Deputy First Minister John Swinney celebrated St Andrew’s Day by toasting £60million-worth of whisky industry infrastructure investment.
Officially opening a new facility for pouring Scotland’s national drink into casks, Mr Swinney said it was a fitting occasion on a day when many Scots and “Scots at heart around the world” were marking the date with a dram.
The new £18million Cambus filling store in Clackmannanshire is part of a bigger investment by drink giant Diageo which also includes £32million for warehousing and £10million for a new cooperage.
Newly distilled spirit from Diageo’s 29 distilleries around Scotland is delivered to Cambus every day to be filled into the traditional oak casks supplied by the adjoining cooperage.
The new filling store can handle up to 44million gallons of alcohol per year – the equivalent to filling 1.2million casks – and matches the new spirit with a variety of cask types to help mature the whisky in subtly different ways.
Hammering a bung into a newly filled oak cask, Mr Swinney said: “Scotch whisky is world famous and one of our most iconic products, with a global market worth more than £3.9billion.
“With around 4,000 employees in Scotland and supplying 180 markets across the globe, I would like to congratulate Diageo on its achievements and on the substantial investment it is making in this significant piece of Scotch whisky infrastructure at the Cambus site.”
Diageo’s blended whisky brands include world best-seller Johnnie Walker, Bell’s, Buchanan’s, J&B, Haig Club and Vat 69.
Its single malt range includes Caol Ila, Cardhu, Dalwhinnie, Knockando, Lagavulin, Oban, Royal Lochnagar, The Singleton and Talisker.
Diageo supply director Ewan Andrew said investing in and developing the firm’s infrastructure was crucial in positioning the company’s whisky business for growth in increasingly competitive global export markets.
Mr Andrew added: “The Cambus filling store is right at the heart of our Scotch whisky infrastructure … so this is an extremely important investment for us.
“It is the crucial centre-point in the Scotch whisky journey, where the spirit we have carefully crafted in our distilleries meets the oak casks which have been prepared by our skilled coopers.
“Along with the investment we’ve made in new warehousing and the new cooperage, the new filling store sets our business up to compete in global export markets and to drive the future growth of Scotch whisky.”