Water Treatment System Helps Re-Open Distillery After 95 Years

Veolia’s water treatment system has helped put the Annandale Distillery back on the single malt map in a sustainable way.

The distillery, in Annan, Dumfries & Galloway, closed in 1919 but, 95 years later and after a three year refurbishment, their first cask was filled in November 2014. The new owners wanted the distillery to be sustainable and, as far as possible, self-sufficient in water management. This is where Veolia Water Technologies came in.

High quality water is critical to the operation of the Annandale Distillery. It is used as production water, feeds the boiler that produces the steam to drive the stills and dilutes the cask strength spirit for bottling. The distillery had the choice of using mains water or its own on-site borehole – a self-sufficient option. Veolia’s engineers showed how the borehole water could be treated economically, avoiding the cost of installing a mains supply and ensuring a consistent source quality.

After filtration and softening, the borehole is treated by a Sirion™ Maxi reverse osmosis plant. Some of the product water is used directly for spirit reduction whilst the remainder is conditioned by the addition of a specially formulated Hydrex® chemical for boiler feed. To reduce waste, Veolia installed a RecoBLUE™ recovery unit to recover approximately 50% of the wastewater from the Sirion Maxi.

The result is, Annandale Distillery is self-sufficient in water and the sustainable approach minimises their water footprint.