family continued to operate it until it closed. For a few years after he bought Langholm Distillery, Connell was joined by two others until they left in 1835. One of the partners, James Kennedy, went on to construct nearby Glen Tarras Distillery, which we'll cover in a future blog post.
John's son, Arthur, continued the family distilling legacy and it was Arthur who was the proprietor when the famous whisky writer, Alfred Barnard, visited the distillery in the 1880s.
Barnard noted that there wasn't a maltings at Langholm Distillery; instead, malt was brought in from Bernard & Co who were based in "Haddingtonshire" (now known as East Lothian). This was probably due to the size of the distillery itself and, due to its location right on the bank of the River Esk, expansion was not an option. Indeed, the distillery's three worm tubs were built on stone piers over the river (much like Edinburgh's Dean Distillery on the banks of the Water of Leith).
There were three pot stills at Langholm; one wash still of 1,800 gallons (which is just shy of 8200 litres for all you metric folk) and two spirit stills of 586 and 316 gallons (2665 and 1450 litres).
Despite not having a maltings - or maybe because it didn't have them - the distillery had space for twenty warehouses which were able to store 121,000 gallons of spirit / whisky!
The yearly output of the distillery came to 46,000 gallons (209,000 litres). To put that into perspective, that's less than half of what nearby Annandale Distillery makes today (with its capacity being 500,000 litres per year).
Most of the whisky produced at Langholm Distillery was used for blending. However, some was sold as single malt or 'self whisky' as it was called then. The majority of this went south of the border to England.
One thing which intrigues us about Langholm Distillery is that it was known to produce a quantity of Birch Whisky annually. As far as we know they were the only producers of this and we'd love to know more about it!
The distillery eventually closed in 1917; probably as a result of the economic difficulties of war time. Arthur Connell had been the owner right up until then. He died the following year, aged 89 years old. Ten years later, Arthur Tolson bought the distillery and used it as the base for his business, the Border Esk Garage. By this point, the main distillery buildings had already been demolished.
Arthur's wife Kate continued to live on the site until she died in 1983 at the formidable age of 100 years and 8 months. Maybe she'd found some hidden stocks of that birch whisky? We've heard it's the elixir of life!
So, if you've made it this far, you'll see why Langholm Distillery won't be exhibiting at this October's Borderlands Whisky Festival! But there are plenty of wonderful distilleries and bottlers who will be there. Head over to the exhibitors page to see who'll be there: CLICK HERE
