Tomintoul

The functional-looking distillery was built in 1964 by the Glasgow whisky traders Hey & Macleod and W. and S. Strong, which set up a working company, Tomintoul Distillery Ltd. Production. The company only ran the distillery for less than a decade and sold it to Lonrho in 1973.

Founded in 1909, Lonrho (London and Rhodesia Mining Company) was headed by a controversial entrepreneur, Tiny Rowland, from 1961 who transformed it into a global conglomerate. Whyte & Mackay was also acquired in 1973, and ownership of Tomintoul was transferred. Capacity doubled in 1974 to four stills.
Whyte & Mackay itself was bought by American Brands in 1990, and in the same year, Tomintoul started selling a 12-year-old bottling of its malt in a distinctively styled bottle.