Glen Ochtan LEGO Distillery
A beautiful harmony of whisky, architecture, and LEGO.
Designed in 2021-2022, this 9,000 piece fully original LEGO model was borne out of my fascination with the history of scotch whisky, paired with my appreciation of modern distillery designs in the US. Glen Ochtan’s name and colors are a nod to LEGO’s in-universe energy company, Octan.
As imagined, Glen Ochtan was built in the shell of a former warehouse, dutifully converted into a functioning malt whisky distillery atop a relatively small footprint. In addition to the malting, mashing, and distillation, the distillery has a barrel warehouse, distillery shop, and even a small rooftop bar for guests to enjoy their drams. The open-air front of the store was inspired by Republic Restoratives, a DC distillery. Other elements were inspired by what I observed during a trip to Scotland, where I visited a number of distilleries on the island of Islay.
The design of Glen Ochtan is not only meant to be decorative, but also can be used as an educational tool- the design is built in such a way that it can be fully disassembled, and features a representation of every major step involved in the distillation process. It is often brought out when I do a tasting for friends and family.
When shared on Reddit in early 2023, the post reached the top of the LEGO subreddit and earned more than 4,000 upvotes.
