Tormore was the first entirely new malt distillery built in the Highlands in the twentieth century, completed in 1958 for Long John Distillers (then owned by Schenley of America). It stands on the A95 between Grantown and Aberlour, an unmistakable sight: a great symmetrical block of dressed stone with a clock tower, ornamental gardens and topiary stills, designed by Sir Albert Richardson, then President of the Royal Academy.
Richardson was an architect of considerable seriousness, and Tormore was conceived as a deliberate statement — a piece of public architecture in a landscape of plain stone barns and pagoda roofs. The locals, predictably, were divided. The whisky, for many years, was almost entirely consumed by the blenders, and Tormore appeared in Long John, Ballantine's and various other bottlings without troubling the single malt drinker.
Through Allied Distillers and then Chivas Brothers ownership, official bottlings were few and unloved. The distillery was sold in 2022 to Elixir Distillers, the bottling house behind The Single Malts of Scotland, and the 14-year-old released under their stewardship has done much to rehabilitate the name. At a generous 43% (some markets 46%), it gives a clear, malty, fruit-driven Speyside profile with the kind of quiet confidence Tormore has always deserved.
A handsome distillery, an interesting whisky, and a long-overdue rescue from blender's anonymity.
