Macduff Distillery
Banff
Banffshire AB45 3JT
+44 1261 812 612
Owner: Bacardi Ltd
Creation year: 1960
Settled near the river Deveron, on the border of the Speyside area, the Macduff distillery has been created by the Glen Deveron Distillers Ltd in 1960. First filling of Macduff new make took place on 30 June 1960. A date commonly found in books and websites is 1962. People having participated to the birth of the distillery pretend this is wrong... So I believe the staff more than the literature...
It has been sold in 1964 to a private wine merchant who then sold it to Maritni and Rossi in 1972. Martini and Rossi was subsequently purchased by Bacardi in 1990.
During its short history, the Macduff distillery has had several alterations, in order to test different distillation techniques.
Macduff was the first of all distilleries in Scotland to experiment metal wahsbacks (corton steel), and it was also the first one to use steam to heat the stills. The stills are heated by steam coils but originally the whole pot was lagged up to the bottom of the still neck. The lagging above the floor was removed during the restoration in 1990.
Further, Macduff is one of the few distilleries which have fitted after coolers to the horizontal condensers in order to optimise cooling.
Macduff doubled its production between 1966 and 1968. It installed a 5th still in 1990.
The single malt from the distillery is officially called "Glen Deveron", and some independent bottlers market whisky from the distillery under the name "Macduff". The malt is part of the composition of William Lawson blend.
