Speyside to Gain New Whisky Distillery in One of Scotch’s Birthplaces

The Speyside region of Scotland is largely considered the workhorse region of Scotch whisky today, given the number of distilleries already there. That doesn’t mean there aren’t room for more, especially when they take up residence in what’s described as a “wild and remote area” considered one of the birthplaces of the dram. The Cabrach distillery will reportedly begin production in 2019.

The Cabrach distillery, according to those behind it, represents the first legal distillery to be in this region since the last one closed over 150 years ago. Plans for this facility include the distilling, maturation, and bottling of a unique whisky, using the blueprint of an early 19th-century distillery and made with historical methods. All ingredients for the whisky will be sourced locally with water coming from natural springs located on the land surrounding the distillery. The whisky will be matured in the Cabrach in quarter casks and bottled on site.

The planned £5.3 million project will also include a heritage center, and it will “tell the story about illicit distilling and relate that to production, so visitors can learn about the history of illicit whisky and smuggling.” The entire facility, which will make use of the existing traditional farm steadings at Inverharroch and has been designed by a team led by local architects, is run by Cabrach Trust, a local non-profit aiming to provide jobs and services to regenerate the remote highland community.

We are aiming to start work on site in the summer of 2018,” said Sue Savege, the executive director of the Cabrach Trust, in a prepared statement. “In the meantime, we are busy working on the final specification of the distillery, which will use historical methods, and conducting further research … into the exact balance of process, ingredients and maturation, as it’s crucial we get the flavour right for our very own Cabrach whisky.”

“The Cabrach has a long and colourful whisky distilling history,” adde Chairman and founder member of the Cabrach Trust, Grant Gordon. “The Cabrach distillery will celebrate this rich birth right, telling the as-yet untold story of the early days of farm distilling and the smuggling which was rife in the area, while the historical distillery will reflect production methods that were used in the Cabrach at the dawn of the modern distilling era in the early 1800’s.”