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Dailuaine distillery

Dailuaine distillery is perhaps the most overlooked of the Diagio portfolio with only a few official bottlings available as only around 2% of it’s incredible 5,200,000 litre annual capacity are released as single malts, the bulk of the remainder forms the part of the groups Johnnie Walker range.

Originally built as a farm distillery Dailuaine’s repeated mergers and takeovers production was scaled up repeatedly through-out it’s lifetime becoming one of the largest in the Giagio group, most interestingly for a distillery with no brand presense the distillery has never been voluntarily shut down throughout its lifetime, though it has been ravaged by fire twice causing temporary stoppage

The Dailuaine distillery was the very first to feature the ‘pagoda’ or ‘cupola’ like Doig Ventilator roof by famed architect Charles Doig which has become so iconic throughout the industry however this architectural gem was sadly destroyed during the 1917 fire.

Dailuaine factsheet

Name Pronounced AKA Region Country of Origin
Dailuaine dal*oo*ayn Speyside Scotland
Status Active Whisky Type Website Tours Available
Active 1852 - Present Malt Dailuaine Not Available
Manager Distiller Blender Owned by Parent Group
Keith Law Diageo

Dailuaine Timeline:

1852: Founded by farmer William MacKenzie

1865: Following the death of William MacKenzie his wife Jane leased the distillery to a banker called James Fleming

1879: James Fleming goes into business with their son Thomas forming 'Mackenzie & Company'

1889: Dailuaine becomes the first distillery to feature a 'pagoda' or 'cupola'-like Doig Ventilator roof

1891: MacKenzie & Co. become Dailuaine-Glenlivet Distillery Ltd.

1898: The distillery merges again to form Dailuaine-Talisker Distilleries Ltd

1907: A railway connection links Dailuaine and Imperial distilleries

1915: The company is sold to John Dewar & Sons, John Walker & Sons and James Buchanan & Co. following the death of Thomas Mackenzie

1917: Fire guts the distillery destroying the 'pagoda' or 'cupola'-like Doig Ventilator roof

1920: The distillery is re-opened

1925: The distillery is acquired by Distilleries Company Limited (DCL) and run by it's Scotch Malted Distillers Ltd (SMD) subsidiary

1960: Following another fire the distillery undergoes a complete renovation and is enlarged from four to six stills

1963: The floor Maltings are replacd by Saladin box maltings

1965: The stills were converted to internal steam heating

1983: The Saladin Box at Dailuaine is closed

1998: United Distillers and and International Distillers & Vintners merge becoming part of Diageo

2001: Dailuaine is released in the 'Flora & Fauna' range

2012: Dailuaine is further expanded by 25%

2014: A new bio-energy plant is installewd at Dailuaine

Useful Dailuaine links:

Dailuaine at MaltMadness

Dailuaine at MasterOfMalts

Dailuaine at WhiskyExhange

Dailuaine at WhiskyPortal

Dailuaine at Whiskybase

Dailuaine at Wikipedia

Dailuaine at Wormtub

Interesting Dailuaine links:

2012 distillery expansion

Dailuaine bio-energy plant

It's a Cupola not a Pagoda roof

Can I tour Dailuaine?

Yes Dailuaine distillery is tourable. On Trip Advisor the distillery has been rated as excellent by 1 of 3 tours to date. This gives Dailuaine an overall rating of 4.0

Latest reviews

Drive by by Ian J

Had a flying visit here as its by appointment for a tourSo just a quick photo from the roadOne to add to the bucket list next time we are these parts

Rating Reviews
Excellent 1
Very good 1
Average 1
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Terrible 0