Sites and Monument Record: Kinneil (Bo'ness) Distillery (SMR 150)
Description
The distillery lay on the south side of Kinneil Road, with bonded and duty free warehouses on the north side. The distillery was a little west of Capies Point, with maltings at Pan Braes to the east. The maltings were demolished in the late 1970s and the bonded warehouse burnt down in the 1990s. The site of the distillery is now (2014) a vehicle maintenance garage).
The original distillery buildings lay close to the rock escarpment, separated from it by a railway siding. A public footpath from near the Old parish Church crossed the siding via an iron bridge and then descended down an iron staircase.
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Object detail
Bo'ness Distillery Company, as it was named, had its Pot Stills dismantled and replaced by Coffey Stills for grain whisky output in 1876. The output from the Coffey Still was almost 20,000 gallons per week (870,000 gallons/annum), most of which went to the blenders. It was also one of Britain's largest yeast producers with an output of almost 50 tons a week of yeast going to the baking and brewing industries. About 300 tons of "draff" (husks of maize) was also produced and this was allowed to settle from the "spent wash" in dreg ponds before being dried, pelleted, bagged and sold as cattle feed. It had its own rail link to Bo'ness Harbour, which was mainly used to supply maize, barley was used to a lesser extent as by this time no malt whisky was being distilled.
The distillery name changed once more in 1894 when it was renamed James Calder & Co. Ltd. It was sold to John Dewar in 1921, before being passed to DCL in 1925, when it was shut down.
Two large bonded warehouses stood on the north side of the road and were capable of holding 5,000 barrels of whisky. They were destroyed by fire in the early 1990s.
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