Peebles voted top spot for R&B Distillers

A poll held by whisky firm R&B Distillers revealed that Peebles was the most popular choice for a new distillery in the Scottish borders.

Peebles was the most popular site for R&B Distillers’ planned Borders distillery

In July, the company asked the Scottish public to vote for their preferred location for the new-build distillery.

Peebles secured 1352 of the total 2262 votes cast. Tweed Valley. which came second in the poll, accumulated 207.

“The modern centre of the Tweeddale region where Richard Day, our great-grandfather of whisky, sold The original Tweeddale Blend until 1945, took an impressive 59.8% of the vote,” Zoë White, R&B Distillers marketing executive, wrote in a blog post.

“Exactly how and when the Borders distilling side of our R&B venture will unfold is developing in our minds already,” she continued, adding that the new-build would get under way after the distillery planned for the Isle of Raasay in the Hebrides progresses further.

Expected to open in January 2017, the Raasay Distillery will become the island’s first legal distillery and is expected to generate employment for 11 of the island’s 120 residents.

Alasdair Day, founder of R&B Distillers, first revealed plans to build a new distillery in the Scottish Borders in February 2014.

Since then, a number of other players have joined the race to open the first distillery in the region since 1837.

In March 2014, Mossburn Distillers announced plans to convert the Borders-based Jedforest Hotel into a distillery and visitors’ centre.

And last month, The Three Stills Company, led by former William Grant executives John Fordyce, Tim Carton, Tony Roberts and George Tait, announced they had secured £10 million in funding to turn a disused site in Hawick into a distillery.