The Glenlivet Whisky Distillery

The Glenlivet Distillery Established 1824

Distillery Tour Information

The Glenlivet Distillery offers a n interactive exhibition as well as other special attractions during your visit, which includes the magnificent scenery that surrounds it. This fascinating hands-on display of The Glenlivet and its history is not to be missed!

Admission is free. No one under the age of 18 will be admitted.

The guided tour takes in the distillery and the vast bonded warehouse. You can choose a dram of The Glenlivet 12, 18 years old, or French Oak Reserve. There's a coffee shop which offers light meals and fine home baking.

Opening Times

April 2 - October 26, 2007
Monday - Saturday: 09.30 - 16:00 hours
Sunday: Noon - 16:00 hours

Contact The Glenlivet Distillery
Ballindalloch Banffshire
AB37 9DB Scotland
Tel: +44 (0)1340 821 720

Location
B9008, ten miles north of Tomintoul

THE GLENLIVET
THE SINGLE MALT THAT STARTED IT ALL

Lawless Times & the Character of Glenlivet
During the early 1800s, large areas of Scotland were brought to the brink of anarchy by the activities of whisky smugglers. Excisemen, armed with pistols and cutlasses, fought bloody battles with the smugglers. Thousands of illicit distillers were prosecuted each year and close to 400 people were convicted and fined in just one sitting by an Inverness Justice of the Peace for breaking the Excise laws.

By 1820, there continued to be some 200 illicit stills in Glenlivet; the glen of the Livet reaches deep into the mountains which separate Speyside from Royal Deeside in the far North-East of Scotland. Today it is relatively remote; in the 18th and 19th centuries it was virtually inaccessible and it bred a bold and self-reliant people who clung to the old tradition of whisky-making.

The whisky made in Glenlivet had the highest reputation of any in Scotland, for several reasons. First, you can’t make good whisky in a hurry and the Glen’s remoteness made it almost impossible to police. Excise officers could be spotted miles away, leaving plenty of time to hide equipment, and, more importantly, plenty of time to carry out the distilling.

Second, nature’s essentials for making the finest malt whisky – barley, peat and a copious supply of good, clean water – were all abundant. The fertile valley-bottom of Glenlivet provided barley. The hills around are clad in peat. The water that rushes down the hills surrounding Glenlivet is perfect: cold, soft, melted snow. Whisky smugglers would travel from Glenlivet to the Lowlands on drove roads and across bridges that can still be found today.

The Legacy of George Smith
It took a remarkable man to break the tradition of illicit distilling: in 1824 George Smith took the unswerving step from farmer-distiller to first licenceholder in the glen, the first step on Scotch whisky’s march to global success.

In those lawless times, he had to go to extraordinary lengths to protect his life and his property. He armed his brothers with “two or three stout fellows” whom he employed, and they mounted a guard on the distillery, night and day, for several years. In his later years he claimed that he often “had rough times of it among the glen people,” when he went to church or visited the market at Tomintoul.

When he went legal he also had to go armed. His former colleagues in the illicit trade swore they would “burn down his distillery and him at the heart of it.” But the winds of change were with him. The fame of his whisky spread even beyond Scotland, nurtured by his Edinburgh agents who began to market it as Old Vatted Glenlivet - the very first ‘brand’ of Scotch.

On the back of this success, in 1858 Smith built a new distillery on a larger site further down the glen, supplied with water by Josie’s Well, a now legendary spring rich in minerals. He also invested in a pair of unusually shaped stills, uncommonly high and wide, of a novel ‘lantern’ design – both factors which make for increased purity and elegance.

The Reputation of The Glenlivet
The Glenlivet has long been synonymous with the finest single malt Scotch whisky. In 1822, King George IV made a triumphant visit to Edinburgh. Sir Walter Scott, who arranged the event, made sure to procure the best whisky Scotland had to offer for the King’s delectation: the whisky of Glenlivet. Throughout his week-long jaunt, the King would drink nothing else, and by the end it was reported that “he is an admirable judge of glen livat”. He was not alone in his enjoyment. The same year, John Stein, one of the leading distillers in Scotland, wrote enviously: “There are some people in the higher stations of life who prefer Glenlivet whisky and who would pay almost any price for it”.

The fame of Glenlivet’s now well-respected fruity, floral style encouraged other distillers to attach the name to their own, even though some of them were miles from the Glen itself. Understandably, George Smith’s son was not happy about this. In 1884 he obtained a settlement which required that only his malt can describe itself as ‘The Glenlivet’. And to this day, there is still only one single malt whisky that has the unchallengeable right to call itself The Glenlivet. In fact, almost every Speyside distillery has, at some stage, used the name Glenlivet.

The Glenlivet in the 20th Century
Maintaining the pioneering instinct, The Glenlivet was the very first malt to be promoted in the United States: as soon as Prohibition was lifted in America, George Smith’s great-grandson went there to promote his whisky, the first single malt ever seen in the U.S. Over the next few decades it caused such a stir that he featured on the front page of Time magazine with the line: ‘The heart of Great Britain’s export trade is the Scotch whisky industry. The heart of the Scotch industry is The Glenlivet’. The Pullman Company of Chicago begged The Glenlivet Distillery for supplies of miniatures for their luxury trains.

The Glenlivet developed a strong following among Hollywood stars in the 1950s. Stars like Yul Brynner and Robert Taylor, who had (to quote the latter) “come to consider all other brands of Scotch whisky second rate”, insisted that stocks be available in their hotels – even if they were filming in Europe.

The Glenlivet’s reputation was not confined to the UK and the US. In 1956 the manager of the renowned George V Hotel in Paris wrote to the distillery: “Our President requires, for his own personal use, a case of 12 bottles of your Glenlivet 12 year old Whisky, as he was agreeably impressed by this whisky during his recent visit to America.”

For nearly 200 years the legendary whisky of Glenlivet has been prized, celebrated and fought over. But there is only one whisky with the unchallengeable right to be called: The Glenlivet: the single malt that started it all.

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