Kilbagie Distillery has a glorious, chequered, controversial and largely forgotten past. Kilbagie was long a farming area, but from around 1720 it was also the site of a corn mill.
Crop and livestock farming was carried on all around this area, until in 1777 James Stein founded Kilbagie Distillery. By the latter part of the 19th century it had great notoriety and was one of the largest distilleries in Scotland. It was connected by canal and tramway with nearby Kennetpans, where the Stein family had already founded a distillery and a harbour.
Kilbagie History
1777 - Kilbagie Distillery was founded by James Stein. Soon the production of whisky had reached such a level that the local market had become too small, and the Steins looked for other outlets. They sold their spirit to the London Gin market who used it for rectification and addition to their blends. That same year the Steins made history by exporting 2000 gallons of spirit to England to be made into gin. They later had a try at making their own gin, said to be of respectable quality.
1780s - By the early 1780s Kilbagie was producing around 5000 gallons of Holland’s Gin per day.
1784 - The Wash Act levied a charge for gallons of wash produced, estimating the conversion to spirits after distilling. Scotland and England begin paying the same amount of duty.
Wash Act - Stricter controls on the legal distilleries permitted the Wash Act to be published and enforced from 1784. The spirit of this law was a simplification of the taxation method and tax parity across the nations of Great Britain. The taxation level was also considerably decreased in Scotland and in England, because the independence war in America had ended. Instead of taxing the "low wines" and the spirit separately, only the wash was taken into consideration under the new law. The tax was based on the assumption that five gallons of wash produced one gallon of spirit of between 55% and 65% ABV.
1785 - James Stein is accused of attempting to bribe Mr John Bonnar, Solicitor of Excise, with a parcel containing £500. Though it was accepted that James had given Mr Bonnar an envelope of money, he was ultimately acquitted of bribery.
1785 - Robert Burns (Excise Officer, whisky drinker and poet) pens 'the jolly beggars' which mentions the whisky from "that dear Kilbagie". At the time whisky retailed at a penny a gill, and Burns remarked that people could get ‘blind fou’ (blind drunk) for fourpence. It was so cheap because it was made in vast quantities quickly in shallow pot stills and was well-known for its very raw nature. Burns called it "a most rascally liquor".
1786 - By this time the Stein family's Kilbagie and Kennetpans distilleries were collectively producing most of the legal whisky in the country and were the first truly industrial outfit in its production.
1786 - Distillery Licensing Act - A duty of sixpence a gallon was introduced on all Scotch spirits sent to England following outrage from English distillers, who wanted their share of the long gin trade. Year on year excise was raised until 1793, when it reached £9 a gallon of spirit.
1787 - The first powered threshing machine in Scotland was erected by George Mackie on the farm at Kilbagie, allowing much faster processing of the crops.
1788 - James Stein goes bankrupt. The sequestration papers record ’a singling still of 2,109 gallons capacity and a doubling still of 673 gallons capacity’. The distillery closes with all jobs lost.
1788-93 - The distillery remains silent.
1793 - Robert Stein & Co. purchase the distillery back though John Taylor, with the assistance of their previous creditors and distilling begins once more, although more money is required for repairs to the site. Exports begin in 1794.
1795 - Kilbagie Distillery is mentioned in the Statistical Accounts of Scotland - Clackmannan Parish, and is noted to be a significant business in the area.
4th December 1828 - Robert Stein patents a 'continuous' still that feeds the 'wash' through a series of interconnected pots. In his design piston strokes were used to vapourise the wash and feed it into a horizontal cylinder which was divided into a series of compartments using a coarse cloth.
The Stein still offered improved fuel efficiency when compared with the traditional pot still and was the first continuous still to be employed commercially in Scotland, finding use at several Scottish distilleries, including Kilbagie, Kirkliston (1828), Cameron Bridge (1830), Yoker (1845), and Glenochil (1845).
However the Stein still design did not allow for siphoning off of the fusel oils, which were generally discarded in traditional malt whisky production. The still produced spirit that was not highly rectified. The still also needed to be stopped frequently for cleaning, but production from this type of still far outstripped traditional pot still methods.
The Stein still was also employed in Stein distilleries in Ireland, which Excise Officer Aeneas Coffey saw in action in the course of his duties. He then improved upon the continuous still concept and patented his own design in 1830, which became very widely adopted in the grain whisky industry.
1830-31 - John Stein & Co., owner of the Kennetpans and Clackmannan distilleries, take over Kilbagie.
1841 - Kilbagie had by now extended to seven acres, with further construction on-going and the high wall extended to enclose the distillery. Around 850 acres of surrounding land was cultivated for use in the business.
1845 - George Dunlop & Co. (owners of the Linton Distillery in East Lothian) bought the site and installed a Coffey still, licensed on 13 August 1845. They operated the site as a distillery until 1851.
1852 - The distillery was repurposed for whisky storage.
1856 - On the evening of the 27th of February around 1800 gallons of whisky was lost. Some accounts say that a large storage vat burst, which allowed the whisky to escape onto the nearby waggon-way, roadway, and into the local sewer system. Locals making their way to work were able to discern the flowing liquid as whisky by its smell, and some found the need to collect an amount of this free-flowing liquor for their own use.
1860 - The distillery site is closed.
1866 - The Kilbagie Chemical Manure Co. Ltd is formed for the manufacture of fertiliser on the site.
OS Map showing 'Chemical Manure Works' - maps.nls.uk
1874 - James Alexander Weir takes over the site and converts it into a paper mill. He began Esparto grass paper production in 1875, with his company, J.A. Weir Ltd, being formed in 1896.
2001 - The paper mill is closed.
The site is currently being used as a recycling depot. Only a few of the original buildings remain.
References:
Walk in the Past: The Kilbagie Distillery 16th September 2020
Wormtub
Wikipedia
The Repertory of patent inventions, volume 8, 1830
maps.nls.uk