Although the Speyside distillery was founded in 1956, it was not until 1990 that production began. The respected whisky maker George Christie purchased land near Kingussie and founded a grain distillery in 1957. In 1962, he commenced the building of a malt whisky distillery on the site and the work was completed in 1987. The new distillery sits opposite the site of the old Drumguish distillery, which closed in 1911.
Speyside is rather artisanal in terms of scale; with a capacity of a mere 600,000 litres annually and a small workforce of just four under the management of Andrew Shand. Most of this is bottled as The Speyside, although bottlings are also released under the names Glentromie and Drumguish respectively. The company’s Glasgow base also produces Yokozuna, Mongolia’s best selling blended Scotch. The distillery sits to the east of Kingussie on the banks of the river Tromie and the Speyside distillery can lay claim to being the closest to the River Spey’s headwaters.