Strathmill

StrathmillSingle Malt Scotch Whisky

Strathmill was originally founded in 1823 (as Glenisla-Glenlivet, confusingly), but had a bit of a stop-start existence.

The first distillery had been converted from a flour mill, and was only in operation until 1837, when the distilling equipment was removed and the buildings converted back into a mill. This continued until the 1890s, when the mill was once again converted back into a distillery.

According to Misako Udo's superb 'The Scottish Whisky Distilleries', after this rebuild Strathmill "...had a "WhiskyFountain"where whisky straight from the still was run into open vessels. Unfortunately, this no longer exists".

Soon afterwards, the distillery was bought by W& A Gilbey (the English gin company), who would eventuially become part of Diageo. As a workhorse distillery with a production capacity of 1.7 million litres/year (almost the entirety of which is used for Diageo blends, chiefly J&B), Strathmill is not a high priority for Diageo's marketing department, which is why almost no-one has ever heard of it. The first and only official bottling (aside from a ridicualously rare Centenaryedition and a Manager's Dram for Diageo staff)remains the 10 year old Flora & Fauna edition released in 2001.

Independent bottlings are relatively rare, although Douglas Laing have done a couple recently. Michale Jackson describes the house style as 'The whisky world's answer to orange muscat. With dessert.'