Aberlour is a Speyside Scotch single malt whisky distillery located at the meeting point of the river Spey and river lour in the region of Strathspey. In Gaelic, Aberlour is translated as 'the mouth of the chattering burn'. 

James Fleming, the son of a local farmer became a grain merchant. In 1879, After counting on many whisky distilleries as his customers and having bought more barley than he could sell, he decided to pursue his long-held goal of starting his own distillery. 

Fleming discovered that the water from the burn (stream) Lour is extremely clean and soft from its journey over the granite in the mountains. From this water, he made a very smooth whisky. In 1892, James Fleming sold to Robert Thorn & Sons. In January 1898, a fire broke out in the malt house, destroying several distillery buildings and most of the whisky supplies. 

The distillery was largely rebuilt under the supervision of Charles Doig of Elgin, Scotland. Consequently, the whisky was distilled again within 6 months. 

In 1920 Aberlour was sold to W.H. Holt & Sons based near Manchester and resold in 1945 to S. Campbell & Sons. 

In 1973 Aberlour was expanded having two wash stills of about 21,000 litres and also two spirit stills that are up to 15,500 litres. 

And in 1975 was bought out by Pernod Ricard which merged with Chivas brothers in 2001. 

Annual production in 2014 was around 3.5 million litres. That made them amongst the largest whisky distilleries in Scotland. Aberlour’s pot stills distillery uses a total of four-pot stills in a double distillation process to produce its new make spirit. 

In addition, the distillery has a pear-shaped pot and a conical neck which have an excellent design for making single malt whiskies. With no tightening or ebb bowls in the neck and the lyne arm facing downwards, you would expect a very sturdy and strong distillery trait. 

Hence, this leads to the speed with which Aberlour distils its spirits. The sweet and cool charisma of the usual Aberlour implies that the Aberlour distillery uses a slow distillation process. Malt production on the traditional malting floor continued until 1962. Campbell Distillers (then known as S. Campbell & Sons Ltd.) decided to stop the floor maltings on site. Up until today, Aberlour procures its malt from the big malting plants in Scotland. 

In 2002, a new, modernized visitor centre was opened for public tours and guided tours.

Over the past 100 years, the building of the distillery has undoubtedly changed, but many original features remain, and the traditional way of working of the Aberlour Distillery has not changed.