Meet the Producer | Ninefold Distillery | 2021
Ninefold Distillery is the south of Scotland’s first and only rum distillery, and the most southerly in Scotland. Rum is made from scratch here in small batches from molasses by owner and distiller, Dr. Kit Carruthers. North African molasses is fermented, double distilled, bottled and labelled on site in batches of no more than around 300 bottles, making Ninefold rums truly artisanal.
The distillery is housed in a converted 150+ year old cattle byre on Dormont Home Farm. The farm is the central historic farm at the heart of Dormont Estate, in Dumfries & Galloway. The Carruthers family have been farming and managing the estate for over 450 years, and the distillery logo – a six winged angel – is the Carruthers family crest.
The distillery’s first release in 2019 was an unaged pure single rum, aka white rum. ‘Pure’ meaning traditionally pot distilled, and ‘single’ meaning a single distillery (same as single malt whisky, for example). Ninefold Pure Single Rum is a smooth, creamy, flavoursome rum that’s delicious over ice, and perfect in a range of cocktails. The rum picked up a silver award from the IWSC in 2020, with the judges describing it as “Relaxed, understated, and masterfully well crafted”.
In September 2020 the distillery launched its first single cask rum, aged for 12 months in virgin American oak, and bottled at cask strength of 59.6%. Being a single cask release, bottles were limited to 246, and were each hand signed by Kit. The bottling sold out in just a few weeks, but we still get asked if there’s any available! There will be future single cask and blended releases from the distillery, with a 3rd party bottling available later this year, and a charity release in September/October to raise money for the Nith Inshore Rescue.
February 2021 saw the release of the distillery’s first spiced rum: Dormont Spiced. Natural allspice, nutmeg and aniseed flavours are balanced with the profile of the pure single rum base, with a little golden syrup to sweeten slightly and some natural caramel to give the rum a beautiful colour.
The distillery is really now just finding its feet, with sales of both rums picking up over the last year. Ninefold also now supplies white label rum to a number of other brands, most notably Witch Kings Rum, based in Manchester, who use Ninefold Pure Single Rum as the base for their fruit rum liqueurs.
www.NinefoldDistillery.com
Facebook | fb.com/NinefoldDistillery
Instagram | @ninefolddistillery
Twitter | @ninefolddistil
