Linkwood Distillery

A distillery named after the family home

Overview

Linkwood distillery was built in 1821 by Peter Brown, the factor of the Seafield estates of Moray and Banffshire, and is named after Linkwood House, the family home. According to old documententation, Peter Brown began distilling whisky at Linkwood in 1824.

After his death, his son, William Brown ran the distillery for another 30 years, and gave the distillery a solid reputation. William carried on the business and rebuilt the distillery in the 1870s. Directors of Teaninich and Scapa distilleries were involved at different times in the running of Linkwood.

One of the managers in the 1930s believed that absolutely everything in the distillery played its part in making the whisky what it was and he commanded that nothing – not even a cobweb – be removed. Had he lived long enough, he would have been dismayed in 1962 when the internal layout was radically changed and again in 1971 when a second distilling unit with two pairs of stills was built alongside the original Linkwood single-pair set-up.

Glen Grant had also opened another ‘branch’ across the road at Rothes but found that the spirit produced was so different that the new unit had to be registered as a completely separate distillery and given a different name, Caperdonich. The distillery was closed from 1985 up to 1990.

Only 1 or 2% of the production is marketed as single malt, the remaining being used in the blends of the UDV group, White Horse, Haig, Bells and Dimple amongst others.