Malt Mill

About the distillery

Malt Mill was a small—now vanished—Islay distillery in Port Ellen, built on Lagavulin’s grounds in 1908. It is especially interesting for its dramatic origin story: Peter Mackie had it built after his fallout with Laphroaig, and the spirit was created for use in blends rather than as a standalone single malt. Today, the name lives on as one of Scottish whisky’s most mythical lost distilleries.

History

Malt Mill was born in 1908 out of a bitter dispute between Lagavulin’s owner, Peter Mackie, and Laphroaig’s management. After Mackie had lost the right to represent Laphroaig, he went so far as to block his neighbor’s water supply—and that conflict was followed by yet another lawsuit. As a response, he built a distillery on Lagavulin’s property, almost as a copy of Laphroaig, and even brought Laphroaig’s brewmaster in for the project. The result was still its own thing: not Laphroaig, and not Lagavulin either. Malt Mill’s whisky was used in particular in the blends of Mackie & Co. and White Horse Distillers—among them White Horse and Mackie’s Ancient Scotch, where the name also appeared on the label. The distillery closed in 1962, and the equipment was incorporated into Lagavulin. The last visible traces, the malt buildings, closed in 1974 and were later converted into a VIP reception area. A single sample bottle from the last spirit run is preserved today in Lagavulin’s visitor centre, and in 2012 a mythical Malt Mill cask received renewed attention in Ken Loach’s film The Angel’s Share.

Raw materials and production

Malt Mill operated as a single malt distillery and produced a peated whisky. It shared Lagavulin’s mash tun, but at the same time it had its own production facilities with two washbacks and two pear-shaped stills. The two kettles were modeled after Laphroaig’s setup, and the entire idea was to get as close as possible to the neighbor’s style. It was a deliberate and very direct approach: Mackie wanted to create a spirit that could be included in his blends with a distinct and recognizable profile. Even though the distillery was small, it therefore secured a clear place in the larger whisky history as a place where production was shaped by rivalry and imitation as much as by tradition.

Whiskies

Malt Mill did not have a classic, standalone range of single malts. The whisky produced went first and foremost to blending houses like Mackie & Co. and White Horse Distillers. As a result, the portrait of the distillery is more closely tied to its role as a supplier of peated Islay spirit than to an actual product catalogue. That also makes Malt Mill an unusual name among lost distilleries: a place that is almost only known through the blends it fed, and through the rare bottle of new make—and the myth that grew around it.

General flavor profile

Smoke is described as Peated character is documented through descriptions of the distillery’s whisky as peated and as contributing to blends.

Visit the distillery

Malt Mill is not an active visitor distillery, but some physical traces can still be experienced in and around Lagavulin. After the closure, the distillery’s malt buildings were converted into a VIP reception area, and a sample bottle of new make spirit from the last spirit run is on display in Lagavulin’s visitor centre. It is therefore especially as part of Lagavulin’s visitor universe that you can encounter Malt Mill’s afterlife.

Philosophy and craftsmanship

Malt Mill was created as a response to rivalry. Peter Mackie had it built to control the raw spirit for his blends and to imitate Laphroaig’s style as closely as possible, but the distillery ended up with its own identity.