'The Still' at Marshall's Farm Shop & Kitchen
An expansive retail collection of Scotch whisky, local gins and ales demanded a suitably impressive setting — and Lethenty Cabinetmakers were happy to oblige.
Located just south of Inverurie, Marshall's Farm Shop & Kitchen are a popular and thriving rural business in Aberdeenshire, offering customers 'the taste of the country' — with best of local produce and fine food & drink on their plentiful shelves.
With a distinct budget and timeframe to work within, and a requirement that quality, hardwearing materials be used to ensure longevity in a busy retail environment, we got to work designing a structure that could sit within their large premises and house hundred of bottles in an attractive manner, with specific areas for rare (and valuable) bottles to be displayed behind glass for safekeeping.
Above all else, this needed to be an installation that met the standards of quality, integrity and good craftsmanship that Marshall's were and are known for.
For 'The Still', we used solid Oak and steel to support the heavy roof structure, and copper for some of the decorative detailing. These choices were both inspired by traditional distillery stills, and the very top of 'The Still' features a scale replica of a traditional copper clad distillery ventilator.
The Oak used for the rafters and supporting pillars came from a 225 year old Oak tree from Drum Castle, Aberdeenshire. The wood was hand-finished in high quality Osmo oil to allow refinishing in future years.
The tree used began its life in 1789, so we always refer to it as the 'French Revolution' Oak. (Incidentally, we've still got some boards left if anyone wants to commission some revolutionary furniture...)
'The Still's eight rafters were constructed with a steel core, designed to be bolted to an octagonal steel king post finial. After some careful geometry, this meant we could assemble the roof structure one rafter at a time.
The vertical slats that clad the exterior have a gently curved outer face and each one is individually recessed into a mortice cut in every shelf and fixed in place with a hand hammered copper rivet.
Installation day arrived — and our nerves were just about holding up — but the weeks of meticulous measurements and careful design paid off, and the whole structure fitted together with millimetre precision.
Features:
Solid Oak and Steel — wood sourced from Drum Castle, Aberdeenshire
Copper details — design inspired by distillery stills
Shelving to house hundreds of bottles, including rare editions
Hand-finished with Osmo oil
