UNSUNG HERO
Miltonduff
In our last issue, we profiled one of two key distilleries that provide malt whisky for the Ballantine’s blend in the shape of Glenburgie, and this time around we focus on the second, namely Miltonduff. While high-profile distilleries such as The Glenlivet, Cardhu and The Macallan celebrated their official bi-centenaries last year, Miltonduff’s 200th anniversary passed almost unnoticed, in keeping with the distillery’s long-standing below-the-radar profile
WORDS: GAVIN D SMITH
PICTURED: Plans for a new sustainable distillery next to the existing facility are well underway at Miltonduff
ABOVE: Miltonduff’s importance as one of the two key contributors to the Ballantine’s blend is clear
Miltonduff is located some three miles south-west of Elgin, off the B9010 road and close to Pluscarden Abbey. That institution was founded in the 13th century and restored to habitable condition during 1948 after more than three centuries of dereliction. It is now the only medieval monastery in Britain still inhabited by monks.
Long ago, those monks brewed ale with a reputation for excellence, using water from the Black Burn, which supplies Miltonduff distillery today, and whisky distillation took place at Milton Farm where the abbey’s meal mill once stood.
The area was rife with illicit distillation during the 18th and early 19th centuries, and distillery chronicler Alfred Barnard wrote after a visit in the mid-1880s that: “At one time there were as many as fifty illicit stills in the Glen of Pluscarden.”
Miltonduff distillery – also sometimes Milton Duff – was named after the high-profile local landowning Duff family on whose estate it was constructed by Robert Bain and Andrew Peary, soon after the transformative Excise Act of 1824.
The distillery was subsequently acquired by William Stuart, co-owner of Highland Park, during 1866, and in 1895, Thomas Yool & Co became involved in Miltonduff’s ownership, ultimately taking full control.
The plant was extended during the whisky boom of the 1890s, and by the end of the century, Miltonduff was one of the largest whisky producers in the country, capable of making more than one million litres of spirit per year. Most unusually, the distillery practised triple-distillation, very rarely encountered in the Highlands, and most readily associated with Lowland whisky-making operations.
Miltonduff remained in the ownership of the Yool family until 1936 when it was purchased by Canadian distilling giant Hiram Walker Gooderham & Worts, which also acquired Glenburgie, having taken control of the popular Ballantine’s blended Scotch brand the previous year. Miltonduff subsequently became part of Hiram Walker’s subsidiary George Ballantine & Son.
Hiram Walker had made a great deal of money during Prohibition, ‘allowing’ its whiskies to be shipped into the USA, and was keen to gain a foothold in the Scotch whisky industry to secure supplies of malt spirit for use in Ballantine’s. The company also constructed Dumbarton grain distillery, near Glasgow, during 1938.
ABOVE: Miltonduff currently has six stills with a capacity of around 10 million litres of pure alcohol per year
Since its acquisition by Hiram Walker, Miltonduff has been at the heart of Ballantine’s, which for some years has been the second-best selling blended Scotch in the world, behind Johnnie Walker, retailing 107 million bottles during 2022.
According to Sandy Hyslop, director of blending & inventory at Chivas Brothers: “The new spirit from the Miltonduff distillery evokes sweet orchard fruit notes, namely pears, with a touch of aromatic floral aroma.
“We are also looking for that hint of freshly cut grass and gentle spice that makes Miltonduff distillate the very foundation and fingerprint of Ballantine’s, bringing its characteristic fruity and fragrant notes to the blend.”
For a time, however, Miltonduff also produced spirit of a different character, as Hiram Walker installed a pair of Lomond stills there during 1964. Those stills, fitted at several of the company’s sites, boasted conventional pots, along with perforated plates in the necks, allowing the production of varying spirit styles. At Miltonduff, they were responsible for a variant named Mosstowie, and the presence of Lomonds was intended to expand the palate of malts available to the company’s blenders.
Mosstowie was lighter in body than ‘standard’ Miltonduff, sweet, gently spicy and grassy, while some batches exhibited soft smoky notes, due to the use of lightly peated barley.
As demand for Ballantine’s grew, Miltonduff was almost entirely rebuilt during 1974, when the complement of stills was increased to six, and seven years later, the pair of Lomond stills was decommissioned.
PICTURED: The new distillery at Miltonduff will include a bio plant and evaporator and will add around 10 million litres of alcohol per year to total production capacity
ABOVE: The spirit safe at Miltonduff distillery
In 1986/87 Allied Lyons plc took over Hiram Walker’s distilling interests, and during 2005 Miltonduff was one of the distilleries to come into the possession of Chivas Brothers Ltd, following their purchase of what had by that time become the Allied Domecq Group.
Just as increasing demand for Ballantine’s led to the reconstruction and expansion of Miltonduff during the 1970s, so an even more ambitious project to grow capacity was unveiled in 2022.
In the spring of that year, Chivas Brothers announced that it was to spend some £88m in total, doubling potential output at its Aberlour distillery, while Miltonduff’s expansion was to include the construction of a new state-of-the-art sustainable distillery next to the existing facility. The distillery, including a bio-plant and evaporator, would add 10m litres of alcohol to the annual production capacity.
In both cases, high-efficiency mechanical vapour recompression (MVR) fan technology was to be employed for pot still distillation, helping Chivas Brothers achieve its target of carbon neutrality by 2026.
Each of Miltonduff’s three existing onion-shaped wash stills has a capacity of 22,730 litres, while the trio of spirit stills can hold 18,200 litres. According to Sandy Hyslop: “Miltonduff capacity remains the same as we’ve previously reported at around 10 million litres. We are still in the design phase for the new distillery, ensuring our new site supports our sustainability journey while balancing continued market growth in Ballantine’s. We hope to provide a firm date for when the site will be operational in the coming months.”
‘House’ bottlings of Miltonduff are rare beasts, currently comprising a 24-year-old in the Secret Speyside range, and a 12-year-old cask strength variant in the Distillery Reserve Collection, available only at Chivas Brothers’ distillery visitor centres. However, the Society has bottled well over 100 exceptional casks of Miltonduff during its existence, including the outstanding 40-year-old Vaults Collection bottling Cask No. 72.121: All the right steps. Look out for more in the future!