Glenmorangie Distillery
Tain
Ross-shire IV19 1PZ
+44 1862 892 477

Owner: The Glenmorangie Conpany (subsidiary  LVMH)

Creation year: 1843

A brewery was built in 1738 on the land of the farm Morangie, which gave its name to the distillery. Water from the Tarlogie burn was shared by the farm and the brewery, and was used, amongst more, to turn the mill wheel, to wash and colour the wool and to produce dye.
In 1843, William Matheson bought a licence to produce whisky and transformed the brewery into a distillery. He bought two second hand very high gin stills.
In 1887, when the Glenmorangie Distillery Company Ltd was founded, great renovation works took place, and they changed one of the most archaic distilleries into the most modern for the time being. Glenmorangie was the first distillery who warmed its stills with steam, using a serpentine within the still.
Even after this great alteration works, the original shape of the stills was kept. The quality and the refinement of the whisky is partially due to the very high stills, which impeach the heavy spirit to reach the "lyne arm".
The distillery was bought in 1918 by the Mac Donald & Muir society from Leith for 40% and by Mr Durham, whisky broker for the remaining 60%. Durham's parts were taken over by Mac Donald and Muir between 1925 and 1930.
The late twenties, with the recession and the prohibition in the United States, were very hard times for distillers in Europe, and the distillery closed for a while between 1931 and 1936. The second World War also obliged the distillery to close, because barley was very difficult to find. The distillery did not work at its previous level before 1948.
The production capacity was doubled en 1979 and again en 1993. The distillery bought the land where the burn is situated to guarantee water supplying and constant quality.
Glenmorangie experiments on a lot of finishing casks (claret, cognac, madeira, port, malaga, tain L'hermitage, côtes de nuits villages, en so on....) in order to enlarge the aromatic and taste range of its single malt.
About 70% of the production are sold as single malt, the 30 remaining percents being used in blends like "Highland Queen" and "Bailie Nicol Jarvie".
The MacDonald family, owners of the distillery decided to sell their shares in 2004. The French group LVMH is the new owner. The sale is completed in December 2004. 

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Clynelish Distillery
Brora,
Sutherland
KW9 6LR
+44 1408 623 000

Owner: Diageo

Creation date: 1967

The name and the history of Clynelish are indissociable from the neighbour distillery, Brora. The Brora distillery has been named Clynelish for decades before closing in 1983.
The Clynelish distillery faces the old one. Settled in a rural setting with a still house with great windows looking to the sea, the distillery is the exact replica of the modern Islay distillery, Caol Ila.
The distillery has been founded in 1967 in new buildings much more spacious and modern than those of the old distillery.
The old distillery began the production of rather peaty malt, and the new one went on with the traditional production. peaty malt was necessary for the owner of the distillery in those days, because Caol Ila, another important distillery belonging to the group was temporarily closed for refurbishment, and the malt was needed for the blends of the group.
The old building still exist, and are used as warehouses for the new one.
Just 1% of the production is marketed as single malt, the remaining part being used in Johnnie Walker Gold Label blend.

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Teaninich Distillery
Alness
Ross-shire IV17 OXB
+44 1349 885 001

Owner: Diageo

Creation year: 1817

The Teaninich distillery has been founded by captain Hugh Munro in 1817, and in those days life was not easy for legal distillers. It was rather difficult to get barley, because it was massively bought by lots of moonshine distillers who were operating in the same area. Things began to get better with the promulgation of the Excise Act in 1823.
The Teaninich distillery remained in the same family up to 1934 when it was acquired by the D.C.L. (Distillers Company Ltd.). However as it was not easy to combine the military life an this of a distiller, the distillery has been rented out. The last tenant was Robert Innes Cameron, who was also shareholder of Benrinnes, Tamdhu and Linkwood.
Teaninich is famous because it was the first distillery who had electric light. It doubled its production capacity in 1962. In 1971 a new still house, called "a side" with 6 stills was created. The old one, called "b side" has been rebuild in 1974 but mothballed in 1985.
The first official versions of Teaninich single malt were marketed in 1992. Most of the production is used in the UDV blends, amongst others Johnnie Walker.

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Pulteney Distillery
Huddart Street
Wick Caithness KW1 5BA
+44 1955 602 371

Owner: Inver House Distillers Ltd

Creation year: 1826

With the exception of Orkney Islands, Pulteney is the most northern distillery of Scotland. The distillery is named after an old estate in the Southern part of the city of Wick, Pulteney town.
The distillery stayed in the family of is founder James Henderson until the mid 1920's, when it has been bought by James Wartson & Co., owner of Parkmore and Ord. Three years later, this company became part of John Dewar's & Sons who was incorporated some time later by the D.C.L (Distillers Company Ltd.)
Closed from 1930 until 1951, Pulteney has been bought in 1951 by Robert Cumming, owner of Balblair who was constraint to resell the distillery to Hiram Walker in 1959. The latter renewed the distillery completely.
The current owners, the Inver House company bought both Balblair and Pulteney distilleries in 1995.
It's single malt is known as Old Pulteney, but the major part of the production is intended for the blends of Inver House: Catton's, Hankey Bannister, MacArthur's and Pinwinnie Royal, and for the Heather Cream whisky liqueur.

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Glen Ord Distillery
Muir of Ord
Ross-shire IV6 7UJ
+44 1463 870 421

Owner: Diageo

Creation year: 1838

From the dozen distilleries which used to operate in the area of Black Isle on the East coast of Northern Highlands, Glen Ord is the only survivor. The Glen Ord distillery has been founded in 1838.
First owner were Robert Johnstone and Donald McLennan. The company which owned the distillery, "Ord Distillers Co" changed several times from owner until James Watson & Co purchased it in 1896. Watson was a blender from Dundee and he owned Pulteney and Parkmore.
Watson refurbished and enlarged the distillery by adding new stills and considerably enhancing the malting floors.
The distillery closed during World War I and was bankrupt in 1923, before John Dewar who recently entered the D.C.L. group belonging to SMD, acquired it.
World War II was synonym of a second closing period, because of a general lack of barley.
Important refurbishment works have been done in 1960 and the malting floors were replaced by a "saladin-box" in 1961, with the modernisation of the distillery.
A new malting was build in 1968 to supply the 7 other distilleries of the group, amongst others Talisker on Isle of Skye.
A new modernisation of the malting took place in 1996. Glen Ord is the other distillery of the Diageo group which produces malt for the other distileries of the group. Unlike Port Ellen on Islay, Glen Ord also continues producing whisky for the blends of the group.
The whisky marketed by the distillery has had several different names during the last years: Glen Oran, Glen Ordie and Glen Ord.
About 10% of the production is marketed as single malt, the remaining being used in the blends Johnnie Walker and Dewar's.

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Dalmore Distillery
Alness,
Ross-shire IV17 OUT
+44 1349 882 362

Owner: Whyte & Mackay Ltd

Creation date: 1839

The distillery has been founded in 1839 by Alexander Matheson and is settled on the banks of the Cromarty Firth, facing the fertile Black Isle.
The aim of Matheson by creating this distillery was not to run it, but to hire it. The first tenants of the distillery were the family Sutherland. Among the members of this family, Margaret Sutherland hired the distillery from 1860 to 1866. Her nickname was "Sometime distiller" because she only worked when she had time to...
Andrew Mackenzie took over the lease in 1866 after a short period (less than one year) when Robert Pattison hired the distillery.
Andrew joined together with his friends William and Charles to found the Mackenzie Brothers company.
Business was good and the production has been doubled in 1874 by adjunction of two new stills. The Mackenzie brothers acquired the distillery in 1891.
Business began to become worse from 1910 and the distillery had to close for about 10 years. During this time, the distillery has been used by the British army to produce mines. The stocks have first been move to some other place. 
All the casks were brought back to the distillery in 1920 and the production resumed in 1921 after important alteration works. The Mackenzie were close friends of James Whyte and Charles MacKay whose company, Whyte & MacKay took the control over the distillery some years later.
The production capacity of Dalmore has been doubled again in 1966. 
The company has been renamed in 1996 in J.B.B. (Greater Europe) and become Kindal Spirits Ltd in 2001, before being renamed again in 2003 in White and MacKay Ltd.
A great part of the production is used in the blends Whyte and MacKay and the Claymore

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Brora Distillery 
Brora
Sutherland KW9 6LR  

Owner: Diageo

Creation date: 1819

The distillery was originally called Clynelish. Its founder, the Marquis of Stafford, who will later become the Duke of Sutherland, notorious for the execrable way he chased people (about 1500) living on his land away, just to leave the place to sheep who were in his opinion more "profitable".
The marquis was a fearsome business man with good inspiration. To guarantee the incomes for his barley, he built a distillery and doing so he killed two birds with one stone: all his barley could be sold and he made great profits selling his whisky.
He got his distillers licence in 1824. Another reason for him to open a distillery was to cut the ground under the moonshine distillers who were legion in the area in those days.
The distillery was purchased in 1896 by the group James Ainslie & Co who sold a part of their shares to the D.C.L. (Distillers Company Ltd) in 1912 after having been absorbed by John Risk. In the meanwhile, the main part of Risk's shares have been bought by John Walker who merged with the D.C. L. who became so the owner for 100% in 1925.
The group was forced to close Clynelish. The distillery did not reopen before 1938 for a short while (3 years). World War II had the same consequences for Clynelish as for most of the other distilleries: closing due to a lack of barley.
In 1967 a new distillery has been build near the first one, under the name or Clynelish 2. The old distillery closed in 1969 and reopened in 1975 under the name Brora before closing for good in 1983. Brora produced the most peaty malt of the Highlands. Its nickname was "The Lagavulin of the North".
Its peaty malt helped the group to limit the consequences of the lack of malt for blends due to temporary closing of Caol Ila for important refurbishment works.

The market being what it is, Diageo said in October 2017 they want to reopen Brora. This reopening is expected to take place around 2020 if building permits are issued.

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Balblair Distillery
Edderton, (Tain)
Ross-shire IV19 1LB
+44 1862 821 273

Owner: Inver House Distillers Ltd

Creation year: 1790

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