It truly is blue sky thinking - and John Mackenzie says he has his best thoughts when he is several hundred feet up in the air, piloting a helicopter. The result of his blue-sky thinking is the country's first community-owned distillery, and it is now taking shape on the ground, although it is appropriately built high on the side of a mountain, Ben Wyvis, looking down on the highland town of Dingwall.

Just to ease access to the site there's another idea from Mackenzie - Europe's longest hillside elevator, a 400-metre long funicular, or mountain railway, which will whisk visitors on a three-minute ride up the side of the mountain to the distillery, the visitor centre and shop.

Mackenzie is known as the 'flying farmer'. He manages a range of interesting livestock, from alpacas, Saddleback pigs, to Zwartbles – not a spelling error but a breed of Netherlands sheep – although that isn't his main business. "I farm electricity,” is how he describes it, involving hydro, wind and solar production which is fed into the National Grid. “Farming electricity requires a lot less management than the conventional kind,” he says “and the bits tend not to drop dead like sheep.”

The idea for the distillery, now called GlenWyvis, came to him on one of his helicopter trips, shuttling visitors around Scotland. He has dropped travellers off at the best distilleries in Scotland. So, he mused, why couldn't he set one up on his farm, 500 metres up Ben Wyvis?

“A lot of my ideas come when I'm in the air,” he says. Like the plan to diversify from conventional farming and harvest electricity, having seen similar set-ups in the United States and Canada when he flew for the Army Air Corps and the Canadian Air Force.

He bought Scroggie Farm on Ben Wyvis in 2007 and this is where the groundworks are now being laid for the distillery. As he has donated the land, the buildings, the eco-electricity which will power it all, and the intellectual property to a community trust, he stands not to benefit financially.

On April 16 this year, the 270th anniversary of the Battle of Culloden, the trust launched a crowdfunding appeal to raise £1.5 million for the project. It brought in more than 2600 investors from 30 countries with the result that £2.7 million is now in the bank.

Mackenzie is guarded about when the work will be completed and production will begin but he is pencilling-in the opening for Culloden's 271st anniversary, with the first whisky three years later in 2020.

The huge success of the appeal he says, is because “people haven't been allowed to invest in distilleries before”. Prior to this it was the large distilling companies, the multi-nationals, which controlled the industry and the production of fine malts, which is what the GlenWyvis marque will be.

“It will be a traditional Highland single malt with a smooth quality finish,” he adds, priced at the higher end of the scale or about £50 a bottle. Initially the GlenWyvis output will be 20,000 litres a year with the capacity to increase that to 180,000 litres. And although the first batch should be available in 2020, most will mature in casks for five years or longer.

The Culloden connection is historical, relating to one of the oldest-known Scottish whisky distilleries on the lands of Ferintosh, east of Dingwall. In 1689 Duncan Forbes of Culloden had his lands sacked and the then distillery burnt by the Jacobites for supporting King William of Orange. In recompense, he was allowed to distil and sell Ferintosh whisky free of duty for an annual fee of 400 Scottish merks.

It was a much-loved whisky throughout Scotland and was apparently a favourite dram of Rabbie Burns, who penned on its closure in1785: “Thee, Ferintosh! O sadly lost! Scotland lament frae coast to coast!” Perhaps not the Bard's best work.

The new distillery will reinstate craft whisky distilling to the Dingwall area, some 90 years after the last of the town's original distilleries closed down. It will be entirely eco-friendly. From the electricity which will run it, to the electric bus which will take visitors to the mountain railway, and the energy produced in-house which will take them in the elevator up to the distillery. Mackenzie even tries to offset his helicopter miles against the kilowatts he produces.

Craft distilling is the big trend these days, and whisky tourism is at an all-time high in Scotland. “The craft spirit industry is booming,” Mackenzie says, “and what we're doing here has benefits. Community ownershop, the distribution of profits which will also go to develop other community projects, and of course providing local jobs.”

The flying farmer, has, of course, two of them. He's a freelance pilot, often shuttling defence staff and naturalists to and from St Kilda, and also tending to his beasts and harvesting his electricity.

So how does he split his time? He doesn't, he replies. “I do everything, all the time, every day.” Adding that at this time of the year, with the cold weather, the animals inside and the early darkness, he has more time in the evenings.

This week he's off to Romania to view a funicular near to Dracula's castle which has been built by the Swiss company, Inauen Schatti, which he hopes will complete the GlenWyvis one at a cost around £800,000.

“It is all aimed at rejuvenating Dingwall as the craft distilling town for Scotland,” Mackenzie sums up.

You wouldn't gainsay it. If at times he has his head in the clouds, the results are firmly grounded.