Glen Ord Distillery | Last Bastion of The Black Isle

Glen Ord Distillery History

Glen Ord is one of few distilleries remaining in the region known as The Black Isle, in the Highlands of northern Scotland. The area is oddly named, as it is a peninsula, rather than an island, surrounded on only three sides by the Firths of Cromarty, Moray and Beauly.

The Black Isle is well known for its fertile lands, coated in a rich dark loam (possibly where the area gets its ‘black’ name from). The abundance of grain crops, mainly barley, saw many landowners intent on adding value to it by distillation. The end product could be quite profitable, and a distillery also meant regular work for local inhabitants. The Forbes of Culloden family had established the region’s reputation for quality whisky in 1690 with their Ferintosh distillery (they had five distilleries by 1786), and at one point employed over 1000 workers.

Seeing the same opportunity for employment and use of his barley, in 1838, Thomas Mackenzie joined nine other local licensed operators (and likely several dozen moonshiners) building a distillery on his lands. The site housed a bothy used by smugglers earlier in the century. (1)

Glen Ord was on Alfred Barnard’s grand whisky distillery tour in 1885-1887. He notes there were two old pot stills (one wash one spirit) and a mash tun of 18ft diameter, and a depth of 5ft. The malt houses are likely those that still stand – two divisions 250ft long with a storage capacity of 3000 quarters on the top floor (roughly 38,000 kilograms). The malting floor was underneath and contained Steeps capable of wetting 45 quarters at a time. Heather blossoms were used in addition to peat to dry the barley in the kiln.

This Canmore photo of the distillery from 1974 shows the two malt houses and Pagoda chimneys. The barley was floor malted at Glen Ord until 1961 when Glen Ord installed Saladin Boxes. Saladin Boxes allowed for the mechanical turning of the malted barley, saving labour and time and allowing greater control over the malting process. Surprisingly, Glen Ord distillery did not use the massive Glen Ord malt facility plant next door until 1983, even though other DCL owned distilleries had been using it since its construction in 1968.

Barnard noted eight warehouses at the time of his visit, which held 174,000 gallons of whisky at various ages.

They converted the warehouses into a visitor’s centre in 1994, as the whisky now matures near Glasgow and Fife.

Barnard sampled the 1882 make and found it “very agreeable to the palate” and notes that Glen Ord makes a “pure Highland malt” that is sold principally in Leith (Edinburgh) and London, as well as exported to the colonies, especially Singapore and South Africa. At the time annual spirit production was around 80,000 gallons per annum (363,687 litres).

In 1966 Glen Ord underwent a considerable upgrade. They replaced the two old coal-fired stills with internal steam-heated coil types and increased the total number of stills to six. Subsequently, spirit production rose to an annual output of around 5 million litres.

The most recent upgrade to Glen Ord distillery occurred in 2014 with the addition of a second still house. An additional eight stills were installed, bringing total output to the current volume of 11 million litres per annum (2017).

Where Is Glen Ord Distillery

Glen Ord Distillery (57.522076, -4.475789) is approximately 14 miles / 22 km west of Inverness on the opposite side of the Beauly Firth.

ScotRail runs trains between Inverness and Muir of Ord station roughly every 40 minutes, with a 1.1 km / 0.7 mi walk onto the distillery. See http://www.travelinescotland.com for more information

Buses are also available from Inverness to the Muir Of Ord Pub, 700m from the distillery. See https://www.stagecoachbus.com/ for more details.

Glen Ord Distillery Tours and Bookings

Singleton of Glen Ord Distillery Tour: from £20 per person, 85 minutes duration: Glen Ord tour, and a tutored tasting of three (3) three unique expressions paired with one macaron at the end of your tour.

Online advanced bookings are highly recommended as Glen Ord is a very popular distillery to visit and each tour group has maximum of 16 persons.

Useful Visitor Information

Glen Ord Distillery offers all of their tours in French, German, Italian and Spanish. If you would like to do a tour in one of these languages, please contact them on 01463 872 004 or at glen.ord.distillery@diageo.com to book in advance. Transcripts are available in Czech, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Hungarian, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish and Swedish.

For healthy and safety reasons, the distillery does not permit children under eight years old in the production areas.

As with all Diageo distilleries, photos are also not allowed in production areas, which is most of the distillery. No, it’s not because they think you’ll try and steal their ideas or equipment design! Ethanol is highly flammable, and electronic equipment poses a potential source of ignition. As such, they’ve implemented a policy on all their sites – no electronic devices to be in use in production areas, or where ethanol is likely to be in higher concentrations (like warehouses).

Glen Ord Distillery Whisky - The Singleton

Glen Ord’s signature whisky, The Singleton of Glen Ord, is sold almost exclusively in Asia. The Singleton of Glen Ord is available to sample at the distillery and we enjoyed the 15yo and 18yo, but note, it’s all chill filtered and caramelised.

I recently had the good fortune to try some Glen Ord 1985-95 10-year-old Single Cask bottled by W.M Cadenhead – it is well worth tracking down if you can! It is a lovely light grassy dram. Glen Ord small batch bottlings are hard to come by though. The SMWS bottle Glen Ord under the numeric code 77, and Signatory Vintage and That Boutiquey Whisky Company also release Glen Ord from time to time.

What Else Is Nearby

Also see our interactive Scotland Whisky Distillery Map.

Accommodation

Glen Ord Distillery Photo Gallery

The distillery is a worthwhile visit as it is quite impressive to see such a high-tech mass production facility (annual production is presently 11 million litres) that still has the feel of an older distillery.  They’ve done a beautiful job of keeping all the sensors and control panels tucked away, unlike some other distilleries I can think of (sorry Glenfarclas but I’m thinking of you here).

The washbacks are timber, and the stills and column condensers shine in all their magnificent copper glory. I’m partial to open topped mash tuns, but that would be impractical for an operation this size.  Glen Ord’s stainless steel behemoth turns over 12,500 tonnes of grist using 56,000 litres of water 42 times a week, and they’re aiming for 50 times a week. The mash tun process results in a clear (not cloudy) wort.

Twenty-two washbacks hold 59,000 litres of wort each and fermentation occurs over three days using a creamed yeast.

There are 14 stills in total at Glen Ord, located across two still houses (8 +6). The stills are run in batches, resulting in a continuous 24/7 production.

The water in the shell and tube condensers is kept hot, so the spirit remains in vapour form for longer and continues reacting with all the copper until the spirit enters the after coolers.

References & Further Reading