Ardross Distillery sits at the sleepy edge of a Highland hillscape, wind turbines turning on the shoulder of Ben Tharsuinn to the west, and the deer forest of the Kildermorie Estate spreading birch and rowan trees to the east. In the Middle Ages, this was Picts’ country, home to the tough, ancient tribes who held back the Romans. It’s still wildly beautiful today, but not quite wilderness – the surrounding peaks are gentle Grahams, not Munros, and Inverness is a short drive to the south.
When master whisky blender and Ardross chairman Andrew Rankin first visited this spot seven years ago, the hills were blanketed in snow, and a lone farmhouse stood in front of him, empty and derelict: “A wreck.” But straight away, he saw a distillery. “I’m known as being pernickety,” he says. “But if you go somewhere and it looks good, the chances are it’s going to be.”
