The Distillery

Glen Ardmore is a narrow valley running south-east from the Cabrach plateau, walled on both sides by exposures of pink Cairngorm granite. In summer the air carries heather and bog myrtle; in winter, peat-smoke and the iron tang of cold stone. The valley holds weather longer than the country around it. Snow lies into May.

The distillery sits at the lowest point of the Glen, where the burn widens before entering the River Deveron. It has stood in this position since 1887. The buildings are of local granite, the roof of Welsh slate. Nothing about the exterior has been altered in living memory save for the replacement of a single gable in 1962 following a storm.

The spring rises some four hundred metres above the distillery, in a small bowl-shaped depression on the southern slope of Carn Mòr. The water passes through peat, then through granite, then through a bed of red sandstone before it reaches us. It is soft, mineral, and very slightly sweet. We have never used any other water, and have never had cause to.

Three stills of hammered copper, made by Forsyths of Rothes between 1886 and 1889. Two wash, one spirit. Each has been recoppered four times. The shapes — squat, onion-bellied, with short upward-angled lyne arms — produce a thick, oily new-make spirit that takes well to long aging in active sherry wood. We do not, and have never, shortened the cuts to increase yield.

Four traditional dunnage warehouses, earth-floored, no stack more than three casks high. The temperature within rarely exceeds fourteen degrees in summer or falls below two in winter. Casks rest in the same position for the entirety of their maturation; they are turned only when drawn for bottling. The angels' share at Ardmore is measured at slightly under 2% per annum, among the lowest in Scotland — a function of the cool, even climate and the heavy stone walls.

Warehouse No. 3 holds the oldest stock. It is from this warehouse that the 1994 vintage was drawn.