The Adelphi Distillery was situated in Glasgow‘s South near Victoria Bridge. It was founded in 1826 by brothers Charles and David Gray who called Adelphi or Loch Katrine Adelphi or Gorbals. The Gorbals distillery was operated by the Grays until 1880, when it was acquired by  A. Walker & Sons who operated distilleries in Liverpool and Limerick. Besides four pot stills they installed a Coffey still to produce grain spirit for blending. The annual output was 2,350,000 l of pure spirit. In 1902 the malt and grain distillery was aquired by Distillers Company (DCL), and by 1907 distilling had been stopped completely. 

Alfred Barnard visited the distillery on his tour through the UnitedKingdom in the 1890‘s: „A ten minutes' walk from our hotel, along Buchanan Street, the finest thoroughfare in Glasgow, and through busy Argyle Street, across the beautiful bridge which spans the Clyde, and we find ourselves at the Adelphi Distillery. Sixty-five years ago the site upon which it stands was a fine orchard, but in 1826 the trees were cut down to make room for the Distillery...

The Distillery Buildings occupy nearly a whole street on bath sides of the war, and, as we approached, presented an appearance of great activity. We entered through a Gothic archway, across a courtyard, to the principal office, where we secured a guide, and set forth upon our tour of inspection.

We first proceeded to the Grain Lofts or Warehouses, buildings of lofty elevation, one of them 112 feet long by 100 feet broad, and another 96 feet long and 20 feet broad, which, with the warehouses at Port Dundas, are capable of storing 15,000 quarters of grain; the delivery of the grain to the various ware houses is accomplished by the aid of steam and hydraulic machinery.

Adjoining the warehouses is the Malting Loft, a building 86 feet by 21 feet. The Steeps here are arranged in German fashion on an upper floor, beneath which the barley is malted in trays, of which there are some thousands, each sliding from out an upright frame fixed to the ceiling, in order that the operator may watch the progress of the acrospire; from this chamber the malt is elevated to the Kiln, which is floored with wire-cloth and heated by hot air.

We next passed to the Malt Deposit, a spacious floor used for this purpose, measuring 50 feet by 22, and placed in close proximity to the Mill. We should here observe that the blocks of buildings four stories high, built on the banks of the canal, containing three barley Boors with steeps, a malting Boor and two kilns, the latter approached by a gangway from the lofts. They are handsome apartments, open roofed, about 60 feet square and floored with iron plates. These kilns are fired with peat in open furnaces.“

Alfred Barnard. The Distilleries of the United Kingdom.

The distillery was dismantled between 1968 and 1971. Today there is an Islamic Centrewhich was built in 1983. The Mosque can accommodate about 2,000 people for service.

The name Adelphi Distillery lives on as „...Scotland’s most acclaimed independent bottler of single casks of rare malt whisky. Jamie Walker, the great-grandson estabished the firm in 1993 which was bought by Keth Falconer and Donald Hosuton in 2004. „Under new ownership, Adelphi continues to bottle straight from the finest casks without colouring or chill filtration.“  They plan to build a distillery in Ardnamurchan. For further information please see www.adelphidistillery.com.

„Adelphi was one of the largest distilleries in Scotland at the time of Barnard’s visit, producing in excess of 500,000 gallons (2.3m litres) per annum and was one of the few producing both malt and grain whisky on the same site. The distillery also had warehouses at Port Dundas and most of its malting was also done there, again emphasising the importance of that area to Glasgow’s distilling history.“ See Whisky Story at www.whiskystory.blogspot.com

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