SCOTS hotelier Stephen Leckie has revealed plans by his company to make a big move into the world of gin distilling.
Mr Leckie, whose family have run Crieff Hydro for five generations, is investing £250,000 to establish a gin distillery and gin school at its Peebles Hydro property in the Borders.
The distillery, which will be housed in the hotel’s tennis court pavilion, is forecast to produce 18,000 bottles a year when it is up and running. The hotel already brews beer at the pavilion.
Mr Leckie said the spirit, which has the working title Peebles
Pavilion Gin, will be supplied to hotels in the Crieff group and made available for retail sale.
Visitors to the hotel will also be able to make their own version of the gin, using botanicals grown in the Peebles Hydro garden.
Mr Leckie, who also aims to make a Peebles tonic at the hotel, said the company has ordered a copper still (picked to give the gin it makes a sweet flavour) from a manufacturer in Germany. It will take six months to arrive, which he said reflects the high demand for stills from the growing craft spirits industry.
The distillery project builds on the popularity of the hotel’s Gin Palace, located in the main bar area, which stocks more than
100 gins.
Mr Leckie said: “The company consumes about 1,000 bottles of pouring brand premium gin a year, so we will be supplying gin to our own hotels and selling it to retail. And there will be 24 mini, micro gin stills around the site of the old bistro, which we closed. It is still there and suited us perfectly.”
He added: “There is no hotel in Britain, that I know of, let alone the world that makes its own gin. No hotel company makes its own gin, and no hotel company makes its own gin with its own water.
“With gin, it is all about the story, and we have got that. It is another reason to visit Peebles Hydro, which is now, after five years of ownership, booming for us. It is just going really well.”
Mr Leckie said the company had appointed a “gin captain” from within its ranks at Peebles, and was now formulating the botanical ingredients and branding for the spirit. The intention is to aim for the premium segment of the market, with plans to produce a range of special bottlings and small batch versions. The still that has been ordered can also be modified to produce other spirits, such as rum, whisky and Tequila.
Mr Leckie added: “Peebles Hydro is a rich part of Scotland’s history. This gin, in 100 years, will be the same.”
The investment means the Crieff Hydro group has invested £6 million since acquiring the Peebles hotel in 2014. Mr Leckie’s company purchased Peebles Hydro and the nearby Park Hotel from McMillan Hotels in a £10m deal.
Since then, the Crieff owner has spent about £750,000 a year on refurbishments and introducing new eating and drinking concepts to the hotel, including a restaurant, picnic shop and cocktail bar – officially called “Not the Cocktail Bar” in a nod to regulars who recall the old cocktail bar.
Mr Leckie said: “Peebles Hydro is like Crieff, it is full of folk who know Peebles Hydro for what it is. [We want] to retain that kind of history.”
Mr Leckie said part of the company’s rationale for investing in hotels beyond its Crieff Hydro, the jewel in the family crown, is because he has been thwarted in his attempts to get a £100m project off the ground in the Perthshire estate.
Perth & Kinross Council has three times denied planning permission for the Hydro East proposals, which span 200 self-catering units, 10,000 square feet of retail space, 100 assisted living homes and a 100-bed care home.
Mr Leckie claimed the council had displayed a “lack of ambition” in not supporting the project, and questioned the authority’s commitment to economic development in the area.
He said: “What’s happened is I’ve picked my ball up and gone home. I’ve gone elsewhere. We are spending millions in Peebles and millions out [in the] west coast, because PKC has no ambition.”
Mr Leckie said, meanwhile, that the owners of the Kingshouse Hotel in the West Highlands, which the Crieff group runs under management contract, is currently being rebuilt in a £10m project.
The hotel, which the Leckie family has been running for five years, is owned by a Belgian family, who are providing the investment. Noting the new hotel is scheduled to open in February, Mr Leckie said: “For a period of time it will be the newest hotel in Britain – that might be 20 minutes or a few months!”
The Crieff family also owns the Ballachullish Hotel and the Isle of Glencoe Hotel, also in the West Highlands, following their acquisition in August 2016. The company had managed those hotels for several years before the purchase, and has been refurbishing the Isles of Glencoe property.
Mr Leckie said: “By next March, we will have refurbished the Isles of Glencoe Hotel, so we will have two of the nicest hotels along the Glencoe, West Highland Way, North Coast 500 area. Then we will turn our hand to the Ballachullish (Hotel) in a year.”
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