A PIONEERING businesswoman is becoming the first female in more than 200 years to found her own whisky distillery.
Heather Nelson will start production in Tain, Ross-shire next year – the first woman to launch a distillery since 1811.
Ms Nelson co-owns a film and TV production company and admits she has no formal experience in the whisky industry, which is worth £3.8 billion to the Scottish economy. But her Toulvaddie microdistillery is due to come into operation in May and will produce up to 30,000 litres of alcohol each year in two small copper pot stills.
She is currently studying for her qualifications in distilling and plans to operate and fund the new site by herself. The site already has an approval in principle for a distillation licence from HM Revenue & Customs.
She said: “The fact there are only three ingredients but so many different- tasting whiskies is what really got me thinking about what makes them different. Being the one who influences those flavours appealed to me. That’s when I started to look into the process in more depth.
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