Slainte Mhath! David Prior’s Bladnoch scotch the toast of Prince Charles

David Prior’s modern take on whisky doesn’t ignore the heritage of Scotland’s greatest gift to the world, earning a royal nod from Prince Charles.

Prince Charles isn’t one to mince his words, famously branding a proposed National Gallery extension as a “monstrous carbuncle”.

Fortunately, Melbourne-born and based entrepreneur David Prior didn’t receive similar feedback when the future king sampled some of his Bladnoch whisky.

Almost everyone, except wife Sallie, thought Prior was mad when he sank half his net worth – about $40m – into a mothballed scotch distillery in 2015.

Now, seven years later, the Australian businessman has received the ultimate vindication: royal endorsement.

Prior has given the 200-year-old distillery a modern twist to attract younger whisky drinkers – something Prince Charles bristles at when it comes to architecture.

But so impressed was Charles with Prior’s work reviving Bladnoch, that the distillery was recognised in The Queen’s Awards for Enterprise in the UK this year.

Prince Charles presented Prior the award at Buckingham Palace, noting that Bladnoch was now exported to more than 50 countries and overseas sales soared 140 per cent in the past four years.

“He does like a dram and he doesn’t like to say too much but he did say it was very nice,” Prior said of his brush with royalty.

Prior first met Prince Charles and his wife, Camilla, in September 2019. The royal couple agreed to open Bladnoch’s visitor centre, which is about a 90-minute drive from Dumfries House, which a consortium led by the prince bought for £45m in 2007.

“That’s one of the reasons why he accepted our invitation, which was the preservation aspect of bringing an old distillery back to life in the region,” Prior said.

“They’ve got Dumfries house, which he also restored, so it (Bladnoch) really aligned with them.

“They had a great tour and really enjoyed the Bladnochs, so we laid down a cask for them. That’s there whenever they come and visit again.”

Prince Charles tours the Bladnoch Distillery with owner David Prior. Picture: Lenny Warren.

Prior said that in the three years since that first visit, the distillery’s business had “really started to take shape”.

“We have hit our earnings target this year, which was $7m and we’re on track to deliver $12m in earnings next year,” he said.

“Bladnoch is often sold out before it ships from the distillery, particularly in Australia, the US, China, and then Germany and Israel. They‘ve stabilised as our top five markets.”

Bladnoch was a big bet for Prior. After selling his organic yoghurt start-up five:am for $80m, he bought the distillery from administration, investing about half the proceeds from five:am.

He then found he needed to pour in another $10m into Bladnoch’s tumbledown infrastructure.

“I think everyone thought I was a little bit mad, except my wife. Maybe she hasn’t told me the truth,” Prior joked.

To get Bladnoch back into production, he immediately launched a blended product “Pure Scot” and hired former Carlton & United Breweries boss John Murphy to help revive the brand. Then, as production under Prior’s watch began to age sufficiently, he set about launching a range of single malts.

Just as things were humming along, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and pandemic supply chain crunches set grain prices and input costs soaring.

David Prior enjoys a dram of Bladnoch whisky at his Melbourne home in Toorak. Picture: David Geraghty

“Everything: barley, glass costs, cardboard for the shippers, everything has gone up hugely in price,” Prior said.

“Lead times have gone from on average six weeks packaging to, in many cases, six months, sometimes more. So it’s been horrendous and honestly not really improving at this stage and your ability to put the price up in the market … you can’t just keep reflecting that to your shell prices. It just doesn’t work that way.”

But it’s not all doom. Prior also sees an opportunity, particularly after China imposed punitive 80 per cent tariffs on Australian-grown barley.

“There are no regulations around the use of Australian barley – we could use it for all of our Bladnoch if we could get it in the right quantities, into Scotland in a timeline that suits production,” Prior said.

“We have been actually speaking to some barley growers here (in Australia) so it’s something we are looking at, at the moment. Certainly with the prices in Europe at the moment, getting barley from Australia is definitely on the agenda.”