A malt distillery built within a grain plant, Ailsa Bay is based in the Lowlands at the Girvan Distillery complex, and is owned by William Grant & Sons. It was established in 2007, originally with 12 washbacks and eight stills, though soon enough it was expanded, with 12 more washbacks and eight more stills joining the party. Though the site is usually used to produced unpeated whisky for use in Grant’s whisky blends, peated whisky is also produced there, and this is the stuff you’ll see in bottles of Ailsa Bay. The distillery is a playground for master blender Brian Kinsman to test out innovative ideas, through isolating and controlling certain elements throughout the production process. After eight years of production, Ailsa Bay's first official bottling as a single malt was a no-age-statement heavily peated whisky, released in 2016.