Mortlach Distillery

The first legal distillery to open in the famed whisky town of Dufftown, Mortlach distillery opened its doors in 1823. This was the same year the passage of the Excise Act made licenced whisky distilling legal. It was built by James Findlatter, who was joined by co-owners Alexander Gordon and Donald Macintosh the following year.

The distillery was first sold in 1831 to John Robertson, the first of many times that it would change hands. Even at a time when whisky was doing well, Mortlach experienced a downturn early in its life. In 1837 it was bought by the Grant Brothers, John and James. They promptly cannibalised Mortlach for equipment for their own Glen Grant distillery in Rothes and production came to a halt.

The distillery reopened in 1851, slowly resuming distilling under John Gordon, who had been using it as a brewery in the intervening years. But the next big stage in its life came two years later when George Cowie became a part owner. He would go on to become the sole owner in 1867 when Gordon died, and was later followed by his son Alexander Cowie in the 1890s. Alexander would go on to increase the number of stills from three to six in 1897.

In 1923 Mortlach was sold to John Walker & Sons by Alexander Cowie. This put the distillery on the path to its current owners, Diageo. John Walker & Sons were bought out by Distillers Company Limited just two years after they acquired Mortlach. The distillery underwent significant changes under their ownership, with major refurbishments in 1964, and the closure of the floor maltings in ‘68.

The distillery is equipped with a 12 ton mash tun, six Douglas Fir washbacks, and six still.

Despite having an even number of wash and spirit stills, Mortlach is known for running an extremely complicated distillation process. One pair operates on a traditional double distillation, but the other four divide their process strangely. The low wines from the first two wash stills are unequally divided between their different sized spirit counterparts. 80 percent goes to one still, while the remaining 20 percent is sent to the smaller one, called Wee Witchie. In this one the charge is distilled a total of three times. The end result of this process is that new spirits at Mortlach have been distilled a total of 2.81 times. Wooden worm tubs and copper worm tubes are still used for cooling which gives the spirit a meaty character. With water for the distillery drawn from a spring in the Conval Hills, Mortlach has an annual production capacity of 3.8 million litres.

The core range from Mortlach consists of the 12 year old Wee Witchie, the 16 year old Distillers Dram, and the 20 year old Cowie’s Blue Seal. This new range was released together in 2018 to replace a previous range from 2014. The 12 year old, named for the smallest of the spirit stills, has a robust nose of spice, toffee, and rich fruit. The palate is full of strong flavours of dark chocolate, marmalade, and tobacco before a dry and bitter finish.

In 2019 a 26 year bottling in the Special Releases Range came out. This has been double sherry matured in Pedro Ximenez and Oloroso casks to give an extra spicy boldness.