Glenturret

There was an illicit farm distillery at The Hosh from 1775, and based on this, Glenturret claims to be the oldest distillery in Scotland. The first license was granted to John Drummond in 1818. He continued until he went bankrupt in 1842. John McCalum followed him but also went bust; then it was taken over by Thomas Stewart, who changed its name from ‘Hosh’ to ‘Glenturret’ in 1875. In 1903, the Mitchell Brothers Ltd acquired the site and continued to oversee production until 1921, at which point the company decided to cease production, and the site was used for storage only. In 1929, the Mitchell Brothers were liquidated, and the Glenturret distillery was dismantled, with the facilities being taken over by a local farmer to store his agricultural equipment. After laying silent for thirty years, production restarted in 1959 after James Fairlie bought the site.

The site continued to swap hands into the late twentieth century, with Rémy-Cointreau purchasing the distillery in 1981, and Highland Distillers taking over in 1990. Today, the distillery is owned by the Erdington Group, who acquired Highland Distillers in 1992 to the tune of a staggering GBP 601 million. As we move into the twenty-first century, Glenturret has reduced its number of bottles to just one. The 10 years-old.