Edradour

EdradourLiqueurs

Edradour was originally called Glenforres when it was built in 1825, but became Edradour around a decade later – only to return to the Glenforres name as Glenforres-Glenlivet after being acquired by William Whiteley company in the 1920s to produce malt for its King's Ransom blend.

The distillery eventually ended up as part of the Pernod Ricard stable, and was sold to Andrew Symington's Signatory company in 2002, since which time it has gone from strength to strength,with a thriving tourist trade thronging through its quaint buildings near the beautiful village of Pitlochry.

From the website

Edradour is a unique, single Highland malt whisky, to be enjoyed in recognition of those small, significant moments that make up the ebb and flow of life.

Edradour is produced in Scotland's smallest distillery - and is hand made today as it was over 150 years ago by just three men who are devoted to the time-honoured methods of whisky making. Indeed equipment used at the distillery has remained unchanged since the day the distillery opened and is only just capable of producing commercial quantities. Only 12 casks of whisky are produced a week, making Edradour single malt a rare pleasure for a fortunate few.

If you manage to find it, you will be one of the few people lucky enough to experience its charm - golden in the glass, smooth and creamy with a nutty, honeyed finish.

Enjoy Life's small victories with Edradour

At Edradour we hold the proud distinction of being the smallest distillery in Scotland. We are also the last original 'farm' distillery in Perthshire. You'll find Edradour nestling in a pocket glen in the hills above Pitlochry in the Southern Highlands.

The Distillery

Looking at the distillery from the breath-taking surrounding landscapes, it is not unlike stepping back into a scene from Brigadoon. It was built in the early nineteenth century, and seems hardly to have changed in the last 170 years. Observing the cluster of whitewashed buildings with red doors, one visitor felt it was 'as if some little Victorian lass had grown tired of playing beside the burn and had left her toy houses there to gladden the landscape'.

On the inside, precious little has changed either. There's the same wooden equipment which is used to mash and ferment the whisky in the same time-honoured ways. There are the smallest copper stills in Scotland - the smallest permissible by law. Our Morton refrigerator used in the distilling process was new-fangled in its day, of course, but is now the only working model of its kind left in the industry.

The Whisky

Highland malts enjoy a unique depth of flavour and quality that's the result of a fine blend of altitude and mountain water. For many connoisseurs, with its exquisitely smooth and creamy texture, with just a hint of smokiness, Edradour is the jewel in the Highland crown.

Edradour is the smallest whisky distillery in Scotland; possibly the smallest legal distillery of any kind in the World. John Reid and his two assistants hand-craft Edradour without automation, using skills handed down through generations...
It takes the man-power of just three men to produce Edradour - three men whose expertise and attention to detail produces the most unique malt whisky in the world.

Where small is beautiful

Edradour is distilled in the smallest stills permissible under Excise regulations. The diminutiveness of the copper stills is not just for the sake of convenience or the selectiveness of our output. Quite simply, the smaller the still, the finer and more distinctive the taste of the whisky.
At Edradour, we are so convinced that the precise shape and size of the still should be maintained to preserve the character of the whisky that when replacements are needed, the new stills are reproduced exactly to the shape of the originals - right down to the dents which have been acquired over the years.

Another key element in producing the finest whisky is the manner in which it is aged. We carefully select the casks to ensure that the whisky is always consistent, using a combination of sherry or bourbon oak casks of different ages.

Hand crafted with care

Since the earliest days, the art of making Edradour has remained a blend of nature, tradition and experience, aided by the keen eye, nose and palate of generations of stillmen.

Our Stillmen continue to undertake much of the production process themselves. Fermentation, for example, is carried out entirely by hand. And when the distilled spirit emerges, it is subjected to the stillman's discerning judgement, founded on knowledge only acquired through years of experience and from jealously guarded professional wisdom handed down from generation to generation.

Only the finest spirit is laid down by John into hand-selected oak casks for the ten year long wait before it can take the name of Edradour. During the aging process the whisky is regularly monitored with the same hand care and attention that it took to produce it.

A deep rooted history

Only comparatively recently has Scotch whisky become a worldwide commercial commodity. For centuries the people of Edradour and other remote regions enjoyed malt whisky making as a natural by-product of farming life. The natural ingredients of barley, pure water, and peat have been available in Scotland in abundance since time immemorial.

All this was to change however...

Where quality counts

Relying on skill, experience and a lot of elbow grease, John Reid and his two fellow distillers out-put just 4 weekly mashes, producing 480 gallons of wort which yields 150 gallons of spirit.

At a weekly output of a mere 600 gallons - enough to fill twelve casks - what we make in a year, a typical Speyside distillery would produce in a week.

Small wonder, then, that Edradour can be a little hard to track down. Indeed, until a few years ago, it wasn't available in retail outlets at all. Today, however, it is available from a few discerning outlets.

Using skills handed down over the generations, the men of Edradour distillery follow the standards of those who have gone before. John Reid, David Ramsbottom and James Kennedy continue to produce the finest single malt whisky available.