While the team are realistic about long term demand forcing them to scale up production - the gin is currently made via a one shot method using their third still (small for them, but over 400lt in its own right) - one wonders just what a concentrated process might involve, as it takes almost 18 grapefruits per batch as it is! We don’t want to rest on the laurels of a location, like so many within the industry. Flexibility is vitally important to us, and the Lone Wolf distillery will have experimentation at its heart. With the pilot still we can produce a huge range of potential spirits, and with our epic barrel store we can age and then blend the results to allow a fascinating range of flavours to develop. Integrity is also a lost art when it comes to the idealistic soulmate to Vodka. The rise of so-called craft Gin has been propelled by faux-artisans adding a twist of this, a handful of that to bulk spirit and bottling it up. Chance your arm and see what flies. Not anymore.

We want to stretch the boundaries of what a distillery can do – and what a distillery should do. Starting with our own all-grain distilled vodka, through our bespoke gins and whiskies and a range of other spirits besides – we can’t wait to make this natural progression for BrewDog and make as big an impact on the spirits industry as we did on the beer industry. The time has come to mount a kamikaze assault on their entrenched positions. To use the combined weaknesses of those in the industry against them and force a world dominated by charmers and chancers to its knees. LoneWolf has arrived to challenge the perceptions of what a spirit can be. The expression tends to be a wolf in sheep’s clothing, but the irony here may well be that until the controversy has fully quelled and they have found confidence in their voice, they could well choose to a sheep disguised in wolfish attire and fly under the radar for a little longer. Going on Brewdog’s history, though, this seems unlikely.

Installation of our distillery is happening right now, and following tests of everything from the operational side to the water we will be using, we hope to be ready to produce our first batches of BrewDog spirit at the start of April. Equity Punks, if you’re attending the AGM on the 9th you may well get to try some highly exclusive trial batches! (We’ll say no more for now).

This will then form the basis of our vodka and gins, and where others buy in neutral spirit in bulk, we will distil everything from scratch. The head of our distillation team Steven Kersley is now dialling in our gin recipe using the 50 litre pilot still, with over 30 different botanicals for trial, building up the flavour complexity until the blend and ratios are perfect. LoneWolf spirits are a beacon shining into the reaches of the spirits industry, taking on the incumbents at every turn. Unrelenting craft in a world of compromise. These brand new prototypes are an exclusive for our card-carrying Equity Punks (stand by your inboxes, shareholders!). Lone Wolf will be unleashed fully in early 2017.This wash travels into what can only be described as a majestic 11 thousand litre “triple bubble” still, to be distilled up to around 60% ABV. At which point it undergoes a second distillation in a separate still where it is sent through their 18 metre high column (possibly the tallest in Europe, if not definitely the tallest in the UK), hitting plate after plate in the process of not just raising ABV up to 97%, but smoothening out and softening up in the act of doing so. The spirit begins with a mix of 50% wheat and 50% barley that spends 4 to 5 days fermenting. The team’s experience as brewers doesn’t just comes handy here, but is obvious in each element of the production of their wash, in that they even use a bespoke BrewDog yeast to create the desired alcohol and flavour combination.

Scottish distillers BrewDog Distilling Co. are once again treating us to a new exotic flavoured expression – with the release of their brand new LoneWolf Peach and Passionfruit Gin.Once the base spirit has been made, the gin begins with a combination of botanicals being steeped for some time ahead of distillation, while others are added in just before the heating begins. The botanicals named are mace, pink pepper, kaffir leaves, grapefruit peel, lemon peel, orris, almond, lemongrass and pine needles (alongside juniper and coriander seed). Given the complexities of brewing, fermenting and distilling are highly technical - if making the gin sounds like the easy part of the process, think again… Around 190 distillations were tested in the creation of this gin, each one trialling botanical variation and refining both the selection and how each botanical came together. Last May, we saw the release of LoneWolf Cactus and Lime Gin, a vibrant and zesty gin made with kaffir lime and Queen of the Night – a fragrant cactus flower that only appears at nightfall. This year, just in time for the much-needed warmer months, we get to sample their exciting new expression, LoneWolf Peach and Passionfruit Gin – made with mouth-watering tropical flavours. Once everything is online and all systems are go, we will become the only craft distillery in Scotland to make our base spirit from grain, under one roof. This is hugely important to us – and it starts with our BrewDog vodka. We've removed a section of our brewhouse roof and installed a colossal 19m high 60-plate rectification column, to get the purest, cleanest spirit possible.