MACDUFF DISTILLERY Connoisseurs Choice 2004-2017

A modern distillery, Macduff (whose whisky is bottled by its owner as either Glen Deveron or The Deveron; Macduff is only used by independent bottlers) was built in 1960 to tap into the post-war whisky boom. The group of Glasgow brokers who were the original owners included Brodie Hepburn [see Tullibardine, Deanston] and it was through them, one imagines, that William Delme-Evans was chosen as architect. Brokers Block, Grey & Block were in charge between 1966 and 1972 when it became part of William Lawson, the whisky arm of Martini & Rossi.

The distillery had been slowly expanding in terms of production throughout its life and its Italian owner upped the number of stills to five in 1990. By then a range of single malts had been released, all under the name Glen Deveron.

In keeping with the Italian market’s love of young fresh malts, a five- and eight-year-old were early members of the range. Two years later, Martini merged with Bacardi and in 1995 Macduff became part of the Dewar’s stable.

In recent years, the William Lawson blend has become a huge seller in Russia, but that hasn’t stopped Dewar’s plans to relaunch the single malt as Deveron.