Dewar’s Aberfeldy

Aberfeldy distillery was built a quarter of a mile to the east of Aberfeldy village by the Dewar brothers, Tommy and John Jnr, to supply filling for their increasingly successful blends. The site chosen was that of the former Pitilie Brewery, which had also once been a distillery of the same name, operating from 1825 to 1867. The founders’ father, John Dewar, was born on a croft about two miles away.
Dewar’s joined DCL in 1925 and in 1973 the Aberfeldy site doubled in capacity to its present size. It changed ownership in 1998, when the UK Monopolies Board forced the newly formed Diageo to offload one of its brands and attendant capacity. The Dewar’s estate the blends, plus Aberfeldy, Aultmore, Craigellachie and Royal Brackla were bought for £1.1bn by Bacardi-Martini.

In 2000, a new distillery visitor center named “Dewar’s World of Whisky” was opened at a cost of £3 million. The Earl of Elgin opened the facility, it being designed for marketing Aberfeldy products and educating the public about the process of distillation and history of the Dewar’s brand. Aberfeldy is the largest malt whisky component of Dewar’s Blended Whisky.