EDEN Mill Distillery & Brewery at St Andrews is aiming to raise about £500,000 through the creation of a prestigious "Founders Club" for its single malt Scotch whisky business.

Chief executive Paul Miller, a drinks industry veteran, declared that Eden Mill was already attracting "really huge" interest in the initiative from the Far East.

He meanwhile revealed that Eden Mill, which was founded nearly three years ago and is owned by Mr Miller and a Glasgow businessman, was enjoying strong growth in sales of its gin and craft beers. These products are generating strong revenues for Eden Mill, with maturation timescales meaning the rewards from a new Scotch whisky business are felt over a longer period.

Mr Miller highlighted the fact that Eden Mill was enjoying success in the Chinese market through working with The Craft Beer Clan of Scotland, which was created recently as the international arm of Scottish wholesaler JW Filshill.

Mr Miller said: "They have very successfully launched our beers in China last year."

He believes that Eden Mill Distillery & Brewery, which employs 23 people, could "smash" its target of achieving sales of £3 million in its current financial year to next March.

Mr Miller put annual turnover in the year to March 2015 at "just over" £1m.

Highlighting particularly strong revenues from gin but also noting Eden Mill's success in the craft beer market, he said: "We literally do everything on our site."

Mr Miller anticipated about £500,000 would be raised, after costs, from the Founders Club. This will give people the chance to own one of Eden Mill's first 100 hogshead casks, containing about 250 litres of single malt Scotch.

Members will also have an exclusive right to buy a further three casks in 2017,2019, and 2021. They will also receive invitations to play in the Founders Club golf event every two years and to stay at the Old Course Hotel in St Andrews in 2017,2019, and 2021.

Mr Miller said the Founders Club would have 50 members, each paying about £12,000.

Eden Mill, which is based at Guardbridge on the outskirts of St Andrews, will be promoting the Founders Club at the HOFEX 2015 food and hospitality trade show in Hong Kong next week.

Mr Miller's daughter, Victoria, a fourth-year student of business law and Mandarin at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, is featured speaking in Mandarin in a promotional video for the Founders Club which is being circulated in mainland China and Hong Kong.

Eden Mill enlisted the services of Glasgow-based Production Attic to create this bespoke promotional video.

Mr Miller, who has worked for distiller Glenmorangie and was head of brewer Molson Coors in Scotland and Northern Ireland, said that Eden Mill also expected to bring in about £250,000 from people signing up for its Cask Club. This gives people the opportunity to create their own unique cask of single-malt Scotch with the distilling team at Eden Mill, by choosing the barley and the type and size of oak barrel used.

Eden Mill, as well as selling its products in the UK and China, is also in the Canadian market-place. It is moving into Sweden, and is also planning further expansion in the Far East.

Mr Miller said: "We have already had strong interest from Taiwan and Hong Kong. We will definitely be in those markets."