Auchroisk’s story
Auchroisk is a large capacity distillery that was built in the 1970s. Despite its capacity, many have not heard of Auchroisk or tasted its whisky. The distillery is owned by Diageo and contributes large amounts of its single malt towards high volume popular Scotch blends such as J&B Rare and Johnnie Walker Red Label.
The spirit produced is light, fresh and citrusy and this is attributed by the ownership to the water used in production – this is drawn from a local spring called Dorie’s Well. The water rises from the granite bedrock and then passes through sandstone to get to the surface and this give particularly soft water, that is highly sought after by distillers.
Auchroisk is located in the hamlet of Mulben, set just off the road between Craigellachie and Dufftown. It has one of the largest warehouse spaces in Scotland and stores whisky from Diageo’s other Speyside distilleries on the site. Auchroisk is also one of the trickiest distillery names to pronounce and you can hear some entertaining interpretations. The name translates as ‘shallow ford across the stream’ from Gaelic and refers to a nearby crossing over the Mulben Burn.
Auchroisk’s history
The distillery building was started in 1972 by Justerini & Brooks, the blending house and famous London wine and spirits merchants. Production began in 1974. Its first single malt was released relatively quickly in 1978. But it really came to attention as a 12 year old in 1986 under the name of ‘The Singleton of Auchroisk’ – this brand name was created due to the belief that Auchroisk was too difficult for non-Scots to understand and recognise.
This name was abandoned in 2001 but was the forerunner to The Singleton – a modern and highly popular range of single malts from Diageo that features whiskies from the Speyside distilleries of Dufftown, Glendullan, plus Glen Ord from the Highlands.
Following this, a 10 years old expression appeared some years later as part of Diageo’s Flora & Fauna range. This range champions the company’s lesser known ‘work horse’ distilleries. Other than this, only a few independent bottlings of Auchroisk are available. The distillery was built in order to produce single malt whisky to go towards blending, primarily J&B Rare. This is still the case today, as J&B Rare remains as one of the most sold blended whisky in the world.
- How to pronounce Auchroisk? ar-thrusk
- Country: Scotland
- Region: Speyside
- Founded: 1974
- Current owners: Diageo
- Production capacity per year: 5.9 million litres
- Mash tun: 12 ton stainless steel
- Washbacks: 8
- Stills: 8
- Visitor centre: No
Auchroisk Distillery
Mulben
Banffshire
AB55 3XS
tel – +44(0)1542 885 000
web – not currently available
Did you know?
The term ‘singleton’ is an old expression that was used to describe single casks of malt whisky that were being sold at auction. The implication of attaching ‘singleton’ to a whisky was that it was of exceptional quality, rarity or age.
Auchroisk Distillery
