A cold and remote place didn’t seem the perfect option for a distillery to be founded. Still, “Dalwhinnie” translates as “meeting place” where their major roads meet. The place offered access to spring water and peat for whisky to be produced and railroad access for whisky to be transported.

John Grant, Alexander MacKenzie and George Sellar founded the distillery in 1897. Things didn’t go as planned and one year later the distillery would be acquired by John Somerville & Co and AP Blyth & Sons. They would christen the distillery “Dalwhinnie” before selling it to Cook and Bernheimer in 1905.

A period of further changes in ownership and improvements followed. Since 1926 Diageo has been the current owner (at that time Diageo was known as DCL).

The distillery closed twice in its history. Once in 1934 due to a fire and again in 1992 in order to be evolved. In 1998 Dalwhinnie 15 would become part of the six Classic Malts.

Only a small portion of the distillery’s production is used for single malt bottlings, while the rest is used for blends, and especially Black & White blended whisky.