Teaninich Distillery, Alness: The Munro Laird’s Malt

Overview

Teaninich (say “tee-an-in-ick”) is one of the oldest licensed distilleries in the north of Scotland. It was founded in 1817 by a Munro laird on his own estate at Alness. Today it is one of Diageo’s big, little-known workhorses, making a clean, grassy, slightly spicy malt almost entirely for blends, above all Johnnie Walker. It is also one of the most technically unusual distilleries in Scotland. Since 2000 it has used a mash filter, of the kind used by beer brewers, in place of a traditional mash tun.

It isn’t open to visitors. Its story, though, is a classic Highland one: a soldier laird, a factory of stills on a Munro estate, wartime silence, and a long modern life feeding the blenders.

Where it is

Teaninich stands on the eastern edge of Alness, by the A9, a short way back from the shore of the Cromarty Firth. Inverness is about 22 miles south, around 30 minutes’ drive. Its neighbour Dalmore is about a mile and a half away on the firth shore. The River Averon (Alness River), which comes down from the Ardross hills, runs past the town.

Address: Teaninich Distillery, Alness, Ross-shire (on the eastern edge of the town, off the A9).

The full history

1817: a laird goes legal

In the years after Waterloo, most whisky in Easter Ross was still made in illicit stills hidden in the glens. Captain Hugh Munro of Teaninich chose the legal route. In 1817 he built a licensed distillery on his estate around Teaninich Castle, partly to give the estate’s barley a market at home. The timing was good. The Excise Act of 1823 made legal distilling far more profitable, and by 1830 Teaninich’s output had grown about thirtyfold.

A general’s distillery

The estate later passed to Hugh’s brother, Lieutenant-General John Munro, who had spent much of his career in India. He did not run the distillery himself but leased it to a series of tenants, a common arrangement for Highland lairds. In 1898 the Inverness businessman Robert Innes Cameron took a stake, and by 1904 he was sole owner. He held it for nearly thirty years.

DCL, war and the “A” and “B” sides

When Cameron died in 1933, the Distillers Company (DCL) bought Teaninich. War came soon after. Production stopped from 1939 to 1946 because barley was needed for food. The great post-war boom in blended Scotch brought expansion. In 1970 a new stillhouse with six stills was built beside the old one, and for a time the two halves ran side by side. Then came the 1980s whisky slump. The old side was mothballed in 1984 and the new side in 1985, and Teaninich fell silent.

The Diageo years

DCL became part of Guinness in 1986 and then of Diageo in 1997. The modern side restarted in 1991, and the old Victorian stillhouse was demolished in 1999. In 2000 the distillery installed its mash filter press, which remains unique among Scotland’s big malt distilleries. In 2013 Diageo announced plans to modernise further and to build a second, much larger distillery next door. The only official single malt has been the Flora & Fauna 10 Year Old, sold since 1992 with a bird on the label. Most of the spirit still goes into blends, including Johnnie Walker Red Label.

How it’s made

A mash tun separates sugary “wort” from ground malt by letting it drain through a slotted floor. Teaninich’s mash filter does the job by squeezing the mash between fabric plates, like a brewer’s press. This works with very finely ground malt, gives a very clear wort, and helps produce the clean, green, grassy spirit the blenders want. It is then fermented and distilled in the six stills of the 1970 stillhouse. Water comes from the Dairywell Spring.

Clan Munro country

Teaninich is one of the few Highland distilleries with a real clan founder. The Munros of Teaninich were a cadet branch of Clan Munro, whose chiefs held Foulis Castle, five miles west near Evanton, for more than seven centuries. The country between the Cromarty Firth and Ben Wyvis was Munro land. Its families supplied officers to armies across the world, a tradition Lt-Gen John Munro carried on.

• Fyrish Monument, on the hill above Alness and Evanton, was built in 1782 by another Munro general, Sir Hector Munro of Novar. It copies the gates of Negapatam in India, which he had captured, and the building work gave local people paid labour during hard times.
• The older lords of the area were the Earls of Ross and Clan Ross. The Munros sided with the Earls of Ross in their feuds with the west, including the traditional Battle of Bealach nam Broig, fought in the hills above Loch Glass.
• To the west and south lay Mackenzie country, the clan’s great rivals for Easter Ross.

Lochs, churches & carved stones

• The Cromarty Firth is the great sea loch in front of Alness, often full of oil rigs in for repair. Up the Alness River lie Loch Morie and, below Ben Wyvis, Loch Glass. See our lochs guide.
• Kiltearn Old Church, on the shore near Evanton, is the ruined church and burial ground of the Munro chiefs of Foulis.
• The Tarbat peninsula, about half an hour east, holds three great Pictish cross-slabs: Hilton of Cadboll, Shandwick and Nigg. The Ardross Wolf and Deer, Pictish carvings from the hills above Alness, are in Inverness Museum. See our standing stones guide for more.

Visiting

Teaninich is a production-only site with no visitor centre or tours. For a tour in Alness, go to Dalmore, a few minutes away on the firth shore. The Easter Ross Whisky Trail links Dalmore, Glenmorangie, Balblair and the rest into a day or two.

Nearby distilleries

• Dalmore, Alness (about 1.5 miles), which has tours.
• Ardross (about 4 miles up into the hills), the new distillery of 2019, which also makes Theodore gin.
• GlenWyvis, Dingwall (about 10 miles).
• Glenmorangie, Tain (about 13 miles).
• Balblair, Edderton (about 17 miles).
• Glen Ord, Muir of Ord (about 15 miles).

The whisky hub covers every region.

Sources

• Teaninich distillery — Wikipedia.
• Diageo / Malts.com.
• Clan Munro Association; Historic Environment Scotland on Fyrish and Foulis.