The history of Caperdonich

In this blog, we take a closer look at the history of Caperdonich. A brand whose whisky often ended up in blends but whose wonderful single casks have also been released over the years.

Caperdonich, was originally built as Glen Grant N° 2. Distillery Caperdonich stood on Station Street in Rothes, in the buildings of an old malt house.

This malt house was bought from The Morayshire Malting Company by J. & J. Grant of Glen Grant distillery in Rothes in June 1896. It housed a brew kettle, fermenting vats and two stills to increase the capacity of sister distillery Glen Grant, and was therefore initially named Glen Grant N°2. This happened during the 'whisky boom' in the late nineteenth century. Scotch whisky had to make up for the shortage of brandy as French vineyards had been devastated during the Phylloxera crisis.

In 1897, number two came into production, at the insistence of the excise authority it was connected by a pipeline to Glen Grant N° 1. The new distillate was pumped through this pipeline, known locally as 'the whisky pipe', to N° 1 where the two distillates were blended together.

The bankruptcy of the Pattison company in late 1898 hit the whisky industry in Scotland hard and so did Glen Grant N° 2, which closed in 1901 for this reason. For years, the distillery stood idle and was used only for spare parts for Glen Grant N° 1.

This was until Italian Armando Giovinetti from Milan, working in the hotel industry, came to visit the distillery in 1961. He had read something about Scotch malt whisky and wondered if he could not import malt whisky from Glen Grant distillery to Italy.

Glen Grant's then owner, Major Douglas Mackessack, did not yet have an agency in that country. After a tour of the distillery, Armando Giovinetti decided to take 50 cases of 5-year-old Glen Grant back to Italy in his car. He offered this whisky at several hotels in his hometown, and it soon found favour. The Italians really liked the young pale whisky and soon it became the most consumed whisky in the country. There was even a threat of a shortage of Glen Grant malt whisky.

This was the immediate reason for the company The Glenlivet & Glen Grant Distilleries Ltd. to bring Glen Grant N°2 back into production under the name Caperdonich in 1965. The Glenlivet & Glen Grant Distilleries Ltd was formed in 1952 by the amalgamation of the Glenlivet and Glen Grant distilleries.

Initially, the two existing stills were used, but in 1967 two more were added and from that year all were steam-heated. Also that year, the distillery was modernised, complete with control panel on which all distillery functions could be centrally controlled. Caperdonich, like Glen Grant, did not have its own malting plant, but bought its malt from Robert Hutchison & Co. in Kirkaldy, among others. The production water used at Caperdonich came from the same source as at Glen Grant: the Caperdonich Well.

In 1970, this business expanded by partnering with Longmorn distilleries Ltd, which owned the Longmorn and Benriach distilleries. Eight years later, all these distilleries were bought by Canada's Seagram, owner of Allt-A-Bhainne, Braeval, Glen Keith and Strathisla. Together, the distilleries came under the Chivas Brothers umbrella.

Demand for Glen Grant distillery's whisky continued to rise in Italy, and it was decided to expand the number of stills at Glen Grant from eight to 10 in 1977. Ten new digesters were also added, each with a capacity of 90,000 litres.

In the 1990s, Caperdonich experimented with malt from the malt floor of sister distillery Benriach, which was dried with a fire of coal and a small amount of peat. For years, Seagram was considered the best employer in the Scotch whisky industry. All the distilleries were full in production and many people found work, until in June 1994 Edgar Bronfman Jr. took over.

As a member of the third generation, he wanted to take a completely different direction with the family business. He wanted to focus more on the film and entertainment industry. He bought MCA Inc, the parent company of Universal Studios, Polygram and Deutsche Grammophon under the motto 'Entertainment is in and booze is out'. The liquor business was neglected and no more investments were made.

In 1999, Glen Keith closed and Seagram was put up for sale in the same year. Two buyers, Diageo and Pernod Ricard, presented themselves in December 1999, after which the liquor branch was split up. Among others, the Captain Morgan rum brand and Canadian whiskies Crown Royal, VO and Seven Crown became the property of Diageo and Chivas Brothers was sold to Pernod Ricard.

The troubled deal came to fruition in 2001, after which the new owner closed Caperdonich in October 2002, along with Breaval, Allt-A- Bhainne, Imperial, and Benriach.

Glenlivet, Longmorn and Strathisla remained open in simultaneous production. One production team distilled at the different distilleries for several months at a time, alternating.

All the above distilleries returned to full production, with the exception of Caperdonich, which remained closed. In 2010, the distillery was sold to Forsyths, which dismantled it.

The four stills were sold, one pair to Belgian Owl in Belgium. The other pair plus the brew kettle are now at Falkirk Distillery in the town of the same name. A couple of fermenting vats now serve at Wolfburn and the malt mill is at Annandale. The building, which took the form of a malt drying kiln, has been demolished to make way for a large shed in which copper stills are minted by Forsyths.

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