Dailuaine Distillery
Carron, Aberlour
Banffshire
AB38 7RE
+44 1340 810 361
Owner: Diageo
Creation date: 1852
William Mackenzie founded the Dailuaine distillery in 1852, 21 years before the "Strathspey Railway" was build. This new railway would facilitate the transport of whisky.
When William died, the distillery has been rent out until his son, Thomas was able to run the distillery in 1879.
Thomas refurbished Dailuaine and made it one of the most important distilleries of the area.
Like many other distilleries in those days, the name "Glenlivet" has been added to its name, just before joining Talisker to become "Dailuaine-Talisker Distilleries Ltd." in 1898.
Later Thomas build a new distillery, Imperial.
Things wen very well up to the crisis years at the end of the 19th century. Thomas died in 1915, and as he had no family, the distillery has been taken over by a group of Dailuaine's customers, among others James Buchanan, John Dewar and John Walker. So the distillery became part of UDV, after it absorbed D.C.L. who owned the Buchanan, Dewar and Walker groups.
The distillery has been destroyed by a fire in 1917, and the production did not resume until 1920.
In 1950, the distillery joined up the electricity network, and new alterations found place between 1959 and 1960.
A "Saladin box" replaced the malt floors up to 1983, when the distillery began buying its malt in a malting. However, the saladin box is still present, and ready to be used again whenever it would be needed.
Only 2% of the production are marketed as single malt (sold by UDV in the Fauna & Flora collection or by Gordon & MacPhail), the remaining part being reserved to blends like Johnnie Walker.
