The Ladyburn distillery was founded in 1966 by William Grant and Sons Ltd. The whisky distillery sits on the same site as the grain distillery, Girvan; in fact, Ladyburn was not so much a new distillery, rather the addition of a further two sets of stills in a corner at the same complex. The two distilleries not only share a site, but also a place in Grant’s blended Scotch. Ladyburn single malt whisky is rather rare, in stark contrast to its illustrious William Grant-owned siblings, Balvenie and Glenfiddich.
The Ladyburn stills were operational for a less than a decade, closing as they did in 1975. They were subsequently dismantled in 1976. Ladyburn whisky is sometimes bottled under the name Ayrshire. Ladyburn drew its cooling waters from the Penwapple Reservoir. The reasoning behind the Ladyburn distillery was in part down to William Grant’s rather brave new stance with their flagship distillery, Glenfiddich. Rather than competing directly with the host of blended products that had long since saturated the market when Glenfiddich first came into being, Glenfiddich was released as a single malt.
There was some speculation whether this venture would work and it was necessary for there to be staple blended products to fall back on. Consequently, the Girvan complex came into being. Girvan also produced grain whisky and bottled a single grain whisky, namely Black Barrel.