2nd Whisky Era -- John Gardner (1883 -- 1893)
After the death of George Donald, the tenancy past to John Gardner who was the son of a former mayor of Liverpool. He seems to have invested heavily in the plant and machinery of the distillery and even installed a steam engine to supplement the water power.
It was during the Gardner era that the legendary (and probably first ever) whisky writer, Alfred Barnard, visited Annandale Distillery as part of his tour of whisky distilleries of the United Kingdom. Much of what we know about the whisky making process at Annandale Distillery has been gleaned from Barnard's book (The Whisky Distilleries of the United Kingdom).
Of particular interest, is Barnard's comment that: "The malt is raised by elevators to the Kiln at the end of the Maltings, which is floored with wire cloth and heated with peat." The peat may have been dug from the local peat moss at Creca. At the time of Barnard's survey, there were 3 other distilleries operating in Southern Scotland (Glen Tarras, Langholm and Bladnoch). Of these, Barnard is quite specific that Annandale and Bladnoch both used peat to dry their malted barley. Unfortunately he makes no comment about the others. None-the-less, this alone provides compelling evidence that two of the major Lowland Single Malt Scotch whiskies of that time would have been smoky/phenolic in character. This hopefully dismisses the myth that Lowland malts are characteristically light in style. They may be now but they weren't always so!
Two styles of whisky are planned for Annandale. The first of these will be smoky/phenolic, although beyond this, the precise character is still to be determined.
Going back to Gardner it seems that his son Edward may have been something of a bon viveur and was reportedly very obese. Sadly, he died at the very early age of 29 in 1887 of 'fatty heart syncope'! Gardner himself died/left the Distillery a few years later, passing the lease onto John Walker & Sons Ltd. of Kilmarnock (Johnnie Walker).