The Annan, Dumfries & Galloway distillery closed in 1919 but, 95 years later and after a three year refurbishment, filled its first cask in November last year.
However, the new owners wanted the distillery to be sustainable and, as far as possible, self-sufficient in water management, which is where Veolia Water Technologies came in.
Distilleries are significant users of water – for production, boiler feed, and for steam to drive the stills and dilute the cask strength spirit for bottling.
The distillery could have gone for mains water but wanted to use its own borehole – and the Veolia engineered system facilitated that choice, enabling economic treatment, and also avoiding the cost of installing a mains supply.
After filtration and softening, borehole water is now treated by a Sirion Maxi reverse osmosis plant.
Some of the product water is used directly for spirit reduction while the remainder is conditioned by adding Hydrex chemical for the boiler feed water.
To reduce waste, Veolia also installed a RecoBLUE recovery unit to recover approximately 50% of the wastewater from the Sirion Maxi.