MACDUFF

Distillery Opened Capacity Malting Floor Washback Type Number of Washbacks Number of Wash Stills Number of Spirit Stills
1960 3.34 million litres yes Stainless Steel 9 2 3
The Macduff distillery was founded in 1960 by Marty Dyke, George Crawford, James Stirrat and Brodie Hepburn.

The Macduff distillery is located in the Highlands and uses the water which comes from local sources like Gelly, which flows near the Macduff distillery.

The Macduff distillery uses the malt which comes from Speyside and for the production of its whisky  it uses a combination of peated and unpeated malt.
Moreover the Macduff distillery uses a totaly unpeated malt which is used for production and also for blending of whisky. 

Moreover the Macduff distillery has a combination of dunnage and racked warehauses and for the maturation of its whisky the Macduff distillery uses Sherry and Oak Cask.

The owners may have recently re-launched the Deveron single malt from Macduff distillery, but there is no doubt that the Macduff distillery's most important task is to produce single malt for the successful William Lawson's blended Scotch.

 Lawson's has gained market shares in many countries around the world, but the development in Russia probably impresses the most.
Introduced into the country in 2008, by 2014 it had become not only the biggest scotch but also the number one imported spirit in Russia.
The importance of Russia as a market was emphasised in spring 2016 when Bacardi signed a deal with the Russian Company, where the blend will be bottled at their plant outside Moscow. This is the first time in modern days that an international spirits brand has moved bottling operations to Russia.

  • 1960  The Macduff distillery was founded by Marty Dyke, George Crawford, James Stirrat and Brodie Hepburn.  The company's name was Macduff Distillers ltd.
  • 1964  The number of stills was increased to four
  • 1972  William Lawson Distillers bought the Macduff distillery from Glendeveron Distilleries.
  • 1990  A fifth still was installed
  • 1993  Bacardi bought Martini Rossi and transferred the Macduff distillery to John Dewar & Sons.
  • 2013  The Royal Brugh Collection was launched for duty free
  • 2015  A 10,12 and 18 years old were launched.

The Macduff distillery is equipped with a stainless steel semi-lauter mash tun and nine washbacks made of stainless steel. there is also a rather unusual set-up of five stills because there are two wash stills and three spirit stills.

In order to fit the stills into the still room, the lyne arms on four of the stills are bent in a peculiar way and one of the wash stills it is U-shaped.

The core range of Macduff distillery consist of:

  • 10 yo
  • 12 yo
  • 16 yo
  • 18 yo
  • 20 yo
  • 30 yo