Dalwhinnie Distillery

Dal­whin­nie dis­tillery, in Scot­land, pro­duces Sin­gle malt Scotch whisky, clas­si­fied among the High­land Sin­gle Malts. The dis­tillery was founded with the name of the town it is near, Strath­spey, in the late 1890s. The site was cho­sen for its access to clear spring water from Lochan-Doire-Uaine and abun­dant peat from the sur­round­ing bogs. Set in splen­did moun­tain scenery, Dal­whin­nie is the high­est dis­tillery in Scot­land. The name Dal­whin­nie means meet­ing place, which refers to the meet­ing of ancient cat­tle drovers’ routes through the mountains.

In 1897, John Grant, George Sel­lar and Alexan­der Macken­zie founded the Strath­spey dis­tillery. Pro­duc­tion started in 1898 but unfor­tu­nately the soci­ety was bank­rupt the same year. The dis­tillery was sold to A.P. Blyth in 1898 for his son who renamed it Dal­whin­nie. Later, in 1905, the Amer­i­can Cook & Bern­heimer took con­trol over the dis­tillery. The Amer­i­can dis­tiller was look­ing for malts to pro­duce blended whiskies for the Amer­i­can mar­ket. This is the very first Amer­i­can invest­ment in the Scotch whisky indus­try. The Amer­i­can adven­ture con­tin­ued until the pro­hi­bi­tion in the United States in 1920, and the dis­tillery returned to the Scot­tish fold by the buy­ing up by Lord James Calder, share­holder of Mac­Don­ald Green­lees, a whisky blender. After Mac­Don­ald Green­lees has been taken over by the Dis­tillers Com­pany Lim­ited, Dal­whin­nie became part of another blenders group, James Buchanan, famous for his Black & White blended whisky.

A fire in 1934 stopped pro­duc­tion for 3 years, and the reopen­ing in 1938 was short-lived because the sec­ond world war brought restric­tions on the sup­ply of bar­ley. Since reopen­ing in 1947, the dis­tillery has con­tin­ued to oper­ate through to the present day, although on-site malt­ing ceased in 1968.

Dal­whin­nie has became famous world­wide because it is mar­keted by its own­ers, United Dis­tillers, under their Clas­sic Malts brand, launched in 1988. Despite this, only 10% of the pro­duc­tion is mar­keted as sin­gle malt, the remain­ing being used in the Black & White blends.