Meeting the creatives behind the new Dalmore Distillery
It took a multitude of creative minds to reimagine The Dalmore Distillery and visitor centre, from architects to artists. The Spirits Business was among those to experience the first look at the new space and hear more from the people who shaped the next chapter of the Scotch whisky maker.
The V&A Dundee has been a long-term partner of The Dalmore, blending the worlds of whisky and design. Past collaborations have included the Luminary Series, a three-year collection of rare single malt whiskies. Naturally, the museum was brought on board to lend pieces for the new visitor experience.
Threesixty Architecture was trusted to direct the structure of the new distillery and visitor experience, while glass artist John Kenneth Clark was commissioned to create the 10-metre fused-glass window that towers in the still room. In addition, Vevar, a Glasgow-based micro-mill, designed bespoke soft furnishings for the distillery, including custom Mackenzie tartan for The Dalmore Collection.
During a visit to The Dalmore Distillery in April, Sam Edmond, head of partnerships at V&A Dundee, led a panel discussion that delved deeper into the creative inspiration behind the site. She was joined by Stefano Faiella, director at Threesixty Architecture, Christopher McEvoy, co-founder of Vevar, and artist Clark.
“The challenge for us with The Dalmore wasn’t about getting stuck in the past; it was about where we are now and the kind of story we want to project,” said Faiella. “So, how do you then do an architecture that isn’t just a setting for the storytelling, but also becomes an interpretation of that space?
“For us, in early conversations with The Dalmore and eventually our collaborators, it was: how do you make every space really elevate that story and be part of that story, rather than just the backdrop?”
The new distillery and visitor centre has gone against the norm, offering only private tours for two to eight people, which can be personalised and fine-tuned to individual wants, needs and interests. Tours start at £250 (US$235) per person and, by the opening date in April, they had been booked solid until November 2026.
The tour takes guests through the entire whisky-making process as a full sensory experience. There’s light and shadow, industrial accents of copper and wood that lead into soft drapes, and a cinematic entrance into the star of the show – the still house.
This is where Clark’s masterpiece quite literally shines.
The initial conversation with Clark invited him to create a stained-glass window, but he felt this didn’t feel appropriate.
He said: “When I read the information about the project, it was future-looking; it wasn’t looking back. So I looked at this as a space. What is the room? What’s it doing? Is it south-facing or north-facing? The glorious thing: it’s south-facing with a chrome object behind it. So you’re dealing with light.”
Clark experimented with different techniques and glass, cutting sheets in different ways, but ultimately found them “static and boring. So I used the crushed glass, what’s called ‘frit’, in different grades and laid it down.”
He added: “There was a lovely division in the middle of the design that’s actually the transformation from one state to another, from the wash to the still, dark through fire. And as the design developed, the client said: ‘Is there any way we can bring the sense of liquid into it?’ So it went through distillation into the liquid, through the process of maturation. So, the colour changes from an almost pale, clear sense of liquid going up into the deeper richness that you see in the whisky stem glasses, and even to this sense of the angels’ share.”
‘Scare them a bit’
Faiella noted, with support from his fellow creatives, that when it comes to a project of this magnitude, “you need to give them the wildest idea you can; you need to scare them a bit”.
“Something as premium as this, you’ve got to have something that nobody else is going to have,” he added.
McEvoy shared how he hoped The Dalmore experience would broaden guests’ perception of Scottish craft. This is something he endeavoured to also showcase through the custom textiles he created for The Dalmore.
He said: “I hope they come away with a more nuanced and better understanding of Scottish contemporary products, a better understanding of what it is to be Scottish.
“And to challenge quite broadly underrepresented views of Scotland, and of Scottish design.”
Related news
Earth Day: top carbon-neutral distilleries
