Image
Discover and bid on old, rare and collectible whiskies in our online auctions each month.
Blair Athol
Founded
1798
Region
Highland
Status
Operational
Company
Production type
Single Malt
Production capacity
2,800,000 litres per year
Blair Athol is a historic malt distillery in the Highland region of Scotland and makes up part of the extensive Scotch whisky holdings of Diageo. One of the oldest in Scotland, its history dates back into the late 18th century.
Owned for most of the 20th century by Arthur Bell & Sons, the distillery's malt continues to be heavily used to provision the Bell's blended Scotch brand as well as producing fillings for other Diageo blends such as Johnnie Walker and Black & White. In fact, almost all of the distillery's production is reserved for blended Scotch production and its single malt is more commonly seen on the independent circuit than officially bottled.
The first Blair Athol single malts were bottled by Arthur Bell & Sons in the 1960s and they continued to market various iterations of it right up until they were acquired by Guinness and merged with Distillers Company to create United Distillers in 1987. The new parent company then introduced the Flora & Fauna series in 1991 which collected 21 of their distilleries together in a uniformly labelled collection that Diageo still includes the Blair Athol within today.
As Blair Athol is the only distillery currently in its Flora & Fauna series with a visitor experience, it markets this livery as its official single malt brand and several distillery exclusives over the years have been labelled using the aesthetic. Unusually however, a Blair Athol single malt was featured in the Diageo Special Releases for 2017 with a different logo, though it has not subsequently been used again since.
Current owner
1997-present
1985-1997
1933-1985
1886-1933
Blair Athol Distillery
Perth Road
Pitlochry
PH16 5LY
Scotland
