Macduff distillery, located in the fishing port of Macduff on the banks of the River Deveron near the Moray Firth, is a seaside distillery with a clean and functional design by Delme-Evans. It features a classic stillhouse with five stills—two wash stills and three spirit stills. These stills are distinguished by upward-tilting lyne arms, each with a right-angled kink. The spirit stills also have horizontal shell and tube condensers. The distillery’s character is nutty and slightly sulphury at the new make stage, owing to quick mashing, short fermentation, and cold condensers, which contribute weight to the spirit. The kink in the lyne arms likely helps create enough reflux to balance the fruitiness of the distillate.
Macduff was built in 1960 to capitalize on the post-war whisky boom. The original owners, a group of Glasgow brokers including Brodie Hepburn, chose William Delme-Evans as the architect for the distillery. Between 1966 and 1972, the distillery was owned by Brokers Block, Grey & Block, before being acquired by William Lawson, the whisky arm of Martini & Rossi. By 1990, Macduff had expanded its production with five stills, and a range of single malts under the name Glen Deveron was launched.
The range initially featured younger expressions, including five- and eight-year-old whiskies, which catered to the Italian market’s preference for fresh, youthful malts. In 1995, after Martini merged with Bacardi, Macduff became part of the Dewar’s portfolio. While William Lawson’s blend became popular in Russia, Dewar’s has since planned to relaunch the single malt under the name Deveron.
