On a roasting hot summer’s day, Angus and I headed up to Speyside for a weekend of distilleries, drams and discoveries.

We visited Glenfarclas, Glen Moray and were treated to a sit down interview with Stephen Rankin at Gordon & MacPhail. But our journey started at Speyburn Distillery.

Intro to Speyburn

Earlier on in the year we enjoyed a great night recording with Stuart Baxter who is the Global Education & Experience Manager for International Beverage. International Beverage own a number of spirit brands which include Ancnoc, Balblair, Old Pulteney and Speyburn.

He spoke a lot that night about Speyburn which was great, because Angus and I both admitted that it’s a distillery we knew little to nothing about.

So when it came to planning our trip (and pulling in some favours…) Stuart was more than happy to arrange for us to get an ‘access all areas’ tour of the distillery by the wonderful Melinda.

The distillery sits just outside of Aberlour and 5 minutes from Glen Grant. It’s almost easy to miss when driving past if it wasn’t for the Pagoda roofs sticking up from the valley that it sits in.

Charles C. Doig was charged with the challenge of designing a compact distillery that would fit into the small valley to ensure it was close enough to the Granty Burn for a water source.

Charles C. Doig was famous for his iconic ‘Doig Ventilator’ or Pagoda roof which is a common feature for loads of distilleries around Scotland.

The distillery fired up the stills for the first time in 1897 and had a couple of closures during the 1930s and during the Second World War.

Despite it being in operation for so long, the distillery only opened the doors for visitors in 2023.

The distillery holds a significant place in Scottish whisky history as the first in the country to install and operate Drum Maltings, a feature that made the tour a must-see for us.

Drum Maltings

I didn’t really know what Drum Maltings were before we went in. But Melinda did a great job explaining them to us.

What really amazed me about them though, was that they were installed into the distillery in 1897 and remained in operation until 1967. Speyburn was the first distillery to use the modern technology for malting barley instead of the old laborious traditional way of manually ‘turning the floor’.

These huge pneumatic drums were the peak of engineering at the time, and were shipped over in pieces in the late 1890’s and built at the distillery.

In 1967 the decision was made that they didn’t need them anymore. And thankfully, the distillery never decided to break them down and remove them. As a result, we got the chance to stick our heads inside the drums, walk around them and get a real idea of how they would have worked.

There’s even old remnants of the last barely to be malted in them back in 1967.

More than just one attraction

For whisky ‘geeks’ and people interested in the production side of things, this part of the tour is worth coming along alone.

But, there’s also worm tubs that we got to climb up and stand on top of as part of the tour, a really cool still house, warehouses on site, and a newly converted tasting room to enjoy a few drams in.

As with every tour, you get a chance to try some of the core releases from the distillery.

We were treated to the Rum Cask Finish, the 10 Year Old, 15 Year Old and the 18 Year Old.

My favourite on the day was 15 Year Old which was the perfect way to end a warm but very enjoyable tour of the distillery.

Drivers drams are also provided so Angus was able to enjoy his drams later in the evening.

Check out our first ever Distillery Tour at the Port of Leith Distillery.