The Three Stills Company was founded in 2013 by John Fordyce, Tony Roberts, George Tait, and Tim Carlton, who had previously worked for William Grant & Sons (see 'Glenfiddich'). All four founders are actively involved in the company's operations, with capital sourced from Scottish investment funds and private equity from France and Latin America. Unusually, the company secured £10 million in funding before even applying for planning permission, which was not granted until the end of 2015. Hawick was the obvious choice: the town's resources stem from tweed and cashmere manufacturing, with woolen mills requiring abundant water and good transportation—just like a distillery. The distillery's building is located in the town center. Constructed in the late 1880s by Hawick Electric Company, it later became the headquarters of the renowned engineering firm Turnbull & Scott. The building itself is listed as historically significant and was somewhat mysteriously described as 'Elizabethan style.' According to CEO Tim Carlton, when The Three Stills Company moved in, the building had been abandoned for many years. They took time to preserve all its historic features, ensuring that 'the building's past would forever be part of its future.' Construction of the distillery began in August 2016, with the hope of commencing production by mid-2017, but changes in licensing laws delayed this until 2018. This production delay gave the owners the opportunity to invest an additional £3 million to install anaerobic digestion facilities that convert production by-products into biogas to power the distillery.

Between 1818-1819, there was a licensed distillery operating in Hawick. The last distillery in the Borders region closed in 1837. In 2013, Three Sixty Group launched a standard Scotch whisky brand called Clan Fraser, which found success in overseas markets, particularly in the Middle East, South Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean. The name was chosen to commemorate the connection between the Fraser clan and the Borders region, where family members lived in the 12th and 13th centuries before migrating north to Inverness and Aberdeenshire. In addition to blended Scotch whisky, Borders Distillery also produces Borders Gin based on local botanicals. Hawick locals are called 'Teries' after their battle cry at the Battle of Flodden: 'teribus ye teri odin' or 'teribus an teriodin'. According to Wikipedia, this may be a string of meaningless syllables. The local dialect is called 'teri talk', preserving many elements of Old English along with specific vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation.