THE HISTORY
Levenbank Distillery is brought to you by the multi award winning team at Loch Lomond Brewery. The brewery was established in 2011 by Euan and Fiona MacEachern and has gone from strength to strength growing to its current 10,000hl capacity whilst picking up a whole host of beer and business awards along the way including Champion Beer of Scotland, Champion Beer of the UK and Scottish Brewery of the Year.
Now with our copper stills installed and a distillation capacity of 100,000 LPA we look forward to a future in scotch whisky whilst our surroundings are steeped in history.
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Scotch whisky is almost as much about the story behind the dram as it is the dram itself and we have more than our fair share of muses that will help shape our whiskies of the future.
DUMBARTON ROCK
Sitting not far from our distillery at the mouth of the River Leven is this 300million year old volcanic plug of rock. There has been settlements year for millennia and it is also home to Dumbarton Castle, a fortification which is known to have existed since at least the 5th century.
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Home to the Kings of Briton, the indigenous people of Great Britain. Merlin was said to visit Dumbarton Castle, and Arthur fought a number of battles in the area with a certain Loch Lomond rumoured to have played host to the Lady of the Lake and Excalibur.
ROBERT THE BRUCE
King of the Scots and the mastermind behind the defeat of the English at Bannockburn in 1314, returning independence to Scotland.
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The Bruce made his family home in his later years at Cardross with our distillery situated within his former grounds.
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He stayed there until his death in 1329 and we will commemorate the 700th anniversary of his death with our first scotch bottled release. Limited to 700 bottles
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SCOTCH WATCH
Dumbarton was once a powerhouse in the world of Scotch whisky with a new grain distillery built in 1938 which was the largest in Europe and supplying grain whisky for the famous Ballantines blend which is still one of the biggest selling scotch whiskies today.
A malt distillery Inverleven was also introduced inside the Dumbarton Distillery walls.
No mention of Dumbarton whisky is complete without reference to the Scotch Watch, a 100 strong flock of white chinese geese that used to guard the bonded warehouse from 1959 to 2012 with the last remaining geese retired to Glasgow Green.
MOON LANDINGS
Our distillery building was once occupied by Westclox. In 1948 they created their first mechanical clock and went onto create over 50million by the time they closed production.
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In that time and alongside NASA they pioneered the quartz technology that was used in the Apollo mission to send man to the moon.
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Ironically it was that quartz technology that proved to be the innovation that killed the mechanical clock market.
