Ardmore Distillery

Ard­more dis­tillery was founded in 1898, on the East­ern edge of Spey­side at Ken­neth­mont. Just one year after it was built, the whisky mar­ket col­lapsed due to over sup­ply but Ard­more sur­vived. This was mainly due to the fact that it was built as part of a major expan­sion pro­gramme for the company’s blended whiskies, in order to main­tain malt sup­plies for prod­ucts like the Teach­ers’ High­land Cream.

The orig­i­nal dis­tillery was built with two stills and two more were built in 1955. By 1974 it had eight stills. The stills are still coal-fired. The steam engine, boiler-front and other relics of the orig­i­nal dis­tillery have been pre­served. Ard­more is one of the largest malt whisky dis­tillers in Scot­land, and it also houses exten­sive research laboratories.

Ard­more is from the Gaelic word, Ard-moi, which means ‘big-slope’. Now it is oper­ated by Allied Dis­tillers Ltd, a part of Allied Domecq. The water is taken from a spring on Knockandy Hill.

In 2002 Ard­more was one of the last dis­til­leries in Scot­land to switch from coal fir­ing (direct heat­ing) to steam heat­ing (indirect).