Who doesn’t love innovative stills?
The beating copper heart of any whisky distillery. The highlight of any tour. All photogenic curves and Instagrammable gleam… Ok, I might be going overboard here, but whisky nerds get me. Right?
Throughout the years, a handful of trailblazers have messed with tradition in the best possible way. Whether it’s bending the laws of reflux, fiddling with lyne arms, or building something entirely mad out of columns and copper, some stills show what happens when whisky-makers break the mould.
The ten featured here do exactly that. Here are ten of the most innovative stills in the game.
Top 10 most innovative stills in whisky
Loch Lomond makes malt whisky on its unique still, but don’t call it single malt…
Loch Lomond’s straight-neck pot still
Call it a pot still, call it a column in disguise, but Loch Lomond’s straight-necked stills with rectifying plates are both unique and absurdly versatile. They can produce a multitude of styles under one roof, including peated and unpeated malt and everything in between. It’s like a Swiss Army knife made of copper.
Ever seen 24 small copper pot stills in a distillery before?
Stauning’s tiny direct-fired stills
These squat, flame-kissed stills are tiny by design. Originally, the size was a reflection of the small space of the first distilleries the brand worked from, but the spirit it produced was of such quality that by the time Stauning was ready for a large, purpose-built distillery, it kept the design. Fired directly (a method long since abandoned by most), these tiny stills create a spirit with loads of fat, meaty complexity and look like they belong in a witch’s cottage. And we love them for it.
Mortlach has an unusual distillation process
Mortlach’s ‘2.81 distillation’
The weirdest maths in whisky. Mortlach uses six stills in a unique configuration that distils different fractions at different stages, resulting in a final spirit distilled an average of 2.81 times. It’s alchemy by spreadsheet – and it creates that famous ‘Beast of Dufftown’ character: weighty, sulphury, rich. Their smallest still – the Wee Witchie – is key to the operation, recycling specific cut points like a copper goblin stirring the pot.
For extra credit: Benrinnes also used a partial triple distillation (2.7-ish times) until 2007, before quietly abandoning the madness.
Fettercairn and its cooling ring
In a moment of either mad genius or divine condensation, Fettercairn added a copper ring around the neck of its stills that literally showers them with water during distillation. This encourages reflux by cooling the upper part of the still, driving heavier compounds back down and allowing only lighter vapours to make the cut. It’s unconventional, visually theatrical, and utterly effective – like a rain machine for flavour.
Chita has great production flexibility. Image Credit: Japanese in Whisky Galore
Chita Distillery’s continuous still madness
Chita is Suntory’s grain whisky workhorse, but there’s wizardry under the hood. It operates a 30-metre-tall, four-column still, capable of producing three distinct styles of grain whisky depending on the configuration: two columns for heavy, three for medium, and all four for the lightest, cleanest distillate. It’s a precision-engineered chemical plant disguised as a distillery and an essential backbone of Hibiki and other blends.
InchDairnie models itself as “an ingenious new whisky distillery”
InchDairnie’s Lomond-hybrid still
Scotland’s modernist malt distillery boasts a bespoke Lomond-style still with a rectifying head and horizontal shell-and-tube condenser. Designed for maximum flavour control, it lets InchDairnie dial in everything from Lowland lightness to Campbeltown funk. A still with serious range and a sign that the future of Scotch might be stainless steel and sensors, not cobwebs and sherry butts.
Founder Annabel Thomas at Nc’Nean Distillery
Nc’nean’s ultra-efficient stills
Nc’nean’s setup is built for low-waste, high-flavour output. Their stills are custom-tweaked to operate within a closed-loop water system, recovering energy from the wash heat and drastically reducing water and fuel use. It’s green, clean, and precise.
Kavalan’s rapid-cool condensers
Taiwan’s climate is a double-edged sword for whisky production. The hot, humid nature accelerates the effect of ageing but needs to be carefully managed. Kavalan fought back by fitting its stills with cold copper condensers that shock-cool the vapour, preserving complexity and preventing over-evaporation. It’s basically cryotherapy for new make.
Teerenpeli Whisky is made from Finnish barley, and the stills account for this
Teerenpeli factoring in Finnish barley
Finland’s Teerenpeli runs Forsyths-built pot stills, but they’ve been subtly adapted for colder-climate grain. With higher heat input and longer distillation cycles, the stills coax out the delicate sweetness and minerality of local Finnish barley. It’s a masterclass in terroir-aware distillation, proving that thoughtful adaptation beats brute force.
The pot stills were imported from Scotland by Ichiro Akuto’s father
Chichibu’s alchemical tweaks
Ichiro Akuto’s Chichibu doesn’t settle. From unusually short lyne arms to customised worm tubs, everything in this distillery is dialled in for complexity and intensity. The team constantly experiments with still charges, flow rates, and condensation tweaks, nudging the spirit into ever stranger and more beautiful territory. It’s like watching jazz musicians improvise with heat and copper.
The famous Fettercairn cooling rings
The Last Drop: Top 10 most innovative stills in whisky
Creativity in whisky stills isn’t about looking fancy. It’s about shaping flavour, efficiency, sustainability, and versatility. These pioneering setups prove that copper curves still have plenty of tricks left up their sleeve.
Have we missed any unusually innovative stills or distillation set-ups here? Let us know in the comments – especially if they involve fire, Frankenstein engineering, or the kind of still that looks like it shouldn’t legally be plugged in.
