The distillery closed in 1919 but, 95 years later and after a three year refurbishment, its first cask was filled in November 2014. The new owners wanted the distillery to be sustainable and, as far as possible, self-sufficient in water management.

High quality water is critical to operations. It is used as production water, feeds the boiler that produces the steam to drive the stills, and dilutes the cask strength spirit for bottling. The distillery had the choice of using mains water or its own on-site borehole – a self-sufficient option. Veolia engineers showed how the borehole water could be treated economically, avoiding the cost of installing a mains supply.

After filtration and softening, the borehole is treated by a Sirion Maxi reverse osmosis plant. Some of the product water is used directly for spirit reduction whilst the remainder is conditioned by the addition of a specially formulated Hydrex chemical for boiler feed. To reduce waste, Veolia installed a RecoBLUE˙ recovery unit to recover about 50% of the wastewater from the Sirion Maxi.

The result is, Annandale Distillery is self-sufficient in water and the sustainable approach minimises its water footprint.