It was in 1863 that the Strathspey railway first graced Speyside’s locality. A dependable means of travel was, at last, brought to the area and several distilleries were built as a result. Tamdhu was one of them; founded in 1896 by a group of whisky blenders, including William Grant and Sons among others, and designed by the famed, prolific Speyside distillery architect, Charles Doig of Elgin.
The distillery is of good size; her six stills have a total capacity of four million litres annually, though at present Tamdhu runs at three quarters of this. Tamdhu installed a substantial Saladin box malting system in 1950. One of but a handful of distilleries with onsite maltings and the only one still using a Saladin box, Tamdhu produces all of its own malt as well as enough to supply other distilleries in the Edrington group, notably the Glenrothes distillery. Tamdhu lies on the banks of the mighty River Spey, not far from Knockando. The Knockando distillery's ancient railway station has since been converted into the Tamdhu visitor centre.
Tamdhu was previously owned by Edrington Group who, with William Grant in 1999, acquired the distillery from Highland Distillers who had owned the distillery for over a decade. In 2010, the distillery was mothballed and sold to Ian Macleod Distillers the following year. Throughout 2012, Tamdhu was re-commissioned, with production starting once again. The new owners released their first Tamdhu single malt in 2013 - the handsome Tamdhu 10 Year Old, which was followed by the Tamdhu Batch Strength series and the hugely impressive Tamdhu 50 Year Old.