Cameronbridge

Cameronbridge is a grain whisky distillery in Fife, a quarter of a mile (0.4 km) south of Windygates. Founded by John Haig and opened in 1824, it is now owned by Diageo. Its spirit is used in blends, while the distillery is also the home of Haig Club single grain Scotch whisky.

The site’s history reaches back to a time before grain whisky became its principal association. Cameronbridge began by making Lowland malt whisky in pot stills, then adopted an early continuous still for grain production. Malt and grain were made alongside one another until the 1920s.

John Haig and the early years

John Haig, who lived from 1802 to 1878, founded Cameronbridge. The Gazetteer for Scotland records the opening in 1824. [1] Another account places the founding in 1823, with the distillery finished in the summer of 1824. The difference is worth keeping in mind: the accounts do not use exactly the same point in the project to describe its beginning.

Haig was 21 and still a minor when the land was leased. Captain James Wemyss leased it in Haig’s father’s name. The location offered several advantages for a distillery: coalfields and ports were nearby, and water was available from the rivers Leven and Ore.

A story from The House of Haig in Fife places Haig in the area in 1822, riding through Windygates with his servant Sandy. According to the tale, Haig remarked: “there is money to be made here, aye, from whisky”. It is a legend about the choice of location, rather than a statement that can be treated as a record of the conversation.

The distillery’s licence is recorded as having been issued on 30 October 1824. Its first year’s output was a few thousand gallons. That early production was Lowland malt whisky, made in pot stills, rather than the grain whisky for which Cameronbridge later became known.

The arrival of grain whisky

Cameronbridge’s early grain whisky story is connected with Robert Stein, who lived from 1770 to 1854. Prestige Malts describes him as a cousin of John Haig. [4] Stein’s patent still was trialled at Kirkliston in August 1829. A Stein still was then licensed at Cameronbridge on 12 May 1830 to make grain whisky, and a second followed in 1831.

Accounts differ over the date attached to the first Cameronbridge still. One gives 1829 for its installation, while another distinguishes the 1829 Kirkliston trial from the Cameronbridge licence in 1830. The licence date is useful when reading the history, but it should not be treated as settling every account of installation.

There is also a difference in how sources describe Cameronbridge’s place in the development of continuous distilling. The Gazetteer calls it the first distillery to use a continuous still; another account calls it one of the first. The disagreement does not change the documented connection with Stein’s still, but it does make an unqualified claim to a first place difficult to support.

A Coffey still was added later. Cameronbridge continued to make both malt and grain whisky until the 1920s. The precise year in which malt production ended is not reliably established in the supplied evidence, so it is better to describe the change by decade than to give a particular year.

From Haig to Diageo

In 1877, John Haig & Co was one of six companies that merged to form the Distillers Company Ltd, known as DCL. Another account describes nine grain distillers joining forces from 1865. Those descriptions differ in both number and date, so the six company merger should be understood as the account of the 1877 formation, not as a resolution of every earlier connection.

The distillery closed during the Second World War, from 1941 to 1947. [5] Much later, between 1989 and 1992, it was upgraded to make neutral spirit as well as grain whisky. A further upgrade followed in 2000. These changes are part of the story of a site that makes more than one kind of spirit.

Diageo now owns Cameronbridge. Grain whisky from the distillery supplies the company’s blends, including those led by Johnnie Walker. Whisky Magazine describes Cameronbridge as providing a grain component for the company’s range of blends. [2] The distillery also makes white spirit for Smirnoff, Tanqueray and Gordon’s.

Scale and production

The site covers 30.3 hectares, or 75 acres, and processes 4,000 tons of grain a week. The grain is mostly local wheat. Three custom made stills are described as running 24 hours a day.

Published accounts give different capacity figures: one reports 120 million litres of spirit a year, while a later account gives 136 million litres. Scottish Field reports the latter figure. [3] The available evidence does not establish which is the current official capacity, so neither figure should be read as a confirmed current measurement.

Cameronbridge has been described as the largest grain distillery in Europe, while Diageo’s 2014 Haig Club launch release calls it Scotland’s oldest grain whisky distillery. The age description is the producer’s wording, not a finding that resolves the separate dispute about which distillery first used a continuous still. [6]

Haig Club and single grain Scotch

Haig Club has been made at Cameronbridge since 2014. It is named after John Haig, the distillery’s founder. [7] Diageo developed the whisky with David Beckham and Simon Fuller, and named Chris Clark as master blender at launch. The launch account described refill, American oak and rejuvenated casks. [6]

Although Cameronbridge supplies whisky for blends, Haig Club is a single grain Scotch whisky, not a blend. “Single” refers to whisky distilled at a single distillery. It does not mean that the distillery makes only one type of spirit, or that everything produced there is sold as single grain whisky.

Scotch whisky must be distilled to an alcoholic strength below 94.8 per cent by volume and matured for at least three years. The distillation limit is important to the distinction between whisky and neutral spirit: Scotch whisky must retain flavour derived from its raw materials. [8]

That distinction matters at Cameronbridge because the site makes both grain whisky and neutral spirit. Grain whisky is not simply another name for neutral spirit, even where both are produced at the same distillery. Equally, the presence of grain whisky in a blend does not make every whisky from the distillery a blend.

Remembering the distillery

The Haig family’s distilling story is longer than Cameronbridge itself. Prestige Malts reports that an ancestor of the family is believed to have been distilling by 1627. [4] That belief should be kept separate from the recorded opening of Cameronbridge in 1824.

In 2019, Methil Heritage Centre’s exhibition The Angels’ Share told the distillery’s story. Its account is one of the sources behind the differing descriptions of the founding year. Together with the surviving accounts of the stills and the later upgrades, it offers a way to follow Cameronbridge from its pot still beginnings to its present association with grain whisky.

Sources

1. Gazetteer for Scotland. Cameronbridge Distillery.
2. Whisky Magazine. The Heart of the Empire.
3. Scottish Field. Raising a glass to the home of Haig Club.
4. Prestige Malts. Cameronbridge.
5. Wikipedia. Cameronbridge distillery.
6. Diageo via PR Newswire. Diageo Announces Worldwide Launch of David Beckham-Backed Haig Club Whisky.
7. Haig Whisky. Haig Club Miniature Single Grain Scotch Whisky.
8. legislation.gov.uk. The Scotch Whisky Regulations 2009, regulation 3.