Pulteney Distillery is in Wick, where James Henderson opened it in 1826 in the new town of Pulteneytown.1,2,3 Its wash still has a boiling ball at its base and a flat top, and its spirit is cooled in worm tubs.1,3,4 It stopped making whisky in 1930 and started again in 1951.1,4,5Inver House Distillers Ltd. has owned it since 1995.1,5,6
Very good review score, 89 out of 100Very good89/100
A magnificent, bone-dry sherry profile with walnuts, cedarwood, mustard, tobacco and massive salinity; another fairly spectacular Pulteney.
Producing, 1826–1930
Silent, 1930–1951
Producing, 1951–today
182619001950Today
Built for a herring port
In 1807 engineer Thomas Telford built a lade to bring clean drinking water to Pulteneytown, and the distillery still draws its water through it.1,7 Henderson had run a small distillery inland, at Stemster, and as demand grew he moved nearer the coast, then the only route south.1,2,3 In his 1887 book, Alfred Barnard recorded three old pot stills heated by furnaces, four washbacks, and malt dried over peat only.8 The Henderson family still ran it, and it made about 80,000 gallons of whisky a year.8
In 1920, after almost a century, the Henderson family sold it to James Watson & Co. Ltd., a blending firm in Dundee.4,9,10 From 28 May 1922 to 28 May 1947, no pubs or licensed grocers in Wick could sell alcohol to the public.9,11John Dewar & Sons Ltd. bought Watson's in 1924, and Dewar's joined the Distillers Company Limited in 1925.4,5,9 Production stopped in 1930; sources blame a downturn in the market, the ban on alcohol in Wick, or both.
Rebuilt by Hiram Walker
In 1955 the Canadian firm Hiram Walker & Sons Limited bought it through its subsidiary Jas. & Geo. Stodart Ltd.5,9,10 Hiram Walker rebuilt the distillery in 1958, and its malt went into the Ballantine's blends.1,9,12 Ross Wilson's Scotch Whisky Distillers of To-day says the maltings and kiln were pulled down in 1959, but the owners say the old floor maltings became today's visitor centre.1,10,12 Malt then came from Robert Kilgour & Co of Kirkcaldy, and oil-fired steam heating replaced the coal fire under the still.
Malt for blends
1961–1995
Allied Breweries, later Allied Domecq, bought the distillery in 1961.5,9,12 From 1961 to 1995, under Allied, its spirit went almost entirely into blends.9 In a 1977 account, J R Hume described a much-modernised complex in which only the two-storey office block was of any interest.2
Inver House years
When Allied sold it to Inver House in 1995, it was in dire need of repair, and it has since been renovated.1,5,6 Pacific Spirits bought Inver House for £56m in 2001, and in 2006 Inver House joined ThaiBev.
Next: Malt for blends, Inver House years, How it makes its spirit
In August 2006 Malcolm Waring, a Wick man who joined the Pulteney team in 1990, came back from Knockdhu to run the distillery.3
In 2012 the distillery gave land for an energy centre, now owned by Ignis Biomass, for a Wick district heating scheme.3
From 2013 the scheme burned local wood chip instead of oil, and it supplies steam to the distillery.14,15
The manager says 98% of the distillery's steam now comes from wood chip.14,15
In 2021 low water levels in Loch Hempriggs halted production, which restarted on 27 September after heavy rain.16,17,18
It was reportedly the first such stop since 1976, though the company could not confirm that.16,17,18
In 2023, after water shortages in recent years, the owners decided to pause production for eight weeks over the summer instead of the usual four.16,19
How it makes its spirit
Its water comes from Loch Hempriggs.1,4 It uses unpeated malt, mostly from the malt supplier Bairds.1,4 It has 6 stainless steel washbacks, the vessels where yeast turns sugary wort into a beer called wash.1,3,4 Whiskypedia instead lists 5 of Corten steel and 1 of stainless steel.1,4 Fermentation takes around 60 hours, though Whiskypedia gives 52 hours.1,4,20 It has one wash still and one spirit still.1,5 The spirit is distilled twice, and the stills are heated by steam.1,3,10 The spirit still also has a large boiling ball and a purifier pipe, which is not used.1,4,9 Worm tubs cool the vapour in coils of copper pipe sunk in tubs of water, and the owners say theirs build the spirit's body and depth.1,3,4 It can make 1.8 million litres of alcohol a year, and Inver House keeps about 60% of its spirit for single malt bottling.3,4,9
Good review score, 83 out of 100