People and places don't just shape a Single Malt Scotch Whisky's flavour. They change the course of its future. Get a taste of how the whisky you love today came to be, with this brief Glen Spey timeline.
Corn merchant James Stuart builds a grain mill – the Mill of Rothes – later extending it to house distilling equipment. At certain times the building serves a dual purpose.
Stuart buys the Macallan distillery and the mill, now fully transformed into a distillery – with a 10,000 square foot modern maturation warehouse – is sold to the gin makers W. & A. Gilbey.
An exceptionally heavy fall of snow causes the distillery’s roof to fall in.
Fire, a common problem for distilleries, wreaks havoc at Glen Spey leaving only the still house and warehouses standing. In the long term, the first proves to be good for business: the distillery is built on a completely new plan, establishing an ultra-efficient arrangement of buildings, machinery and apparatus which creates one simple and coherent system.
The distillery is reconstructed again in order to double the annual production capacity.