Name: Bell's Decanter
Brand: Bell's
SKU: 1030170
Price: 25 GBP
Availability: SoldOut

Bell's Decanter sold for £25 in Just Whisky's June 2022 auction. A superbly crafted porcelain decanter finished in 22 Carat Gold, contains Bell's 12…

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As you’re reading this blog and are possibly a customer of Just Whisky Auctions, it’s a fair assumption that you’ve visited more than a few distilleries and taken their tour.

That being the case, your guide almost certainly paused to point out the malt mill. More often than not, it’s a Porteus mill, though you might see the occasional Boby and even the odd Buhler mill.

But if it’s painted in a distinctive, unshowy shade of dark red then what you looked at was a Porteus mill (we’ll come back to the Boby mills shortly).  They’re sturdy little things, standing four-square in the mill room, ready to receive another load of malt, quiet occupants of an unobtrusive corner of the distillery that just get on with their job in a modest and understated way.

If the guide didn’t pause and point it out, a Porteus mill would never shout or draw attention to itself, you feel; happy to do an honest day’s work and then await the next consignment of malt to be turned to grist.

At this point, your guide quite probably explained that the mill was quite old and that the Porteus firm had gone out of business, outlived by the durability and simple excellence of a product so good and so enduring that it broke the company.

So well made that they required relatively little maintenance and with little or no demand for new machines both Porteus and Boby closed down many years ago.  They were outlived by their equipment and undone by the slump in whisky production of the 1970s and 80s and the ruthless consolidation of the brewing industry, meaning fewer and fewer small independent breweries.  Sadly, quite a few mills will have been scrapped which, until recently, hasn’t been a problem.

But it’s worth taking a closer look at these tough and functional looking machines and, if you do, there’s a good chance you’ll see a modest plaque somewhere on the side carrying a telephone number and the name Ronnie Lee.

Some years ago I noticed this on Jura and then, shortly afterwards, at Tobermory distillery and then again at a number of Speyside distilleries. So I began asking various guides ‘Who is this Ronnie Lee?’  No one knew – but as soon as I asked some real production people (as opposed to the friendly guides who for the most part are essentially a PR front and equipped with a marketing script) the pieces of a fascinating story fell quickly into place.

Well it turns out that, in a world of tattooed, bearded Brand Ambassadors with their hipster tweed caps, and rock-star Distillery Managers who jet from whisky show to whisky show, Ronnie Lee is a quiet hero. Yet he doesn’t give master classes, doesn’t blog and he’s definitely not part of the fashionable crowd that increasingly follow whisky these days.  But he – together, these days with son Gareth - are the men who mends the mills.  And, if you think about it, without their expertise there would be no whisky.

Working from their modest base near Chepstow, they run Euro Mechanical Engineering working as freelance millwrights.  As such, they spend most of their working days life in maintaining, servicing and, on occasion, restoring Porteus and Boby mills for the brewing and distilling industry.

Their surroundings are as far removed from whisky’s new image of sophistication, glamour and luxury as you might conceivably imagine, yet they carry out vital work as one of an elite group of engineers who keep these vintage machines in working order. Unsung and unheralded, they are essential to the smooth and effective operation of much of the distilling industry, here and internationally.

In fact, they work for Diageo, Chivas Brothers, Glenmorangie, Highland Distillers and Ian MacLeod Distillers, as well as a number of independent breweries and distilleries as far flung as Sweden, Italy and even the USA. If you want a vintage malt mill, or need one restored, Ronnie Lee is the man you call.

And that brings us to a fascinating twist in the story.  Some years ago, Ronnie acquired all the plans for the Boby mill when that firm closed down. With access to that unique archive, it was Euro Mechanical Engineering’s proud boast that, in theory, they could build a brand new Boby-style mill from scratch based on the original blueprints but updated for greater efficiency and cleaner running.

But why would you, when the originals have a working life of a century or more? Well, basically, they are desperately hard to find and with new distilleries and small breweries being built at an unprecedented pace, there’s a need for equipment of established high quality with a proven heritage.  Even the shiniest of new state-of-the-art distilleries may be discreetly supplied by a 50 or 60 year old machine which, come to think of it, is something quite amazingly heart-warming. But there just aren’t enough to go around.

And so it has come to pass that a new Boby mill has indeed been built and is now heading off to its eventual home in a soon-to-be-opened whisky distillery (which is another story, which we’ll come to in a moment).

The mill, of 4-5 tons capacity, is the product of 12 month’s work by Ronnie and Gareth Lee. The original design has been improved, Gareth telling me that while the exterior closely resembles an old-style Boby, the gears have been done away with, the roller bearings switched to a spherical shape and a double-edged synchronized belt fitted. If, like me, that’s double Dutch to you, I’m assured it means cleaner running (no oil), greater energy efficiency and potentially faster running speeds if desired by the operator. Everything has been built from the ground up with a local foundry providing custom-made castings for the bearings, which were then hand finished by Gareth.

But who has commissioned this work and where is this marvel of skillfully modernized vintage engineering to be found? Let’s hear it for the new owners, the family-owned and independent Ian Macleod Distillers, well-known for their Glengoyne and Tamdhu single malts, the imaginative reopening of Rosebank and their Edinburgh Gin brand.  They are also partners in the proposed Laggan Bay project which, if everything goes to plan, will be Islay’s twelfth distillery.

So the Boby is destined for a Hebridean home? Well, no. In fact, it is travelling around 4,000 miles to Una, a town in the southwestern Himachal Pradesh state in northern India where Macleod Distillers are currently building on a greenfield site.  The distillery, expected to be operational later this year, is designed to produce around 1.0m litres of spirit annually of Indian whisky.

Beyond that, Ian Macleod were tight-lipped though my own lengthy on-line research turned up an Environmental Impact report from the Himachal Pradesh State Pollution Control Board.  From that very comprehensive document we learn that “The project proposes to produce Malt Spirit, part of it matured for at least 2 years and above years for supplies to IMFL [that’s Indian-Made Foreign Liquor] industry for blending in various proportions and part of the matured malt spirit will be matured for more than 3 years to be called as Whisky under International norms and bottled as Indian Single Malt whisky for the Indian and export market”.   Indian Single Malt Whisky from Ian Macleod Distillers – that’s something not yet widely reported and quite a feather in the cap of relatively small independent Scottish distillers.

According to the report, the total cost is approximately £5m – quite the bargain by UK standards. 
Naturally I enquired as to the price of the mill and naturally, and quite correctly, Gareth Lee would not be drawn into the specifics. But he did hint that if you wanted one for your project you could expect to wait some 12 months or so (they’re busy) and expect to write a cheque for rather more than  £100,000.

So this is a mill that grinds slowly but is exceeding fine; evidently a labour of love and a source of great pride – and why not, because as Gareth assured me, “it will be working long after I’m in the ground.”  I wonder if in fifty or more years curious visitors will be regaled with the story – I certainly hope so.

Their surroundings are as far removed from whisky’s new image of sophistication, glamour and luxury as you might conceivably imagine

In our inaugural Blog entry, Guest writer Ian Buxton explores the seemingly unglamorous distillery mill. The unsung hero of whisky distilleries.

The Distillery Mill

Historical

We've compiled a list of codes to make it easy to find out what whisky is inside each bottle from the Scotch Malt Whisky Society. The first digits relate to the distillery, and the numbers after the dot (.) relate to the number of the release, from that distillery. Sometimes you'll see a letter preceding both -that relates to the type of liquid in the bottle, for example a "G" means it's a Grain whisky.

SMWS Bottle Codes

Useful Info

We're excited to partner with Rothes Sports Development Group this month to raise money for a great cause. The charity was formed in 2025 to enchance local health, welfare and sporting opportunities in and around Rothes, Moray.

Rothes Sports Development Charity Auction

In this intriguing piece, Gavin D. Smith delves into the relationship between taxes and the Scotch Whisky industry.

1823 EXCISE ACT

A superbly crafted porcelain decanter finished in 22 Carat Gold, contains Bell's 12 years old Deluxe Scotch Whisky. This Decanter is in celebration of the ancient Chinese astrology - Year Of The Monkey.

Bell's Decanter Year of the Monkey

Official

Bell's

Highlands

Full Size

bells_decanter_year_of_the_monkey.jpg

75 cl

Year of the Monkey

Bell's Decanter

bells_decanter_year_of_the_monkey9b15d6.webp

bells_decanter_year_of_the_monkeybde8c0.webp

jack_daniels_bicentennial_1796_1996.jpg

70 cl

Tennessee Bicentinnial Bottle (Incl Certificates)

Jack Daniel's

jack_daniels_bicentennial_1796_1996286440.webp

jack_daniels_bicentennial_1796_1996dee62e.webp

pointers_celtic_fc_european_cup_winners_1967.jpg

Celtic F.C. European Cup Winners 1967

Pointers

pointers_celtic_fc_european_cup_winners_1967e58954.webp

pointers_celtic_fc_european_cup_winners_19675684fc.webp

bells_decanter_christmas_2004_scottish_inventors_series_no4.jpg

Christmas 2004 Scottish Inventors Series No.4 | John Logie Baird

bells_decanter_christmas_2004_scottish_inventors_series_no47cc99e.webp

bells_decanter_christmas_2004_scottish_inventors_series_no4ce6f8d.webp

caol_ila_25_years_old.jpg

Caol Ila 25 Years Old

caol_ila_25_years_olddf2e4f.webp

caol_ila_25_years_old2a3325.webp

strathclyde_30_years_old_1990_single_cask_douglas_laings_xop.jpg

51.2%

Douglas Laing's XOP

Strathclyde 30 Years Old 1990 Single Cask

strathclyde_30_years_old_1990_single_cask_douglas_laings_xop695a21.webp

strathclyde_30_years_old_1990_single_cask_douglas_laings_xop7a7798.webp

glenburgie_glenlivet_26_years_old_1992_cadenheads_authentic_cask_strength_collection.jpg

50.2%

Cadenhead's Authentic Cask Strength Collection

Glenburgie-Glenlivet 26 Years old 1992

glenburgie_glenlivet_26_years_old_1992_cadenheads_authentic_cask_strength_coll_gMfM3kr.webp

glenburgie_glenlivet_26_years_old_1992_cadenheads_authentic_cask_strength_coll_xJIiSEq.webp

daftmill_2008_winter_batch_release_2020.jpg

Winter Batch Release 2020

Daftmill 2008

daftmill_2008_winter_batch_release_2020a7e2b1.webp

daftmill_2008_winter_batch_release_2020d23c42.webp

ardnamurchan_ad0421_paul_launois_release.jpg

57.6%

Paul Launois Release

Ardnamurchan AD/04:21

ardnamurchan_ad0421_paul_launois_releasebef7b3.webp

ardnamurchan_ad0421_paul_launois_release8caf6d.webp

springbank_18_years_old_2020_release.jpg

2020 Release

Springbank 18 Years Old

springbank_18_years_old_2020_releasecc79a9.webp

springbank_18_years_old_2020_release352ee3.webp

daftmill_2008_winter_batch_release_202031581e.webp

daftmill_2008_winter_batch_release_202029a5f1.webp

macallan_edition_no5.jpg

48.5%

Macallan Edition No.5

macallan_edition_no557727f.webp

Bell's Decanter

Specifications

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Bell's Decanter

Bell's Decanter

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Bidders also considered

Jack Daniel's

Pointers

Bell's Decanter

Bell's Decanter

Specifications

OriginScotland, Highlands

Similar Bell's results

Bell's Decanter

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Bidders also considered

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Bell's Decanter