Meet The Golf Caddie Who Launched A New Whisky Empire In Scotland

19.12.2023 - 15:59 / forbes.com

Kingsbarns Distillery is the brainchild of Scottish golf caddie Douglas Clement. As a long-time caddie at Kingsbarns Links in the East Neuk of Fife in Scotland, Clement was constantly entertaining wealthy golfers who visited from all over the world to play Golf at St Andrews. His clients always wanted to go to a distillery for whisky tasting during their visit but there was nothing nearby, so he began to form a plan.

Turning his dream into reality was a labor of love for the young caddie, born in St Andrews and brought up on a farm near Anstruther. During the 80s, Clement had often visited a derelict 18th century farm on the Cambo Estate which he had always considered the perfect location for a distillery just a few miles from St. Andrews. From its conception in 2009, it took five years for the idea to be formed into a full operational whisky distillery.

Initially Clement raised £100,000 from 15 investors, many of them golfers Clement knew. He spent another two years fundraising, as well as a Scottish government grant of £670,000, though he still was well short of the amount of money needed to actually build the distillery. Unable to reach his target alone, Clement ended up selling the business to Wemyss Distillery Ltd, which is owned by the Wemyss family, founders of independent bottler Wemyss Malts in 2013. Six months later building had begun on the distillery, which was operational by the end of 2014.

I recently visited Kingsbarns and spoke with Clement and William Wemyss at length about turning a young caddie’s dream into a successful reality.

“I always loved this location overlooking the golf course, because it had been derelict for 20 years,” said Clement. “And when I was a small boy, it used to be a petting zoo, farm shop and cafe. So I used to go there as a kid and I loved playing there. When the idea of the distillery came about, I approached the owner of that site who agreed on a lease pending successful planning and raising the money. In 2009, I formed the company, the Kingsbarns Company of Distillers and managed to get around 15 investors. I had many rejections trying to raise money. And then in 2012, I decided to focus on independent bottlers such as Wemyss, who were finding it difficult now to source whiskies for their independent bottling.”

William Wemyss was on the lookout to buy a single malt distillery, “Fife was our home county, so the location resonated with us,” he said. “And we liked the idea of the proximity to the Old Course and the combo of single malt scotch and golf. We thought that was a pretty compelling sell. I think it was before when Glenmorangie signed their deal to be spirit of the Open, which was driven very much by the US market. That was about the same time we got