Edradour Distillery is Scotland’s smallest traditional distillery. Its old, whitewashed farm buildings climb picturesquely up a hillside. Inside these buildings you’ll find more than a few real treasures.
Unfortunately, the distillery – including the bar and shop – remains closed in 2025 as well. It seems staff are still lacking.
The tour guide never tires of pointing it out: Edradour is Scotland’s smallest traditional distillery. Just a few years ago he could have dropped the word “traditional”, but since a handful of small new whisky distilleries have sprung up on the islands to the west – such as Kilchoman Distillery on Islay or Abhainn Dearg on the Outer Hebrides – Edradour’s age has to be emphasised as well.
And that age is genuinely impressive. Whisky has been distilled in the buildings on the Edradour Burn since 1825. A lively history indeed.
Edradour lies above the town of Pitlochry, right in the heart of Perthshire, at the southern foothills of the Cairngorm mountains. The white houses with their red-painted doors nestle into the gentle slope, with the Edradour Burn flowing between them. The distillery feels more like a small village – and that impression isn’t far off. Edradour whisky came about through the cooperation of various local farmers who were looking for a sensible use for their surplus barley. Back then, though, it went by the name Glenforres.
For over a hundred years, Edradour distillery built up its production and its good reputation. Shortly before and during the Second World War, Edradour released House of Lords and King’s Ransom – both blended whiskies. Their reputation reached as far as the USA, where they caught the ear of Frank Costello, a New York mafia boss. Through a front man named Irving Haim, Costello bought into Edradour as an owner in 1934, and whole shiploads of Edradour whisky left Scotland bound for America.
One of these ships would go on to become famous: the SS Politician ran aground off the small island of Eriskay. The locals then plundered the wreck, and many bottles of King’s Ransom and House of Lords disappeared. Today, a good number of them have resurfaced. Mostly empty. You can admire a few bottles from the SS Politician on Eriskay – for instance in the local pub.
So Edradour Distillery really does look back on a long and unbroken history. And it’s happy to show it off. Inside, there are unique pieces of equipment to see: for example the mash tun, where milled and malted barley is mixed with water and heated. The cast-iron vessel has already clocked up 110 years. A similarly rare piece is the Morton Refrigerator, a kind of cooling trough with fins that cools the wort back down before it’s channelled into the wooden washbacks for fermentation. It’s the last of its kind still in use in whisky production.
Visitors thus find themselves on a small journey back through whisky history, transported back decades. That’s exactly why a visit here is worthwhile, and what makes Edradour stand out pleasantly from the big distilleries.
Good to know: annual production
Edradour Distillery produces around 250,000 bottles of whisky per year. Large distilleries reach that figure comfortably in just a single week. In return, though, Edradour is one of the few distilleries that doesn’t belong to one of the very big drinks conglomerates. In 2002 a company from Edinburgh called Signatory Vintage Scotch Whisky bought the small distillery from the major Pernod Ricard group. Price: £5.4 million (roughly €6.8 million). So Edradour is back in Scottish hands.
In 1823 – shortly before the distillery was founded – an excise act was passed that, among other things, set a minimum size for a distillery. It had to be large enough that it couldn’t be dismantled, transported, or hidden away. Edradour just barely meets this minimum size, making it one of the smallest distilleries around.
Personal note: whisky under coloured lighting just doesn’t work
Our tour of Edradour began upstairs, in a large room. There, we were already handed a whisky to taste. Before I drink, I like to look at the colour of the whisky – is it more brown, or golden-yellow? Well, I can report: the Edradour is green. No, blue. No, now it’s red! Yellow?
In the visitor room, the lighting kept changing colour throughout the entire tasting. I only know this effect from the sauna, where the shifting colours are supposed to be relaxing. Here, though, the odd play of colours rather ruined a cosy whisky tasting. A shame.
Still, that was the only thing I didn’t like.
Getting there:
With sat nav: owners of a TomTom device should enter the code “V0.0V4F”. Everyone else will at least get close with the postcode “PH16 5JP”.
Without sat nav: from Perth in the south, take the A9, turn off before Pitlochry and head into the town centre. From the main street, a road branches off to the right, already signposted to the distillery. You can equally approach via the A9 from the north, for example from Inverness. In that case, you’ll need to turn left towards the distillery instead.
