On a sprawling farm next to the sandy beaches and glimmering waters of Scotland’s Lunan Bay, a freshly minted spirits maker is sprinting into the global market for Scotch whisky with a new way of doing things.
The Arbikie Distillery on Scotland's east coast stands on 2,000 acres of generations-old ... [+]
The Arbikie Distillery turned on the lights in 2014, taking on old agriculture and old energy, and leap-frogging over establishment spirits brands who say they’re doing “as much as they can right now” and “hope to do more” to meet climate goals. Arbikie is one of Scotland’s newest distilleries, jumping into the climate imperative with both feet, empowered by the agility of freshly constructed modern spaces and liberated by no debt to age-old customers looking for age-old products.
Arbikie Distillery, a relatively small but energetically scrappy maker of Scotch Whisky, Gin, and ... [+]
Before the summer is out, Arbikie expects to mark what will be a groundbreaking achievement: throwing off the chokehold of fossil fuel by becoming the Scotch whisky industry’s first green hydrogen distillery.
A single wind turbine is the starting point for Arbikie's green hydrogen energy generation.
It is a story of family tradition, cultural pride, preservation of the land and by extension the planet, raw business know-how and survival. John Stirling and brothers Iain and David inherited this four-generation agricultural business from a father with no high school diploma but a determination to work hard and build a business, eventually putting together 2,000 acres. Decades ago, it was in part a dairy farm, with a herd of prolific Holstein Friesians. Like many dairy farmers, though, supermarket-driven downward price pressures forced them to abandon the milk business. Today, in a nod to the traditions of the Scottish Highlands, a peaceful herd of five Highland cows stand in a field just before the Distillery center.
Highland cows are part of the experience at Arbikie.
John Stirling runs the farm now. But as a young man, he ran away from the family business, with its 4 AM milking schedules and tough physical demands. After university he joined one of the “Big Four” accounting firms. Contemplating his life today and the excitement of his new business, he regrets not appreciating his uniquely beautiful corner of the world with its many textured challenges and rewards. And yet he’s returned to it with the cold management skills of a world class accountant.
“When you start challenging things and looking at how you can do things better, the one thing that we’re handcuffed by is our energy,” Stirling explains. Because operating stills for spirits is extremely energy intensive, the industry has always had a significant carbon footprint. “Our energy has been oil,” says Stirling, “and there’s no way around that. We looked at ‘biomass’ - the burning and stuff – it wasn’t going to be much better. So we were always challenged on this.”
Most of the industry is. The Scotch Whisky Association has pledged to continue a trend to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. “Between 2008 and 2020, we cut greenhouse gas emissions by 53%, but by 2040 we’ll achieve Net Zero emissions in our own operations,” the SWA has declared.
The cross-over to green energy is expensive. Armed with its record of innovative 21st century farming practices, Arbikie applied for and won a national “green distiller” competition to construct a green hydrogen energy source, and three million British Pounds (£3m) to do it, the rough equivalent of close to $4 million in U.S. dollars.
Aging Scotch whisky barrels, housed in the former Arbikie milking shed.
To be honest, before visiting the Arbikie farm and distillery, I had no idea what to expect. But the set-up could not be more rudimentary, and its footprint is modest. “Basically,” explains Stirling, “it’s wind power, so we have a turbine that’s just gone up: natural green electricity from a turbine. Then you need water. And our water source is from the roofs of our distilleries, fed into a tank. And then it goes into a roughly 40-foot container, a hydrogen electrolyzer.
The wastewater and the green electricity create hydrogen that will then feed our hydrogen boiler, and power our distillery. And then the waste from that is water and oxygen. So it couldn’t be greener.”
At Stanford University in California, Lincoln Bleveans says it all makes sense. “All energy is local, whether conditions exist to optimize local production, like great wind, solar, hydro, geothermal resources, plus other components like water, for example, and/or energy imports such as nearby pipelines, electric power transmission, and so on.” Bleveans is executive director of Stanford’s Sustainability and Energy Management. “Based on what I know about that part of the world and the technology, it seems that they are blessed with - among other things- strong wind and water resources and ample real estate. This seems to allow cost-effective, population-remote wind power production, combined with an ample supply of water, to split into hydrogen, while minimizing hydrogen storage and transportation distances, risks, and costs through local production and use.”
Arbikie Distillery co-founder John Stirling stands next to the compact newly installed hydrogen ... [+]
American energy consultant, Peter Kelly-Detwiler, author of “The Energy Switch” (Prometheus Books, 2021) says this is definitely the future. “Green hydrogen is becoming the go-to medium for the so-called “hard-to-abate” industrial sectors, many of which require a lot of thermal energy and have been using fossil fuels to get that heat. Steel and cement are making some serious strides in this area, using hydrogen in different ways. It would be logical that a distillery focusing on reducing would also turn to that approach of using hydrogen produced from renewables.” Interestingly, he notes, “one thing to understand is that hydrogen isn’t really a source of energy, but rather an energy carrier. You’re taking wind energy, using electrolyzers to see that energy to break water into hydrogen (and oxygen).”
In absolute agricultural terms, the Stirlings are farming like it’s 2023, replacing ages-old quick fixes that involved chemical products for the land, abandoning monoculture, and developing innovative natural products. Their master distiller, Kirsty Black, a millennial generation Ph.D. with a plant science specialty, has led the brand to push the envelope of sustainability. “Working with farmers – they do genuinely care about the soil,” says Black, who herself stands out in the world of master distilling.
Vast potato field, part of the seven-year crop rotation at the Arbikie farm.
Black says she and other women were definitely in the minority in her brewing and distilling class at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, Scotland. In her mind – no big deal, and in truth, the population of women distillers and blenders is fast expanding. Having grown up on a strawberry and raspberry farm near Inverness, Scotland, she has an easy feel for plants and flavors and how they might combine. Her work, she says, gives her the chance to apply knowledge and passion.
It was that combination of skills that put Arbikie on the environmental map with its “Climate Positive” spirits, derived from peas which, due to their unique structure, naturally introduce fertilizing nitrogen to the soil. “Peas are part of a family of plants called legumes, that includes beans and lentils. All plants need nitrogen to grow but there’s not enough in the soil,” she explains, leading to man-made nitrogen fertilizers with big carbon footprints. “But peas can do it differently,” says Black. “They can take it from the air. They’re self-sufficient. So by using peas to extract starches for distilling, instead of more traditional things like wheat, we’re immediately avoiding lots of carbon emissions.”
Kirsty Black, PH.D., Master Distiller at Arbikie.
Today, Arbikie grows wheat, barley, rye, grass, peas, oats and oilseed rape. The brand’s prize creation will be an 18-year-old single malt Scotch Whisky which is still eight years away from fruition. Meanwhile, variously flavored gins and vodka have been on the market and keeping the lights on, so to speak, along with a young industry-upstart Scotch rye whisky.
The Stirlings are born again regenerative farmers, leaning heavily on cover crops that draw the sun’s energy into the soil, nitrogen-enhancing legumes that enrich the land for growth, rotational cropping that unlike monoculture does not exhaust the land, and swapping their hay and spirits-related draff as feed for the cattle on the farm next door, in exchange for the cattle’s natural fertilizer. Potatoes are a big part of the farm crop, the attractive customer-ready potatoes sold to grocery stores, while the “wonky” potatoes are set aside to make vodka. It’s a seven-year crop rotation which Stirling says “is about soil health, quality of the soil, and minimizing any kind of chemical input.”
The remains of 12th century Red Castle, on Scotland's Lunan Bay.
The farm stands within shouting distance of the ruins of 12th century “Red Castle,” an ancient Scottish outpost meant to repel Viking invaders gliding in across the North Sea. And what a prize that must have been hundreds of years ago, with water routes everywhere, wildlife, lush farming and grazing land, and the raw beauty of the land that is Scotland.
Lunan Bay Beach, Scotland, the shores of the 2,000 acre Arbikie farm.
Many centuries later, it is that prize that John Stirling and his brothers are striving to preserve. Starting the Arbikie Distillery, he says “we had very clear goals of - farm the right way, look after the environment, look after the people we work with, and create a nice working environment and then good things will come to you. It’s easy saying that at the start, and there are challenges,” he says. “But I do genuinely believe that, and now our field to bottle sustainability ethos is coming home to roost.”
