Proof 8, the modern operating system for the spirits industry, has given Heriot-Watt University’s International Centre for Brewing and Distilling (ICBD) access to its platform so students learn how the spirits industry actually runs today on a modern, connected operating platform.
Students on the centre’s renowned brewing and distilling programmes now work with the same production, maturation and bottling software used by more than 50 distilleries, bonded warehouses and co-packers across the UK, Ireland, the United States, Australia, Canada and South Africa.
The platform went live at the start of the 2026/27 academic year. Students use it to plan and record production, track assets through maturation, and see the analytical progress and results from experimental brews and distillations, rather than learning those disciplines on spreadsheets and paper.
The ICBD is the only centre of its kind in the UK and has been teaching brewing and distilling as a discipline since 1903. Its graduates go into production, maturation and operations roles where digital systems are becoming standard as the spirits industry moves to more transparent and digital-first ways of working. For example, compliant reporting to HMRC, Irish Revenue, the TTB and the ATO, are now increasingly run through software rather than paperwork .
“Distilling graduates would often arrive on site fluent in fermentation and maturation, yet wouldn’t be familiar with the tools distilleries use to run their operations. Coming from a generation that’s been taught with technology from an early age, this jarred with what distilling courses could offer, until now. No course was showing them how forward-thinking spirits businesses adopt systems and transform operations with a platform like Proof 8. Given the direction the industry is moving in, the university and our team wanted to change that,” said Stuart Maxwell, Chief Operating Officer of Proof 8.
“Giving the ICBD the Proof 8 platform means students learn the craft of distilling with a system many of their future employers already use. More than that, they see what connected systems can bring to a traditionally ‘unconnected’ industry like spirits, with new efficiencies, better compliance, more transparent ownership as well as the fluid movement of inventory across partners. They’re now learning the skills they need, alongside the tools the industry now relies on, to give them a step up when it comes to finding their first role.”
Matthew Pauley, ICBD, Heriot-Watt University Assistant Professor of Distilling “Our students graduate into an industry that is digitising quickly, and our job is to prepare them for the distillery they will actually walk into. Having access to the Proof 8 platform means students have hands-on time with an operating system that distilleries and warehouses genuinely depend on today.”
The Proof 8 platform will be used across all distilling courses at the ICBD.
