Toulvaddie Distillery, Easter Ross: A Historic First

Overview

Toulvaddie is a tiny distillery with an unusual story. It is built on a runway of a Second World War naval air station on the Fearn peninsula in Easter Ross. Its founder, Heather Nelson, set up the company in 2015 and is widely described as the first woman to found a Scotch whisky distillery on her own. The usual comparison is Helen Cumming, who started Cardhu with her husband in 1811. Toulvaddie is one of the smallest malt distilleries in Scotland, with a capacity of around 30,000 litres a year. It is a craft project in the most literal sense.

It is not open to visitors. Still, it sits in some of the most rewarding country in the north: a peninsula of Pictish stones, a medieval abbey, a loch full of wintering geese and the sea on three sides.

Where it is

The Fearn peninsula, also called the Tarbat peninsula, is the flat, fertile tongue of farmland between the Dornoch Firth and the Cromarty Firth, east of Tain. Toulvaddie lies near the village of Fearn, about 6 miles south-east of Tain and 40 miles north of Inverness, which is about an hour by the A9 and B9165. The distillery stands on part of the old RNAS Fearn airfield, where Fleet Air Arm crews trained for torpedo-bomber operations in the Second World War. The concrete runways still cross the fields.

The full history

A woman’s distillery

Women have been part of Scotch whisky from the start, as illicit distillers on farms, as widows running licensed distilleries, and as owners. Very few, though, have founded a distillery themselves. The best-known early example is Helen Cumming at Cardhu in Speyside, who worked alongside her husband John from 1811. Heather Nelson, a local Easter Ross businesswoman, set out to build one entirely on her own. Toulvaddie Distillery Ltd was registered on 30 November 2015. Her plan drew coverage from the Scotsman to American business television as the first Scotch distillery founded solely by a woman.

Small, slow and independent

Toulvaddie was planned to be small from the start, with a production target of around 30,000 litres of spirit a year. The big distilleries nearby each make millions of litres. Nelson chose two small copper pot stills of a traditional design, built by the Portuguese coppersmiths Hoga. They are deliberately shaped like the stills once used by the peninsula’s illicit distillers. Building and fitting out took several years, a common story for independent new distilleries without corporate backing. The spirit is now maturing, and Toulvaddie single malt will be one of the rarest Highland whiskies when it is released.

The airfield

RNAS Fearn (HMS Owl) was built in the early 1940s as a Royal Navy air station. Crews trained here for torpedo-bomber and anti-submarine work over the Moray Firth. After the war the runways were left to the farmers, and the base buildings slowly disappeared. A distillery built on a section of one runway is a quietly fitting reuse of the site.

Clans & the land

The Fearn peninsula was the heartland of Clan Ross, the old Earls of Ross and then the Rosses of Balnagown, whose castle stands near Kildary, a few miles west.

• Fearn Abbey was founded in the 13th century by Ferchar mac in tSagairt, first Earl of Ross. It moved here from Edderton to the fertile lands of the peninsula. The Earls of Ross were buried here. In 1742 its stone roof collapsed during a Sunday service and killed around forty people. The restored abbey is still a parish church, and one of the oldest in use in Scotland.
• The Rosses’ long feud with Clan Mackay reached the peninsula in the 1480s. At the Battle of Tarbat, Mackay raiders were cornered at Portmahomack, and tradition says they were burned in the church where they had taken sanctuary. The Mackays struck back at the Battle of Aldy Charrish in 1487.
• West along the Cromarty Firth lay Munro country. To the north, across the Dornoch Firth, lay the lands of the Sutherlands.

Pictish stones & churches

The peninsula is one of Scotland’s great Pictish landscapes, with three huge carved cross-slabs within a few miles of the distillery:

• Hilton of Cadboll: the original is in the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh, and a full-size carved replica stands on its original site by the shore.
• Shandwick Stone: the Clach a’ Charridh, still standing on its hillside above the village, now protected inside a glass shelter.
• Nigg Stone: kept inside Nigg Old Church, one of the finest of all Pictish carvings.
• Tarbat Discovery Centre, Portmahomack: in a restored church built on the site of a Pictish monastery, which excavation showed to be one of the most important early Christian sites in northern Britain.

Further afield, see our standing stones guide and the Witch’s Stone across the firth at Dornoch.

Lochs & the coast

Just north of Fearn lies Loch Eye, the largest loch on the peninsula. It is shallow, reedy and an important roost for wintering greylag and pink-footed geese, whose evening flights are a sight in late autumn. The sea is never far away. The Dornoch Firth is to the north, the Cromarty Firth to the south, and at the tip is Tarbat Ness lighthouse, one of the tallest in Scotland. For more, see our lochs guide.

Visiting

Toulvaddie is a micro-distillery with no visitor centre or tours. Check its website for news of releases. For a distillery visit nearby, Glenmorangie at Tain is 15 minutes away, and our Easter Ross Whisky Trail links the area’s distilleries.

Nearby distilleries

• Glenmorangie, Tain (about 7 miles): the tallest stills in Scotland, with tours.
• Balblair, Edderton (about 12 miles).
• Dornoch, across the firth (about 15 miles): a tiny distillery in the old fire station.
• Dalmore and Teaninich, Alness (about 15 miles).
• Ardross (about 18 miles): another new Easter Ross distillery.

The whisky hub covers every region.

Sources

• The Scotsman: Toulvaddie to become first new whisky distillery founded by a woman in almost 200 years.
• Scotch Whisky magazine.
• Rare Whisky 101: Toulvaddie.
• Historic Environment Scotland / Canmore (RNAS Fearn, Fearn Abbey, the Pictish stones).