About Tullibardine Whisky Distillery
Distillery Founded
1947
Distillery Capacity
2 500 000 litres
Distillery Status
Active
Distillery Address
Blackford, Perthshire
Distillery Owner
Tullibardine Distillery Ltd
Distillery Website
www.tullibardine.com
1100s
A brewery was built on the site of today’s Tullibardine distillery.
1488
The Scottish King, James IV, purchases beer produced at the brewery. The brewery sources water from the same spring that the modern Tullibardine distillery currently uses.
1824
James McKilligan & Co. builds the distillery which is known as Mill of Banff and, later on, as Inverboyndie Distillery.
1837
Major McKilligan dies and Alex Mackay takes over.
1852
James Simpson takes over together with his son James junior.
1863
The distillery outgrows itself and James junior builds a new one in the village Inverboyndie which thereafter is called Banff Distillery. The managing company changes name to Simpson & Co.
1877
On 9th May a fire devastates most of the distillery except the warehouse and the maltings. Rebuilding starts quickly and it is operational again in October.
1921
The Simpson family sells part of the distillery to Mile End Distillery Company.
1924
Triple distillation ceases.
1932
Simpson & Co. files for bankruptcy and Scottish Malt Distillers (SMD) takes over at a price of £50 000.
1941
A German warplane bombs warehouse number 12 on 16th August and thousands of litres of whisky are destroyed.
1947
The Tullibardine distillery is reopened. The first spirit runs from the stills two years later.
1953
The distillery is sold to Brodie Hepburn.
1959
One of the stills explodes.
1971
Invergordon Distillers buys Brodie Hepburn Ltd.
1973
The number of stills doubles from two to four.
1983
Banff Distillery and ten others are closed by DCL.
1985
The distillery buildings are demolished.
1991
The remaining buildings are destroyed in a fire.
1993
Whyte & Mackay (owned by Fortune Brands) buys Invergordon Distillers.
1994
Tullibardine is mothballed.
1996
Whyte & Mackay changes name to JBB (Greater Europe).
2001
JBB (Greater Europe) is bought out from Fortune Brands by management and changes name to Kyndal (Whyte & Mackay from 2003).
2003
A consortium including Michael Beamish buys Tullibardine in June for £1.1 million. The distillery is in production again by December. The first official bottling from the new owners is a 10 year old from 1993.
2004
Diageo launches a 21 year old cask strength in their Rare Malt series.
2005
Three wood finishes from 1993, port, muscatel and marsala are launched together with a 1986 John Black selection.
2006
Vintage 1966 (plus a special World Cup version), Sherry Wood 1993 and a new John Black selection are launched.
2007
Five different wood finishes are released as well as a couple of single cask vintages.
2008
A Vintage 1968 40 year old is released.
Reproduced from the Malt Whisky Yearbook 2009 with the kind permission of Mr Ingvar Ronde