Friday 16 December 2016

Illicit Whisky Still Sites

Today's BBC's report - here - that the site of an illicit still near Badger Falls in Glen Affric, found by Forest Enterprise Scotland staff in 2008, has been recognised as a monument of national importance, is welcome news. The story of the small highland stills, run by local people in hidden glens to earn money to keep their families and pay their rent in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, needs telling.

We're pleased that we have at least two here on Ardnamurchan, and ours are very much more accessible than the Glen Affric one. Both are below waterfalls, from which water was drawn to cool the copper distillation coil.

The first (above) is sited on the Allt Rath a' Bheulain about a kilometre north of the B8007 where it passes the western corner of the Beinn nan Losgann forestry, at approximately NM516665, while....


....this one, which isn't in such good condition, is on the Allt na Doire Bhuidhe to the southwest of the B8007, where it passes the southeastern corner of the Beinn nan Losgann forestry, at approximately  NM546647.

So there is a long tradition of whisky distillation on Ardnamurchan which has now being resurrected by the Adelphi distillery at Glenbeg - link here.

2 comments:

  1. The name of our house is `Cnoc an Oir`,..meaning Hill of Gold,...supposedly because it was a site of a whiskey still.... I like to think its true anyway

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  2. ....wonder if they distilled whisky there too?

    ReplyDelete