From Crafty Distillery and Hills & Harbour to Sam Heughan, The Sassenach and a new Galloway single malt – we take a closer look at one of Scotland’s most interesting developing distilleries.
Hidden just outside Newton Stewart in Dumfries & Galloway is a distillery with a story very different from many of Scotland’s historic whisky names.
Galloway Distillery may be a relatively new name, but the distillery itself already has nearly a decade of history behind it. What began as the independent Crafty Distillery has grown into the home of Hills & Harbour, The Sassenach, an emerging Galloway single malt whisky programme and an increasingly ambitious visitor destination.
I recently visited Galloway Distillery, giving me the chance to see the site, visitor areas, shop and some of the spirits currently forming the next chapter of this south-west Scottish distillery
From Crafty Distillery to Galloway Distillery
The story really begins several years before the Galloway Distillery name appeared.
The original Crafty Distillery opened in 2017 on the outskirts of Newton Stewart. It was established by Graham Taylor with his father Billy Taylor and friend Craig Rankin, with the intention of producing spirits from scratch rather than simply purchasing neutral spirit and redistilling it with botanicals.
That grain-to-glass philosophy became an important part of the distillery's identity.
Crafty gained particular recognition through Hills & Harbour Gin, eventually being named Scottish Gin Distillery of the Year at the Scottish Gin Awards.
Then came a major change.
In 2025, actor and entrepreneur Sam Heughan and his business partner Alex Norouzi acquired Crafty Distillery and relaunched the operation as Galloway Distillery. The existing Hills & Harbour range remained part of the business, while the site became the new brand home for Heughan's Sassenach spirits.
The new Galloway Distillery was formally launched in autumn 2025.
For Heughan, who grew up in Galloway, the project has been presented very deliberately as a homecoming rather than simply a celebrity investment. At the opening he spoke about growing up around Loch Ken and exploring the ruins of Kenmure Castle, experiences that helped shape his connection with the region.
A distillery rooted in Galloway
That connection to the region runs throughout the new identity.
Galloway Distillery describes its aim as celebrating the area's landscape, history, folklore and character – what it calls doing things “The Gallo'Way”.
And standing at the distillery itself, it makes sense. This isn't an industrial estate distillery attempting to manufacture a Scottish identity. Newton Stewart sits between the Galloway Hills, forests, farmland and the Solway coastline – all elements that have already influenced the spirits made here.
Hills & Harbour – where the modern story started
Long before the Galloway Distillery name appeared, Hills & Harbour had already put Newton Stewart on the craft spirits map.
One of the most interesting aspects of Hills & Harbour Scottish Dry Gin is its production.
Rather than beginning with bought-in neutral alcohol, the distillery produces its own base spirit. Local wheat and water undergo a seven-day fermentation, providing the foundation for the finished gin.
The recipe itself wasn't developed overnight either.
It took approximately 14 months and 90 different recipes to arrive at the final Hills & Harbour Gin.
Its botanicals are designed to reflect Galloway's landscape. They include locally sourced Noble Fir needles and bladderwrack seaweed, alongside ingredients including mango, orange, green Sichuan pepper and bay leaf.
The idea was to touch all five basic tastes – sweet, sour, bitter, salty and umami – rather than simply producing another heavily juniper-led gin.
The result is intended to combine forest, fruit, citrus and coastal characteristics in one spirit.
More than gin
The Hills & Harbour range now also includes Scottish Vodka and Burnt Orange & Smoked Pineapple Gin.
The vodka uses local wheat and water with the same unusually long seven-day fermentation, followed by multiple distillations and a 24-hour filtration through coconut-shell carbon. It is bottled at 40% ABV.
The Burnt Orange & Smoked Pineapple expression takes another unconventional approach. Fresh fruit is smoked, torched, macerated, pressed and distilled, with what the distillery describes as an overflowing wheelbarrow of fresh fruit used in each batch.
It gives some indication of why experimentation has always been such an important part of this distillery.
The Sassenach finds a home
The current Sassenach whisky is a blended Scotch whisky, combining single malt with bourbon-barrel-aged organic single grain whisky before finishing in Madeira casks.
The component whiskies are stated to be at least nine years old. It is bottled at 46% ABV, non-chill filtered and presented at natural colour.
It is worth making an important distinction here: The Sassenach whisky existed years before Galloway Distillery was established under its current ownership. The new distillery is now its brand home and the owners have announced their intention to bring more Sassenach production into the site, but it should not be confused with the distillery's own developing Galloway single malt.
The Sassenach Wild Scottish Gin
The Sassenach Wild Scottish Gin takes inspiration from Scottish ingredients and flavours, with notes built around juniper, apple, berries, rhubarb, toasted oats, pine and heather.
Another major part of the modern Galloway Distillery story is The Sassenach, the spirits brand created by Sam Heughan before his involvement with the Newton Stewart distillery.
Galloway Distillery has now become the physical home of The Sassenach range, bringing the brand together with the existing Hills & Harbour spirits and the distillery’s developing whisky programme.
The Sassenach Fine Scottish Vodka
The Fine Scottish Vodka is particularly interesting.
Rather than relying solely on grain spirit, the distillery ferments and distils wheat, brambles and apples separately, before combining the spirits. The intention is to retain the purity expected from vodka while introducing very subtle elements associated with Scotland's landscape.
The Jamie Fraser Collection
One display that is difficult to miss during a visit is The Sassenach x Outlander: Jamie Fraser Collection.
This is a one-off limited-edition release celebrating Heughan's long association with the Jamie Fraser character.
The presentation box contains the whisky together with a personal letter written by Heughan to the character, marking the end of that chapter of his career. The official distillery shop currently lists the collection at £139.99.
Whatever your feelings about celebrity spirits, there is no denying the international attention the Outlander connection can bring to this part of Scotland.
And that could ultimately prove important not just for the distillery, but for tourism throughout Dumfries & Galloway.
Galloway Distillery's developing single malt whisky
For whisky enthusiasts, this may eventually become the most interesting part of the entire project.
Whisky production at the Newton Stewart site did not begin with Sam Heughan.
Under Crafty Distillery, plans for a single malt were already being developed several years earlier. The original project was known as Billy & Co, named in memory of founder Graham Taylor's father Billy, who helped build the distillery.
The team went unusually deep into experimentation with barley varieties, yeast and fermentation.
Today, Galloway Distillery says its own single malt programme is centred around:
- 100% Scottish malted barley
- experimentation with rare and unusual yeast strains
- long, slow and carefully controlled fermentation
- extremely slow distillation
- meticulous cask selection.
The aim is to develop character in the new-make spirit itself rather than expecting the cask to do all the work.
This is particularly interesting because long fermentation and yeast selection can dramatically influence the fruity and ester-driven character that ultimately survives distillation.
The distillery isn't rushing the whisky either. Its own current description simply says that “it could be a while before it's ready”.
That is probably the right approach.
For a young distillery, building a recognisable house character is far more important than releasing a whisky simply because the regulations say it is old enough to be called Scotch.
A much bigger visitor destination is emerging
The ambitions extend well beyond bottles.
When the acquisition was announced, plans were outlined to substantially expand both production and the visitor experience. VisitScotland reported that the business anticipated the enlarged attraction could bring an additional 30,000 visitors per year to the region.
More recent licensing documentation has included plans for expanded visitor facilities, café and bar provision, outdoor areas, additional tasting facilities and bothies.
Sassenach Spirits has also described major renovation work as part of the distillery's 2026–27 development.
That makes Galloway Distillery a particularly interesting one to revisit in a few years.
What exists now already feels very different from the large corporate visitor centres found at some established whisky distilleries. There is a relaxed, contemporary feel, with wood, glass, long tasting tables and the spirits themselves forming much of the decoration.
Visiting Galloway Distillery
The distillery is located just outside Newton Stewart:
Galloway Distillery
Wigtown Road
Newton Stewart
Dumfries & Galloway
DG8 6AS
At the time of writing, the distillery shop is open Monday to Saturday, 10am–5pm.
The standard distillery tour currently costs £30 per person and includes a guided look at production followed by a tasting of spirits from the Sassenach and Hills & Harbour ranges. Drivers can take a sample away rather than drinking it at the distillery.
For those wanting something more personal, a Private Distillery Tour costs £60 per person, with a minimum of two guests.
Whisky enthusiasts can also book the Distillery Manager's Tour, led by distillery manager Nicky Docherty. This more in-depth experience explores the whisky-making process and includes the opportunity to taste developing spirit from casks maturing on site, alongside new make, peated and unpeated Scotch whisky. The experience costs £120 per person, with a minimum of two guests, and lasts around two hours.
Private experiences are also available by arrangement.
The distillery says it has been awarded five stars by VisitScotland and also holds five-star feedback on TripAdvisor.
Given its position close to the A75, it also makes a very straightforward stop for anyone travelling through Dumfries & Galloway towards Stranraer, the Machars or the Galloway Forest.
Ride Galloway – and that motorcycle
There's another rather conspicuous attraction when you walk through the doors.
The motorcycle fits into another strand of the Galloway project: Ride Galloway.
The event was developed around a ride with Sam Heughan through more than 130 miles of Galloway roads, taking riders through countryside, forests, hills, coastline and towns before returning to the distillery.
The official site currently says Ride Galloway is planned to return in 2027.
Even if you have little interest in motorcycles, the bike sitting inside the visitor area is certainly an unusual change from the model ships, old mash paddles and dusty barley samples normally found in a distillery shop.
Why Galloway Distillery is one to watch
It would be easy to look at the name behind Galloway Distillery and assume this is primarily a celebrity project.
That would overlook most of the story.
There was already a working, award-winning craft distillery here. There was already genuine grain-to-glass production, an established gin brand, experimental whisky production and years of work on barley, yeast and fermentation before the acquisition took place.
What Sam Heughan and Alex Norouzi have added is scale, investment, an international audience and an ambition to turn the site into a significant destination.
Dumfries & Galloway has traditionally received a fraction of the whisky tourism enjoyed by Speyside, Islay and the Highlands. The local council has described Galloway Distillery as an opportunity to encourage visitors to see the region as somewhere to stay, rather than somewhere simply to drive through.
That may prove every bit as important as the whisky.
And for whisky drinkers, the most exciting chapter has arguably not even begun yet.
The bottles of Galloway single malt quietly developing in cask today will eventually tell us what this distillery really tastes like.
I’ll be watching that journey with interest.
All photographs in this article were taken by me during my visit to Galloway Distillery.
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