The proposed Kingsbarns distillery in Fife has taken a massive step forwards with the securing of enough Scottish Government cash to pay for 30% of the project.
The planned distillery received a grant of more than £670,000 from the Food Processing Marketing and Cooperation scheme, putting it on track to start building work this year and begin distillation in 2014.
This was after it appealed against the original award of some £558,000.
The Government backing means a major investor has agreed to come on board, enabling the scheme to proceed.
Former golfing caddie Doug Clement, who is founding director and project manager at the distillery, said: "We will be starting work in the spring and it will be some time in the summer of 2014 when the distilling begins and the visitor centre opens."
He declined to reveal the identity of his new investor.
Mr Clement had previously attempted crowd funding, a method of attracting a large number of small investors.
But while this did not gain the necessary backing, it did bring the company to the attention of those interested in the whisky industry.
Mr Clement is confident that Kingsbarns distillery will be a draw for tourists from the nearby golf resort of St Andrews, anticipating it could bring in as many as 80,000 visitors a year.
The distillery, planned for the late 18th-century East Newhall Farm Steading on the Cambo Estate, already has full planning consent from Fife Council. The company was formed in May 2009.
The Scotch Whisky Association calculates producers have committed to investing £2 billion in the industry over the next few years.
In the year to the end of June 2012, Scotch whisky exports hit a record level of £4.2bn with demand coming from emerging markets as well as established ones in countries such as the United States and France.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article