Miltonduff

One of the oldest distilleries that no-one's ever heard of, Miltonduff was originally an illegal farm distillery called Milton, adding the 'Duff' when it obtained its license in 1824.

Despite its obscurity, it is second only to Glenlivet in Pernod Ricard's Chivas group of distilleries, with a massive potential capacity of over 5 million litres/year.

During the 19th century, Miltonduff was triple-distilled, but nowadays the malt spirit is double-distilled. Miltonduff was bought by Hiram Walker in the 1930s to supply malt for Ballantine's, and the blend still accounts for the majority of the distillery's malt production (although both are now owned by Pernod Ricard, who acquired them as part of the spoils of their takeover of Allied Domecq in 2005).

Between 1964 and 1981 Miltonduff produced the now highly collectable Mosstowie single malt on two Lomond stills that Hiram Walker installed as an experiment in producing different styles of whisky. The Lomond stills were eventually replaced with conventional pot stills, of which the distillery has six. There is also a dark grains plant on site for the conversion of distillery by-products into cattle feed.

As a workhorse distillery, official bottlings of Miltonduff have been rare to non-existent. An Allied-era 15 year-old was produced for a few years but is now discontinued. Independent bottlings, though, are fairly easy to come by, with Gordon & MacPhail releasing various well-priced expressions in recent years.