Gartbreck Distillery - Islay Set To Get New Distillery

[William]

I have heard that Islay will be getting a new distillery, making it the 9th distillery on the island. Plans have been drawn up for the distillery which will be called Gartbreck, it will be smaller than Kilchoman. Gartbeck distillery will be a small farm distillery, taking its name from Gartbreck Farm which lies on the road from Bowmore to the airport and is within sight of the Bowmore distillery. The distillery will be located near Bowmore on the shores of Loch Indaal just across the water from Bruichladdich. The distillery is set to open in the spring of 2015.

No official announcement has been made yet about the Gartbreck distillery so i may have got some details wrong. If i hear anything else i will let you know.
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There's no bad whisky. Just good whisky and better whisky.

[James T]

There is always room for another Islay distillery, hopefully it is going to be a big peaty whisky that it will produce.

[bifter]

Great news! If it's smaller than Kilchoman I would expect their pricing to be premium but new distilleries are always welcome.
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"Whisky is liquid sunshine."
[George Bernard Shaw]

[Bookie]

Always good to have another Islay whisky, William do you know who is behind it, i am guessing it isnt one of the big whisky players.

[William]

Bookie, it is Jean Donnay who is behind the Gartbreck Distillery Company Ltd.

Jean Donnay is the owner of the Glen ar Mor in Brittany France which he established back in 1999, this is a small set up which uses 2 small stills and has a capacity of only 50,000 bottles per year. There are 2 whiskies from Glen ar Mor; an unpeated Glen ar Mor and the peated Kornog, they have been releasing whisky since 2008. Jean Donnay is also behind an independent bottling range called Cetique Connexion which includes Scotch whiskies which were matured in Scotland then given a 2nd maturation at the companies warehouse situated on the Northern coast of Brittany.
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There's no bad whisky. Just good whisky and better whisky.

[albo]

This all seems positive to me.

[Keith]

It seems like Jean Donnay has the knack for producing peated whisky as Kornog always seems to get excellent reviews, not so much the case for Glen ar Mor which mainly has had pretty poor reviews. It is amazing the difference a bit of peat makes to the finall whisky, even 2 whiskies distilled i would assume in the same way at the same distillery. Hopefully he will continue prodcing good peated whisky at Gartbeck.

[Big Mac]

I had to look up Glen ar Mor and Kornog, sounds like the Glen ar Mor distillery was a bit of a learning curve for Jean Donnay and he seems to have got it right with Kornog. Good luck to him and i hope Gartbreck is a peat monster.