Measured Success

A skilful blend of old and new has produced stunning premises for the first whisky-maker to set up home in Hawick.

- Catherine Coyle

Real whisky drinkers aren’t keen on water. Adding a drop or two is fine, but for many, it’s sacrilege to dilute a good whisky. In a lot of ways, however, it’s water that unites the Borders Distillery with its home in Hawick. The distillery opened its doors to the public in May this year, bringing spirit-making back to the area after a 180-year hiatus. The town, and indeed the entire area, is historically renowned as a hotbed of textile manufacturing (it’s home to the likes of Lovat Mill, Hawick Cashmere Company, Pringle and Johnsons of Elgin). These traditional mills share a water processing system with the new distillery that allows the two very different industries to operate in a similar way.

“Using wedge wire screens located in the riverbed, water from the River Teviot opposite the building is pumped under the A7 and into the distillery,” explains Annie Macpherson, partner at Gray Macpherson Architects who realised the building and renovation project set out by the Borders Distillery management team. “The water is used to cool the condensers before it is circulated back into the river, just as the area’s mills began doing in 1771.”