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Family Business Provides The World’s First Climate Positive Gin


Arbikie Highland Estate is a 400-year-old family farming business based on Scotland’s sunny east coast. In 2014, the Stirling brothers opened the Arbikie Distillery on the Estate with a plan to combine the best of farming and traditional distilling with innovation. Over the last few years, it has become clear that the focus is to make Arbikie one of the world’s most sustainable distilleries. They have a clear mission to become the global leader in a new category of single-estate, field-to-bottle, sustainable spirits.


Arbikie is involved in a number of climate-related projects, from partnering with ecoSPIRITS to remove single-use glass bottles from their supply chain, to implementing hydrogen as part of the UK Government’s Green Distillery competition. The aim is to deliver a zero-carbon distillery which can be replicated across the distillation industry and highlight the opportunities for the acceleration of the hydrogen economy.


All of their practices are based on a sustainable ethos built on four key principles:


AUTHENTICITY – Arbikie Distillery is a genuine field to bottle operation. From start to finish, all our spirits are distilled on-site and retain the evocative taste of our unique environment.


SUSTAINABLITY – We grow our own crops. We use our own water. We grow our own juniper and botanicals. We are expanding our use of solar energy. Our primary waste products are recycled as cattle feed, or used as a natural fertiliser.


TRACEABILITY – Every crop used to make our spirits can be traced to its field of origin. Our distillery conducts every stage of production possible on-site.


INNOVATION – Our mission is to set new standards in the industry with the aim to be the first climate positive distillery in the world.


As Iain Stirling, Director of Arbikie explains, "In terms of innovation, we focused on distilling the world’s first climate-positive spirits with Nàdar Gin and Vodka in 2020 by distilling peas to create a base spirit that removes 1.54kg of CO2e from the atmosphere. This was achieved following years of research by our Master Distiller and plant scientist, Kirsty Black."


“As a family business we value our connection with others so please reach out if you would like more information on our business ahead of COP26 and beyond,” he concludes.

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