Dunphail Distillery is a modern Speyside distillery with a traditional heart. Set in the Forres countryside and cloaked by fir trees, you would only come across this distillery with either careful planning or wayward aim from the nearby Dava Way walking trail. It is built within an old farm steading using the original stone buildings to form the Mashhouse and Stillhouse, which are neatly squeezed within the same building. A new building, in the same traditional style houses, the malt house, complete with a fully manual malting floor.
We made our way to Dunphail for the tour of a Friday morning and found the place in full operation, but completely empty, save for us, our tour guide Mike and one of the stillmen who was busily working away making their spirit.
Tour Style: This was a very personal, bespoke tour that felt like we saw every facet of
Dunphail’s process. We got to move barley around the malting floor, stare directly into their open Washbacks and taste new make spirit next to a bubbling spirit still. Mike was super knowledgeable, answered all our ridiculous questions and even managed to laugh at some of our jokes.
Distillery Feel: This distillery has the odd charm of being both incredibly modern and feeling very traditional at the same time. They are still at the start of their spirit making journey and the small 1/4 full warehouse tells you all need to know. When they can finally release whisky (in 2026) they are aiming for a fruit forward, gentle and full-bodied whisky. It will be hand crafted and released in small quantities, most likely at cask strength. Like their sister distillery, Bimber Distillery, you can expect it to find a cult following, who snap up each release.
Tasting: In the plush bar, we were treated to three whiskies from the Dava Way bottling collection and one limited edition Bimber whisky. These all serve as a placeholder that will be quickly replaced as soon as Dunphail release its inaugural whiskies in roughly one year’s time. They were all good drams, but the new make spirit from earlier in the tour was the real star.
Overall: We really enjoyed our time at Dunphail. It was fantastic to see a distillery that is committed to small scale production using traditional methods and I expect the whisky to be fantastic as a result.
Link: https://www.dunphaildistillery.com/home