Speyside Distillery Distillery — Speyside Single Malt Whisky

Speyside Distillery is a Scotch whisky distillery located near Drumguish, close to Kingussie, in the Speyside region of Scotland. It was founded in 1990 and closed in 2025 when its operating lease expired. It is one of the smallest and most artisanal distilleries in Scotland, built by hand over three decades on the site of a 1760s barley mill.

History

The site at Tromie Mills originally housed a barley mill dating to the 1760s. In 1962, whisky enthusiast George Christie purchased the property and, working with stonemason Alex Fairlie, spent the next two decades slowly converting the old mill buildings into a working distillery, largely by hand. Construction was finished in 1987, and production of spirit finally began in December 1990, drawing process water from the adjacent River Tromie.

Two small copper pot stills (one wash, one spirit) of traditional shape were installed, and because large-scale output was never Christie's aim, they remained among the smallest stills in Scotland throughout the distillery's life, giving a capacity of around 600,000 litres a year. The mash tun was the last one ever fitted by Newmill Engineering before that firm closed. The distillery produced the SPEY range of single malts, along with the Beinn Dubh single malt and Byron's Gin, and built a strong export following, particularly in Taiwan where over a million bottles of SPEY were sold annually.

Harvey's of Edinburgh acquired ownership of the distillery in 2012 and leased the buildings to the Speyside Distillers Co., which continued to run day-to-day production and, via an on-site space known as The Snug, host visitors.

Quick Facts

• Region: Speyside, Scotland
• Founded: 1990 (buildings completed 1987)
• Owner: Harvey's of Edinburgh (leased to Speyside Distillers Co.)
• Status: Closed
• Stills: 1 wash still, 1 spirit still

Closure & Legacy

Speyside Distillers Co.'s lease on the Kingussie buildings expired in 2025 and was not renewed, and the distillery ceased production. Its mash tun, stills and washbacks were removed and put into storage at Forsyths Ltd in Rothes while a new production site at Strathmashie is prepared to continue the SPEY brand. Harvey's CEO John Harvey McDonough remarked that "the whisky from Speyside Distillery is now from a lost distillery... there will never be another Speyside Distillery." Separately, Glasgow Whisky, which bought the original Kingussie site in 2021, has announced plans to build a new, zero-carbon distillery there called Glen Tromie. With production permanently ended at the original site, existing bottlings of SPEY, Beinn Dubh and other Speyside Distillery-era releases are now closed-distillery whisky and are becoming increasingly collectible among Speyside enthusiasts.