The North British Distillery is an Edinburgh behemoth. Churning out over 2.5 billion liters of alcohol annually, it is one of eight grain distilleries in Scotland and the last in Edinburgh. Founded in 1885 by Andrew Usher, William Sanderson and John Crabbie, these three industry titans joined forces to ensure their independent blending houses had a direct and reliable source for their grain spirit. The team raised funds from local business owners to finance the distillery, which sounds a lot like crowd funding today. Turns out their intuitions about the demand for whisky around the turn of the century were spot on as shareholders received an astonishing 440% ROI during the distillery’s first 20 years of operation!

It’s name, North British, is often a point of confusion as the distillery is located in Scotland. However, Scotland, a constituent country of the United Kingdom was once referred to as North Britain, a very belittling term. Anyone who knows a true Scot knows they don’t like being referred to as a Brit!

Today the North British Distillery is a joint venture between two industry giants, Diageo and the Edrington Group and its grain spirits are found in many of the brands’ popular blended scotch whiskies. The North British Distillery has never released any official expressions under their own brand. Although independent bottlers have released expressions with age statements, the bottles are rare, difficult to track down and normally quite expensive. Furthermore, old grain whiskies are a rarity in the states.