The Clydeside Distillery
The Pump House was built in 1877 by John Morrison, whose firm also built the Queen's Dock it supplied with hydraulic power, and his great-grandson Tim Morrison bought the derelict building back in 2011 and put stills in it.
Why go
Between the dock and the distillery the building had several other lives. Queen's Dock was infilled in 1977 with rubble from the demolition of St Enoch Station, and the redundant Pump House went on to be an Indian restaurant, an Italian restaurant, a contractor's office and the visitor centre for the Tall Ship (Scotchwhisky.com). Morrison Glasgow Distillers bought it in 2011, work started on 1 August 2016 and the first distillation ran on 6 November 2017, with the visitor centre opening seventeen days later. The spirit was designed rather than inherited: the same source records that the company worked with Dr Jim Swan on a light but fruity spirit
deliberately less grassy than a standard Lowland malt. Two stills, eight stainless washbacks, 72-hour fermentations, half a million litres of alcohol a year.
Order this / avoid
- Buy: Stobcross, the house single malt. The annual limited edition is the interesting bottle, and the 2026 one is an eight year old distilled in 2018, raised in bourbon barrels and finished in rye and tequila casks, 580 bottles at 46 per cent with natural colour and no chill filtration (The Clydeside).
- Do: the Whisky Creator tour if you want something to take home, since it puts you in the Blender's Room with four single casks and sends you out with a 200ml bottle you filled. The Distillery Manager tour runs Thursdays at 2pm from April to October for two to six people, hosted by Alistair McDonald.
- Avoid: expecting a warehouse. Maturation happens off site, so the walk here is a production walk. And do not come looking for old whisky, because the first cask went in during November 2017.
What locals & experts say
- Scotchwhisky.com, the category specialist, on what the spirit is meant to be: the company
has worked closely with distilling consultant Dr. Jim Swan to design a 'light but fruity spirit' which is less grassy and malty than other Lowland malts, instead veering toward a spicier Speyside style to reflect Glasgow's past in bringing tobacco and spices to the UK.
1 - The same source on the scale of what was lost: around 40 whisky companies operated out of Glasgow in 1963, and by the 21st century
they had been reduced to just a handful.
1 - The family's own account of how they got into it: in the Grand Central Hotel in 1963 Stanley P. Morrison
overheard rumours that Bowmore Distillery was up for sale - and bought it the very same day.
3 - No independent tasting found. Whisky Magazine and the Scottish drinks desks were searched on 30 July 2026 and nobody citable has published a note on Stobcross or the house style.
Good to know
- Where: 100 Stobcross Road, G3 8QQ, on the river beside the SEC campus and a ten-minute walk from the Finnieston restaurants.
- Timing: doors to 5.30pm. The Whisky Sessions run monthly in the evening and are ticketed separately.
- Money: the standard tour is GBP 19.50 for an hour and three drams. Chocolate and whisky is GBP 39, the Blender's Room tour GBP 90, the manager-hosted one GBP 175.
- Booking: book ahead. The manager's tour caps at six people and runs one afternoon a week in season.
- On site: there is a cafe with its own hygiene registration, and a shop.
- Hygiene: the Food Hygiene Information Scheme records a Pass for the distillery, rating date 18 December 2025, and a Pass for the cafe, rating date 21 December 2022.5
Verdict
should-visit — The best thing here is the building and the reason it is the building. The Pump House was put up in 1877 by John Morrison, who also built the Queen's Dock it powered, and his great-grandson Tim Morrison bought it in 2011 and turned it into the first malt distillery Glasgow had built in decades. Between those two dates it was an Indian restaurant, an Italian restaurant, a contractor's office and a visitor centre for the Tall Ship. The spirit has a real point of view: Dr Jim Swan designed it to run spicier and fruitier than a Lowland malt usually does, as a nod to the tobacco and spice trade the docks were built for, and the kitchen-scale numbers back it up with 72-hour fermentations on eight stainless washbacks. What holds it at worth-the-detour rather than higher is arithmetic. The first cask was filled in November 2017, the casks mature off site so the tour has no warehouse leg, and nobody citable has published a tasting of the whisky. Ten minutes from Finnieston, so the day builds itself.