What is the largest whisky distillery in the world?

You’ve asked a big question and we’ve come back with an even bigger answer. One you can see from space, like Lard Lad from The Simpsons stretching out through the clouds with his doughnut. All mighty with trivia and sprinkles. 

The question is: what is the largest whisky distillery in the world?*

The biggest whisky distillery in the world is…

Glenfidd… nope. People often say Glenfiddich, but that’s not true. Do you know where’s bigger?

Fuji Gotemba.

Well, according to the Japanese whisky distillery, anyway, which claims to be the biggest whisky-making facility in the world. Located in the town of Gotemba on the southeastern flank of Mount Fuji in Shizuoka Prefecture, the site covers a frankly ridiculous. 1.7 million square feet (520,000 square metres). 

But while it can produce an incredible 12 million litres of whiskey a year, Suntory and Nikka do make more whisky per annum (albeit across more than one distillery). 

As does Glenfiddich. So we need to ask ourselves a further question here: what do we mean by the biggest? The largest site, or who makes the most whisky? 

That’s what we’re going to answer in part two: what is the biggest whisky-producing distillery in the world?

What is the biggest whisky-producing distillery in the world?

In single malt Scotch whisky, both Glenfiddich and The Glenlivet make 21,000,000 litres per annum of whisky a year, with The Macallan next with 15,000,000. These are dwarfed by the single grain Scotch whisky production facilities, however. Both Cameronbridge and Girvan create a staggering 110,000,000 litres per annum, with North British rounding off the top three at 72,000,000. Not all production at these facilities is dedicated to whisky, however. Girvan is where Hendrick’s Gin is made, for example, so it’s not easy to work out how much of the 110,000,000 litres per annum made is whisky. 

With a total production capacity of 64,000,000 litres per annum, Midleton Distillery is the largest in Ireland, while North America has some monster whiskey distilleries too. The largest single-site bourbon distillery in America is Heaven Hill, with its most recent expansion increasing production to 80,000,000 litres (for context, that fills 400,000 barrels a year), while The Hiram Walker & Sons Distillery accounts for nearly 70% of all Canadian whisky production, making about 50,000,000 litres a year on its 400-acre property. 

Not everybody is fully transparent about production capacity so this isn’t an easy question to answer. The grain giants of the Lowlands are probably the most productive distilleries that make whisky, but as they also make other spirits we couldn’t call them the biggest whisky-producing distilleries in the world with certainty. 

We do know that Scotland is the largest producer of whisky worldwide. In 2022, Scotland exported 1.35bn billion bottles of Scotch whisky, with over 22,000,000 barrels of whisky currently resting in warehouses across the country.

* These figures are accurate to the best of our knowledge but we are always happy to be corrected, so if any are out of date please contact and we’ll fix that. 

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