Johnnie Walker Blue Label

If you take the whisky walking tour of Dufftown, just up from the Dufftown distillery, you’ll come to an open patch of land surrounded by warehouses. This is where Pittyvaich once stood. Established in 1975 by Arthur Bells & Sons, the distillery had a single purpose and that was to provide content for the Bell’s blend. It was a fairly simple construct, often described as little more than a shed, which eventually housed 4 stills that produced as much whisky as possible. Pittyvaich was unglamorous as distilleries go and very little of it was released as a single malt. That changed in 1991 when it made its Flora & Fauna debut as a 12 year old and occasional independent bottlings appeared to satisfy curiosity. The end came in 1993 when distilling stopped in the shed and it was demolished in 2002. Since then, we’ve seen Diageo produce the odd Special Release to underline that stocks of Pittyvaich still exist, and maybe one day, we’ll grow to appreciate the whisky.