Tomatin Distillery

Tomatin’s story

Tomatin is a distillery located high in the Grampian mountains, between Inverness and Aviemore in the Scottish Highlands. It is a large distillery that currently produces five million litres of whisky per year. Tomatin is used in a variety of blended whiskies including the Antiquary and Talisman ranges as well as the Culloden Cream liqueur. This accounted for most of the production in the past, but changed with a shift of ownership focus towards single malts in 2004. Now, 65% of all spirit is allocated for future use in the distillery’s increasingly broadening and popular single malt range.

The name of Tomatin translates as ‘the hill of the juniper bush’ from the local Gaelic dialect and the water for making their whisky is taken from the nearby Allt-na-Frithe burn (the ‘free burn’ in Gaelic) that runs next to the distillery.

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Tomatin’s history

There are records of an illegal distillery on the site of Tomatin that date back as far as the 15th century. The modern Tomatin distillery was founded by a consortium of local businessmen in 1897, under the name of the Tomatin Spey Distillery Company. However, within a decade they had been declared bankrupt and a new consortium rescued the distillery and production restarted in 1909.

The number of stills was increased on five different occasions during the 1950s and 1960s, until by 1974 it had 23 stills and a massive capacity of 12 million litres of whisky per year. This made Tomatin the largest whisky distillery in Scotland at the time. However, following a dramatic slump in the Scotch whisky industry during the 1970s and early-1980s the company operating Tomatin went into liquidation in 1985. The rescue package came from a Japanese company – the Takara Shuzo Corporation – in 1986 and made Tomatin the first Scottish whisky distillery to be owned by Japanese investors.

Despite the distillery now running at a reduced capacity of approximately five million litres per year, the single malt range and its marketing has increased dramatically and Tomatin single malt is now selling more than ever. They also produce a peated single malt for a short period each year, which uses local Highland peat to smoke the malted barley and is released under the Cù Bòcan (pronounced koo-bock-un) name. Cù Bòcan has grown in stature and popularity since its inaugural release in 2013.

• How to pronounce Tomatin? tom-a-tin
• Country: Scotland
• Region: Highlands
• Founded: 1897
• Current owners: Takara Shuzo Co.
• Production capacity per year: 5 million litres
• Mash tun: 9 ton stainless steel
• Washbacks: 12
• Stills: 12
• Visitor centre: Yes

Tomatin Distillery
Tomatin
Inverness-shire
IV13 7YT
tel – +44(0)1808 511 444
www.tomatin.com

Did you know?

During the early 1980s, a commercial eel farm was built next to Tomatin. They used the large amount of excess waste warm water produced by the distillery to help the eels grow faster than in the wild. However, this was a shortlived venture, closing when the distillery went in to liquidation in 1985.