Oban is the frontier between the West Highlands and the Islands; the meeting place between land and sea. A perfect, sheltered harbour makes it the principal seaport for the Isles and the capital of the West Highlands. It has a mild, temperate climate, warmed by the Gulf Stream and washed (too often, some might say) by the soft rain that often falls hereabouts. This misty, maritime character, with a background …Read More

The city of Dufftown is a small market town in the heart of Speyside and was founded in 1817 by the fourth Earl of Fife, James Duff. The Earl was a local laird and built Dufftown, initially named Balvenie, to give employment after the Napoleonic Wars. Dufftown Distillery – a converted meal mill – was founded in Speyside in 1896, and still draws its pure water from the same spring. …Read More

In 1811 John and Helen Cumming sited their first still at Cardow Farm on Mannoch Hill, high above the River Spey. At this location, spring water, naturally softened by rising up through a layer of peat, bubbled from the ground. It is alleged that Helen Cumming distilled the first gallon of Cardhu, the only malt whisky to be pioneered by a woman. For many years Helen Cumming produced only the …Read More

Here, lodged far from any neighbour in the small coastal community of Carbost at the head of Loch Harport, is one of the finest yet most remote distilleries of all. It was in 1825 that came here from the smaller island of Eigg, first to bring sheep to Skye, then to bring Skye’s wild spirit to the world. Leasing Macleod land at Carbost, the MacAskills built Talisker Distillery in 1830 …Read More

Islay has been cradle to many things, early Christianity for one. But it is in malt whisky distilling that this fertile island, some twenty miles by twenty-five, has found its modern vocation. Here, in the still mainly Gaelic speaking community around Port Ellen, on the island’s south eastern shores, twelve men today craft pungent, dark Lagavulin™, made on this historic site at least since 1816. The sea has shaped everything …Read More

Glenkinchie lies, as the name might suggest, in a glen of the Kinchie Burn near the village of Pencaitland, East Lothian. It is situated about 15 miles from Edinburgh. The distillery is set in farmland. The name ‘Kinchie’ is a corruption of ‘De Quincy’, the original owners of the land. Its origins date back to around 1825 when it was founded by brothers John and George Rate. The original name …Read More

When the water you start with comes from the highest mountain source of any malt, you expect something rather fine. And Dalwhinnie™, for whisky writer Roger Voss a “surprisingly soft whisky…from Scotland’s highest, most remote distillery”, does not disappoint. The source, Lochan an Doire-Uaine, (Gaelic for “lake in the green grove”), lies at 2,000 feet in the Drumochter Hills. From it, all the pure spring water used in distilling Dalwhinnie™ …Read More