Glenfiddich

The first impression of Glenfiddich is that of its scale. This 35 hectare site contains a cooperage, coppersmith, bottling lines, a vast warehousing complex and two stillhouses containing 28 stills – by some distance the largest number in Scotland. This is malt whisky making on a huge scale.

The story of the building of Glenfiddich has the air of a Victorian fairy tale. It was in 1886 that William Grant of Dufftown decided to leave his position as manager of Mortlach and start up on his own. He had saved assiduously and, fortuitously, was starting his project just as Elizabeth Cumming was revamping Cardhu and replacing her old small stills. Along with his wife and nine children, William built his distillery near to the Fiddich river by hand. The first new make trickled out on Christmas Day, 1887. At a time when more distilleries had foundered than succeeded, and those which were being built tended to be bankrolled by brokers, bonders and blenders, his enterprise and stubborn belief was remarkable. He must have been a talented distiller, for his whole output was soon snapped up by Aberdeen blender and broker William Williams. Within 25 years, the family firm had 63 agencies internationally, proving them with their family blend, ‘Grant’s Standfast’. The firm is still wholly owned by the Grant family (now in its fifth generation), and has expanded to include three more malt distilleries [Balvenie, Kininvie and Ailsa Bay], a grain plant [Girvan] and other brands such as Monkey Shoulder and Hendrick’s gin. In 1963, after a dispute over grain supply (which prompted the firm to build the Girvan plant) the decision was made to bottle and promote Glenfiddich as a single malt, the first concerted effort to create a global malt brand. In the late 1960s it was one of the first to be sold in new duty free outlets and in 1969 the distillery’s doors were opened to the public – another first. Today, Glenfiddich remains the world’s best-selling single malt with sales in excess of a million cases a year.