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 rum truly artisanal.

Dr. Kit Carruthers, owner and master distiller, Ninefold Distillery

The distillery’s first release is 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. It is naturally gluten free and vegan friendly.

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 process of making the rum begins with a 3-4 day fermentation of a hot water and molasses mixture in our 1500 litre fermentation tank. This produces a 9.5% ABV wash (molasses beer!), which is then double pot-distilled in a handmade Scottish 500 litre copper pot still. The still has three elements: the pot, the four plate column, and the condenser. The first distillation is the stripping run, and the still is set to use only the pot and condenser. Each run takes around 5 hours, and produces the ‘low wines’, at a strength of about 29-30% ABV. The low wines are then distilled for the second distillation, the spirit run, which uses the four plate column to produce a very smooth rum spirit at a strength of 90% ABV. This takes 9 hours, usually.

The final step is to dilute the 90% ABV rum down to bottling strength of 40% ABV using filtered water, and the rum is left to rest for a week before bottling. The whole process takes around two weeks, start to finish, although the longer the rum is left to rest, the better is becomes!

Not all of the rum produced is destined to be bottled immediately. The distillery has been laying down a small number of casks since September 2019 to mature rum in. Currently there are six casks that have been filled, with another 1000 litres of rum ready for casking. The distillery uses American oak standard barrels (200 litres), with a mixture of virgin and second fill bourbon casks. The first single cask release will be later this year, with regular single cask releases planned for the future.

In the meantime, the distillery will be launching a spiced rum in the summer of 2020, made with all natural ingredients, and no added sugar, at the distillery. Keep an eye out for that through our social media channels!