Glenwyvis distillery smashes funding target
Scotland’s first community-owned Scotch malt whisky distillery, Glenwyvis, has exceeded its crowdfunding target by £1 million, raising a total of £2.5m.
A crowdfunding campaign has raised £2.5m to open “community-owned” distillery GlenwyvisGlenWyvis Distillery Community Benefit Society partnered with Community Shares Scotland (CSS) to launch its crowdfunding bid in April 2016, with plans to open a distillery in the Highland town of Dingwall.
The share offer closed at midday on 8 July with a total of £2,533,510 raised by 2,443 investors across 77 days.
“This has been an amazing project right from the start with interest from individuals globally, business, media and international organisations and really goes to show that community enterprise is hugely popular both in Scotland and around the world,” said Kelly McIntyre, programme manager at CSS.
“The GlenWyvis community share offer is a bright shining light showing just what can be achieved in such a short period of time. Undoubtedly there is an appetite for community ownership in Scotland […] This should give community projects the impetus to take the next step and make their plans a reality.”
Glenwyvis will become the “first” community-owned distillery in the world and will mark the return of the distilling industry to Dingwall for the first time in 90 years.
The distillery will have the capacity to produce up to 200,000 litres of pure alcohol per year, with an initial production run of 30,000 litres. It will also be completely powdered by green energy.
Construction of Glenwyvis is due to commence this year, with the first run of whisky planned for Burns Night in January 2017.
