Founded in 1823 by James Findlater, Donald Mackintosh and Alex Gordon, Mortlach was the first licenced distillery in Dufftown. After a brief period of ownership by the Grant brothers (who gutted the distillery and used the equipment for their site in Rothes, Glen Grant), Mortlach was taken over by George Cowie and his son Alexander, who resumed whisky production and positioned Mortlach as a prized blending malt. The distillery is known for its full bodied, ‘meaty’ whisky, which results in part from a complex distillation process where the whisky is distilled 2.81 times.
In the early 1920s the distillery was purchased by John Walker & Sons and from there became part of Distillers Company Limited. In 2014, owner Diageo released four new official bottlings and plans were announced to build a mirror image of the distillery, which will double Mortlach’s capacity when completed.