Tamdhu distillery is located just next to the Knockando burn where it meets the Spey river in Aberlour, Scotland. Tamdhu in Gaelic is translated as “little dark hill”.

In 1897, the distillery was constructed by a band of blenders controlled by William Grant, who was a director of Highland Distillers and also was among the board of the Elgin bank. They employed Charles C Doig ESQ as the designer of their ultra-modern and advanced distillery.

Two years after its establishment, the distillery had financial difficulties and was sold to Highland Distillers. Tamdhu changed hands several times: the distillery was closed between 1911 and 1913, between 1928 and 1948, and between 2009 and 2012. 

The Edrington company that had acquired Highland Distillers in 1999 traded Tamdhu, including the distillery's inventories to Ian Macleod Distillers in 2011. They decided to reopen a fully operative distillery and re-form the Tamdhu brand. Therefore, they did not use the old in-house maltings with their Saladin boxes, instead, malt was purchased from external producers. 

Distillation at Tamdhu Distillery is carried out in three pairs of stills. In 1972, the distillery increased its number of stills from 2 to 4. Also, in the same year, the distillery was integrated as Tamdhu-Glenlivit Ltd: as a subsidiary of Highland Distilleries Co Ltd. 

The state-of-the-art equipment that distinguished Tamdhu since the rebuilding of the distillery in 1950 was the Saladin boxes. They substituted the usual malting floors and Tamdhu also supplied other distilleries. Their annual capacity was 14.000 tonnes. The distillery still has the Saladin boxes that could possibly be re-awakened in a short time, but when Ian Macleod Distillers restarted in 2011, they decided not to use them any longer.

4th of May 2013 was a memorable day for Tamdhu Whisky - The new proprietors Ian Macleod launched their first malt since the re-opening of the distillery during the famous Speyside Festival.

Another notable date of the distillery was the 1st of December 2014, when Sandy Coutts retired having worked at Tamdhu for 40 years. He started working in 1970 at the maltings, then as a brewer, and retired as the Distillery Manager. Another Sandy has now replaced him: Sandy McIntyre, who formerly worked at several Diageo distilleries, joined the Tamdhu team as the new Distillery Manager.

In 2015, the output of Tamdhu Distillery was about 2.5 million litres of spirits. Tamdhu also owns three wash stills and four liquor stills.

Tamdhu distillery is still running strong under the control of Ian MacLeod Distillers.