Knockdhu opened in Banffshire in 1894 as the first malt whisky distillery owned by the Distillers Company, and takes its name from the nearby Black Hill.1,2,3 It closed in 1983, and Inver House Distillers Ltd. bought it in 1988.2,3,4 Inver House sells its single malt as anCnoc, Gaelic for 'the hill'.2,5,6
Mediocre review score, 79 out of 100Mediocre79/100
WF's Little Duos: today indie Knockdhu
Silent, 1983–1989
Producing, 1989–today
189419502000Today
Built by the railway at Knock
In 1892 John Morrison bought the Knock estate from the Duke of Fife and soon found springs on the slopes of Knock Hill.7,8 Foundations were laid in May 1893 for a distillery of local grey granite, built to make whisky for Haig's, part of the Distillers Company Limited.4,6,8 John Haig & Sons chose the site for its railway links, near Knock Station, and for local barley and peat.4,6,8 It opened in October 1894, and its two coal-fired pot stills could make 2,500 gallons of spirit a week.1,2,3
Under the Distillers Company
Scottish Malt Distillers took control of Knockdhu in 1930.5 From 1940 to 1945 it housed soldiers of the Royal Indian Army Service Corps.9 At Knockdhu they created a mosque from two Nissen huts.9 In 1947, after the distillery was connected to the national grid, the steam engine it had used since its founding was retired.6 In 1964 it installed a 4-roller Porteus mill, fed from six 30-tonne malt bins.10 The Distillers Company closed it in 1983, at a time of excess production, and its small size as a two-still site had much to do with it.3,4,6
Inver House and anCnoc
United Distillers took over the closed site in 1986 and sold it in 1988, when it became the first distillery Inver House bought.2,5,11 Production started again in February 1989.3,4,6 In 1993 Inver House began selling the single malt as anCnoc, because it felt the name Knockdhu was too similar to Knockando.2,5,6 In 2001 Pacific Spirits, part of the Thai Great Oriole Group, bought Inver House; Whiskypedia says Pacific Spirit is now International Beverage Holdings.
Upgrades under Gordon Bruce
Gordon Bruce became distillery manager in 2006, and Whisky Advocate later reported he had been upgrading the plant since then to make production more efficient and environmentally friendly.13,14 In 2023 it installed a Thermal Vapour Recompression system, which reuses waste heat from distillation to heat the wash still.13 It saves about 30% of the fossil fuel used to heat the wash still, so less LPG fuel is burned.13
How it makes its spirit
Its water comes from four springs on Knock Hill.10,13,15 Its malt comes from the maltsters Crisp and Boortmalt.5 The malt is mainly unpeated; anCnoc puts its peated malt at 20 to 45 parts per million (ppm) of phenol, and Whiskypedia at 48 ppm.
Next: Upgrades under Gordon Bruce, How it makes its spirit
The spirit is distilled twice, with steam-heated pans in the wash still and coils in the spirit still.5,6,10
The two copper pot stills keep their 1894 design, with bulbous bases and tall, narrow necks.2,3,10
anCnoc says its low wines pass through a small shell-and-tube heat exchanger, then a 58-metre copper worm for condensing, while the spirit is condensed in a worm only.4,10,13
Its wash and spirit worms share one tub, which the distillery reckons no other in Scotland does.4,10,13
It can make 1.75 million litres of alcohol a year.5,10,13
About 20% of its spirit goes into anCnoc single malt, and the rest into blends.5,14
When unpeated, the new spirit is meant to be clean, estery, citrusy and floral.5,10
Whiskypedia says the new spirit is heavily sulphury, because little reflux is encouraged in the stills.5,10
