view from the street

Distillery profiles: Pittyvaich-Glenlivet

Pittyvaich: Pit a bhathaich- “farm with a byre” (byre is a cattle shed btw). The distillery was built on the site of the farm adjoining Dufftown distillery. Pittyvaich House, built around 1850, was demolished to make way for construction. According to Misako Udo Dufftown distillery was originally to be given the name “Pittyvaich”. It was the eighth distillery to be built in Dufftown, Kininvie followed in the 1990s.

Dufftown distillery was established in 1896, Arthur Bell and Sons bought the facility in 1933. With rising demand for Scotch whisky the number of stills at Dufftown were doubled to four in 1967 then another pair were added in 1979. Bells became the best selling brand in the home market accounting for an impressive one quarter of blends sold. It was decided a new distillery was required to keep up with demand for the successful brand.

Production began at Pittyvaich in June 1974 on a site close to the Dufftown distillery at the town boundary on a hilltop. Compared to Dufftown Pittyvaich was modern and spacious offering up to date practices in a building constructed sympathetically to the operator’s working environment. Unlike many older buildings in the industry that had been gradually expanded it was relatively easy to keep clean and was well laid out.

There was a cast iron mash tun and 6 stainless steel washbacks. Fermentation, at least for a period, took between 40 and 48 hours. The two pairs of stills were replicas of those at Dufftown, each with a capacity of 30KL. They took about a 15kl charge. Waste heat was used to pre-heat the wash before entering the wash still. Heating was by steam whilst shell and tube condensers were fitted. Distillery output was about 4.5MLPA.
A dark grains plant was also commissioned to process the draff from both distilleries as well as from sister distillery Inchgower at Buckie.

In 1985 Bells were acquired by Guinness then in the following year DCL were also taken over. The following year, 1987, United Distillers was formed when the Bells and DCL distilleries were combined under one administration.

In May 1993 United Distillers reduced the number of operating distilleries from 31 to 27 when Rosebank, Bladnoch, Pittyvaich and Balmenach were closed. 20 jobs were lost at the time but the distillery was back in production in November 1994 although it was used to make gin for Gordon’s. It was also employed as a test bed for spirit production around 1997. The asbestos roof was replaced sometime during this decade. A final halt to production was called in 2001, some equipment was used at Clynelish. Pittyvaich was demolished in 2002.

Apart from being used in blends, particularly Bells, Pittyvaich was from 1991 a feature in the Flora and Fauna range where it was bottled at 12yo and 43%. There has also been a number of aged bottlings from Diageo’s Special Release series.

Jim Murray compared one sample he had to Semtex.

Mark Davidson, aka The Jolly Toper Profile