Glenfiddich Distillery
Dufftown, Keith
Banffshire AB55 4DH
+44 1340 820 000
Owner: William Grant & Sons Ltd
Creation year: 1887
Just like Glenfarclas and Springbank, Glenfiddich is still driven by the founders family. This is nowadays very unusual in the scotch whisky industry. William Grant founded the distillery and used therefore second hand material bought from Elisabeth Cumming, from the Cardhu distillery.
This idea was not based on economic reasons, but William Grant refused to start a distillery without knowing for sure the stills were working properly. William has been working for over 20 years in the whisky industry as a manager and accountant at the Mortlach distillery before founding Glenfiddich.
The first spirit came out of the stills during Christmas Eve in 1887, and the distillery became quickly very successful. After five years, William Grant started building his second distillery, Balvenie.
After the bankrupt of one of his best clients, Robert Pattison, William Grant began making his blends by himself, and was very successful with his first products called "Standfast" and "Best Procurable".
The Grant's distilleries were amongst the only ones which continued producing their whisky during the two world wars.
One of William's sons, Charles Grant bought the distillery Glendronach, and sold it forty years later to William Teacher.
The present owners of the distillery represent the fifth generation of Grants managing the business. To be sure to be able to produce their blends, the Grants must guarantee the follow up of grain whisky. In order to achieve this, the family decided the construction of the Girvan grain distillery on the ground of the Lowland "Ladyburn" distillery which closed in 1976.
Glenfiddich was the very first scotch distillery to export its single malt outside of Scotland. This was a kind of revolution in the world of whisky.
In 1990 the family Grant founded a new distillery called Kininvie.
Glenfiddich is much more than a famous single malt, it is a real ambassador or Scotland around the world.
About 90% of the production is sold as single malt, and the remaining 10% are used in the Grant's blend.
