The beginnings of the Glenturret whisky distillery are rather vague at best. The owners claim the distillery is one of Scotland’s oldest and it is certainly rumoured that distillation was carried out in the area during the early 18th century, this was, though, by illicit means. It was in 1775, that the Hosh distillery was established by a group of smugglers. The buildings sit at the banks of the River Turret, not far from Crieff.
In 1826, a distillery called Glenturret was established, though it closed a couple of decades later. It was in 1875, that the Hosh distillery adopted the name Glenturret, Thomas Stewart was the manager.
The whisky distillery was sadly closed for much of the early part of the 20th century. Following the acquisition by Mitchell Bros Ltd in 1903 the buildings were used as whisky storage. They deemed that whisky production would not be so lucrative. Mitchell Bros went into liquidation in 1929 and for some time the buildings were used for agricultural storage. Glenturret’s saviour arrived in 1957 in the form of James Fairlie who acquired the distillery and subsequently refurbished it.
Spirit ran from the stills once more in 1959 and, shortly after, the Glenturret distillery was acquired by Remy-Cointreau. Following purchase by Edrington and William Grant and Sons of previous owners, Highland Distillers, the Glenturret distillery was under Edrington Group ownership until 2019, when it was purchased by a joint venture led by The Lallique Group. Glenturret holds its own place in the record books; The Guinness Book of World Records sites Towser, the now woefully deceased cat, as having caught more mice than any other; in her 23 years she is said to have caught 28,899 mice, the real question remains: who counted?