A 189-Year Gap Gets Filled: The Borders Distillery Taps a Whisky Heavy-Hitter Ahead of Its Landmark Single Malt Launch
There are moments in the Scotch whisky world that feel genuinely historic — not in the breathless, marketing-department sense, but in the kind of way that makes you stop and actually do the math. The Scottish Borders, a rolling stretch of countryside between Edinburgh and England that has produced some of Britain's finest textiles and rugby players, has been without a single malt Scotch whisky since 1837. Not for a decade. Not for a generation. For a hundred and eighty-nine years. Now, with September 2026 on the calendar and a war chest of eight-year-old maturing stocks behind it, The Borders Distillery is on the verge of changing that — and it just made a personnel move that signals it's playing for keeps.
The Borders Distillery has named industry veteran David King as its senior strategic advisor. The appointment comes as the Hawick-based producer prepares to launch its single malt Scotch whisky brand in September 2026, marking the first such release from the Scottish Borders since 1837. That sentence alone deserves a moment's consideration. The last time a legal whisky distillery operated anywhere in this region, Andrew Jackson was president of the United States, and the American Civil War was still a generation away.
Who Is David King, and Why Does It Matter?
In an industry that runs on pedigree, credentials, and decades of earned trust, David King brings a résumé that would make any serious whisky outfit envious. King brings an unparalleled track record from a career spanning over 30 years in the global premium whisky industry, with distinguished background including senior leadership roles at industry giants such as Edrington — known for brands like The Macallan — and the venerable London-based wine and spirits merchant Berry Bros. & Rudd, where he worked from 1998 to 2016.
King also held prominent positions at Anchor Brewers & Distillers and Gordon & MacPhail, an independent bottler and distiller with a rich history. To understand the weight of that résumé, consider what those names represent on the global stage. Edrington built The Macallan into arguably the most recognized single malt brand on earth. Berry Bros. & Rudd, trading from the same London address since 1698, is the kind of house that doesn't just sell whisky — it shapes how premium spirits are perceived and priced in international markets. Gordon & MacPhail, operating out of Elgin since 1895, is the grand dame of independent bottling and a fierce guardian of single malt tradition.
King's distinguished career in the whisky industry has seen him hold a number of senior positions, both in the UK and internationally, for companies including the Edrington Group, Berry Brothers & Rudd and Anchor Distilling Co. He later founded DTK Beverages International Ltd, a boutique brand building and strategic consultancy before joining Gordon & MacPhail in 2016. In that role, King refocused Gordon & MacPhail's international sales strategy for both the Benromach and the Gordon & MacPhail single malt whisky brands. Founding his own consultancy between major corporate postings isn't a résumé gap — it's proof that the industry values his thinking enough to pay for it independently.
In his new position, King will support the launch, rollout and subsequent growth of TBD's single malt portfolio across both international and domestic markets. That dual mandate — domestic and international simultaneously — is a tall order for a debut release from a region where the category hasn't existed in living memory, and it underscores exactly why a strategist of King's caliber was sought out for this moment rather than a conventional sales hire.
The Making of The Borders Distillery: From Blank Map to Bonded Warehouse
A Region Without Whisky — And Why That's Remarkable
To appreciate what The Borders Distillery represents, you need to understand what the Scottish Borders is, and what it isn't. Unlike Speyside, which is so thick with distilleries that you can practically smell the new make from the A95, or the Highlands, where nearly every glen with a reliable water source has a still somewhere in its history, the last legal distillery to operate in the Scottish Borders closed in 1837, leaving the region to experience something of a whisky drought for the past 180 years. The Borders sits in what is geographically classified as a Lowlands whisky region, yet for nearly two centuries it produced none. That anomaly — fertile land, reliable water, a proud manufacturing culture — was the opening that a group of industry insiders eventually decided to exploit.
The Borders Distillery was founded in 2013 by a group of friends, all veterans of the Scotch whisky industry, who saw something missing — no distillery in the Borders. Headed by four Scotch industry veterans, the company was founded in 2013 and planning permission granted in late 2015 to transform a former factory in Hawick into a £10 million malt whisky distillery. The founders — George Tait, Tony Roberts, Tim Carton, and John Fordyce — brought the kind of combined experience that doesn't need to borrow credibility from anyone. They knew the industry's rhythms, its economics, its patience requirements, and its brutal commercial realities.
The Building: Where Victorian Industry Meets Modern Distilling
The distillery is in a landmark building in the centre of town, having previously been the site of the Hawick Electric Company and several engineering businesses. The distillery takes the form of two large sheds, dating from the 1880s, joined by a modern glass extension to a Tudor Cotswold building. That architectural marriage of Victorian industrial heritage and contemporary design didn't go unnoticed. The distillery won the Civic Trust Award for Excellence 2019, the Architectural Journal Awards 2018, the RIAS Conservation & Climate Change Award 2019, and the EAA Architectural Awards 2019 Regeneration/Conservation category.
The team broke ground at the site in August 2016, with the distillery kicking to life at 10:11am on 6 March 2018. That precision — right down to the minute — tells you something about how seriously this group took the milestone. The distillery hosts two wash stills, two spirit stills and a specially commissioned Carter Head still, made by Forsyths of Rothes. Forsyths is the gold standard in Scottish still manufacturing, and commissioning a Carter Head still alongside the traditional pot still setup gave the distillery immediate flexibility for both whisky and gin production from a single facility.
The Water, the Barley, and the Spirit Style
The water used at the distillery comes from a huge underground lake, which has been naturally filtered through rock as it flows down from the hills above. Mineral-rich, cold, and consistent — it's exactly the kind of water source that old-school distillers would have sought out deliberately. On the grain side, the operation is unapologetically local. The distillery works directly with 10 local farms and Simpsons Malt to grow their barley, and in return, by-products from distilling go back to those farms to generate energy and nutrients. It's a closed-loop agricultural model that has become increasingly fashionable in craft distilling, but TBD was building it into their DNA from the start rather than retrofitting it as a marketing afterthought.
Long fermentation using a cloudy wort gives the spirit a malty fruitiness, while distillation in large lampglass stills with plenty of copper contact will heighten its fruity and floral qualities. Maturation will take place in predominantly ex-Bourbon barrels, although a mix of Portuguese red wine and rum casks will be used. The flavor profile being built here — malt-forward, fruit-driven, floral, and accessible — maps neatly onto what the contemporary single malt consumer is looking for, particularly in the American market, where ex-Bourbon cask maturation creates familiar vanilla and caramel undertones that ease entry-level drinkers into the category.
Eight Years in the Making: The Patience Play
The economics of founding a distillery are brutally simple: you spend years building, then years waiting. Scotch whisky regulations stipulate a minimum of three years maturation in oak casks within Scotland for a spirit to legally be called Scotch. The Borders Distillery's decision to mature its whisky for eight years far exceeds this requirement, indicating a commitment to quality and character development. Tripling the legal minimum isn't a casual decision — it represents years of carrying costs, forgone revenue, and the kind of institutional conviction that's easy to talk about and very hard to actually do.
While the single malt stocks matured, the distillery was not idle. As it waited patiently for the launch of its first Single Malt, the distillery distilled Kerr's Borders Gin and Puffing Billy Steam Vodka from its Borders barley. Its Workshop Series whiskies include a variety of 'single blends,' including Borders Malt & Rye, The Long & Short of It, and Right as Rain. The distillery also offers two blended whiskies of its own recipe: Lower East Side and Clan Fraser Reserve.
The Workshop Series, in particular, served a dual strategic purpose. It generated revenue to sustain operations while simultaneously building brand awareness and educating both trade and consumers about TBD's flavor philosophy. For the second edition of the Workshop Series, the distillery's distillers experimented with very short fermentations of 55 hours and very long ones of 150 hours, using those experimental releases as a public demonstration of their technical curiosity. A review of the Borders Malt & Rye noted that it "shows great potential of what is to come from the Borders Distillery, a creative blend and great use of casks to produce something this interesting at this young age." That kind of advance press from credible whisky voices builds the anticipatory pressure that turns a product launch into a genuine event.
The Leadership Build-Out: A Two-Pronged Hire
Giancarlo Bianchi Takes the Managing Director Chair
David King's appointment doesn't exist in isolation. It's the second major leadership hire TBD has made in 2026, coming hard on the heels of a managing director appointment that itself signaled the distillery was shifting gears from production-mode patience to commercial-mode aggression. Earlier this year, Giancarlo Bianchi assumed the role of Managing Director, bringing over 15 years of commercial and strategic leadership experience in premium spirits to the Hawick-based producer. Bianchi's appointment, effective from 1 April 2026, followed significant tenures as executive director of sales and marketing at Penderyn Distillery in Wales and as sales director for Edinburgh's Holyrood Distillery.
Penderyn and Holyrood are instructive reference points. Penderyn is Wales's flagship distillery and has navigated the tricky challenge of building a national identity for a whisky region that, like the Scottish Borders, had to rebuild its tradition from scratch. Holyrood, meanwhile, is a young urban distillery in Edinburgh that has punched above its weight in premium on-trade placements and international press coverage. Bianchi's fingerprints are on both success stories, making him an unusually apt choice for what TBD is attempting.
Chairman Harvinder Hungin made no secret of what the board was buying when it brought Bianchi in. "Giancarlo's combination of operational and commercial understanding together with international distribution makes him ideally placed to lead the next phase of our development. His proven ability to transform production-led operations and grow branded sales aligns perfectly with our ambitions," Hungin said. The phrase "transform production-led operations" is telling. It's an acknowledgment that the distillery has been, by necessity, defined by what it makes. The next chapter will be defined by how it sells.
King and Bianchi: A Complementary Pairing
The pairing of Bianchi and King reflects a clear-eyed understanding of what TBD actually needs at this juncture. Bianchi brings operational depth, on-the-ground commercial execution, and the specific experience of launching ambitious craft spirits in competitive markets. King brings the global network, the premium brand strategy experience, and the deep-channel knowledge that comes from decades at the highest levels of the international whisky trade. One runs the machine; the other plots the course.
Bianchi commented on the upcoming launch and the significance of the new appointment: "We are about to embark on the launch of our first single malt Scotch whisky, a first from the Scottish Borders since 1837. This uniqueness of origin, combined with the high quality and approachable style of the spirit and an all important accessible price position make it appealing to both new and seasoned consumers. The company is fortunate to be able to tap into David's extensive experience in the premium whisky industry which spans over 30 years in global markets."
The mention of an "accessible price position" is not a throwaway line. It's a deliberate strategic signal. A debut single malt from an unknown region, no matter how good the liquid, faces an immediate credibility barrier in a market where drinkers have been conditioned to equate high price with high quality. Pitching too high risks alienating the very consumers TBD needs to convert into brand loyalists. Pitching at an accessible level invites trial and creates the kind of word-of-mouth velocity that no marketing budget can fully replicate.
What This Launch Means for the Lowlands — and for American Whisky Drinkers
The Scotch Lowlands: An Underdog Region Getting a Second Look
The Scottish Lowlands have historically been the overlooked middle child of Scotch whisky geography, sandwiched between the romantic mystique of the Highlands and Islands and the flavor fireworks of Speyside. But the region has been quietly building momentum. Auchentoshan has long held down the fort, Glenkinchie anchors the Johnnie Walker brand home visitor experience, and a wave of newer craft operations — including Holyrood in Edinburgh — have been refreshing the region's profile with younger drinkers. TBD's single malt, matured for a full eight years and drawing on entirely local barley and mineral-rich water, could be exactly the kind of full-throated arrival the Lowlands needs to force its way into conversations that previously began and ended with Speyside.
Housed in the restored building of a former power station, the distillery produces Single Malt from locally grown barley and mineral-rich water, with the aim of reinterpreting the distinctive character of the Lowlands. That phrase — "reinterpreting the distinctive character of the Lowlands" — suggests the distillery isn't simply trying to replicate the traditional light, grassy, triple-distilled Lowland style. With its long fermentation, heavy copper contact, and varied cask program, TBD appears to be staking out its own stylistic territory within the region's broad boundaries.
The American Angle: Why U.S. Enthusiasts Should Pay Attention
American whiskey drinkers, particularly those who've developed their palate on well-crafted bourbon before exploring Scotch, tend to gravitate toward approachable, fruit-forward, non-peated single malts. The flavor profile TBD has been engineering — malty fruitiness from cloudy wort fermentation, floral notes from copper contact, vanilla and caramel from the ex-Bourbon barrel-dominant maturation program — maps precisely onto what that audience finds compelling. Add an accessible price point and a backstory that's genuinely compelling (nearly two centuries of regional dormancy; an award-winning Victorian building; a farm-to-bottle barley program; eight years of patience), and you have a product that sells itself in the right tasting room environment.
King's years at Berry Bros. & Rudd are particularly relevant here. Berry Brothers has been a key conduit between premium Scotch production and the American fine spirits market for generations, and King's time there would have built exactly the kind of importer and retailer relationships that can open doors for a debut release. His experience at Edrington, where products like The Macallan and Highland Park are sold into every meaningful channel in the U.S. market, rounds out a skill set tailor-made for the mission at hand.
The Long View: Patience as a Competitive Advantage
There's a temptation, when covering a story like this, to frame it purely as a business development narrative — new hires, go-to-market strategy, distribution plans. But the deeper story is about what it means to build something that requires nearly a decade of institutional commitment before a single bottle reaches a shelf. A major problem facing new distilleries is that doing so requires a lot of funding, yet once the big money has been spent and production starts, it is three years before the maturing spirit can be legally called Scotch whisky, even for use in blends. And it can be eight or ten or more years before the spirit is likely to be deemed sufficiently matured to be sold as the distillery's single malt Scotch whisky. This makes setting up a distillery a very long term investment.
TBD's founders understood this from the jump. Founded in 2013 by a group of friends, all veterans of the Scotch whisky industry, who saw something missing — no distillery in the Borders — they were betting on a thirteen-year runway from concept to first single malt in consumers' hands. Every production decision, every cask selection, every Workshop Series experimental release, and every personnel hire has been made with September 2026 as the north star. The appointment of David King is the final piece of that particular puzzle: the right person, with the right contacts, arriving at precisely the right moment.
Hawick has a famous history of manufacturing — it's where cashmere is king and where tweed was invented. There is a spirit of invention and enterprise in the town that inspires everything the distillery does. That's more than marketing copy. Hawick's manufacturing tradition is rooted in doing things properly, taking the time to get it right, and producing goods built to last. In that sense, The Borders Distillery isn't an outlier in its hometown — it's a direct expression of the place.
When that first bottle of Borders single malt reaches a shelf in September 2026, it will carry 189 years of regional absence, eight years of patient maturation, the combined expertise of a leadership team assembled with surgical precision, and the weight of a story that doesn't need any embellishment. For Scotch whisky drinkers who've been paying attention, and for curious bourbon enthusiasts ready to venture into new territory, it's worth clearing some shelf space now.
