Overview
Fettercairn is a whisky distillery in Fettercairn. Situated under the Grampian foothills in the Howe of Mearns, Fettercairn town’s name is loosely based on the phrase "the foot of the mountain".
Location and contact details
Location: Distillery Road, Fettercairn, Laurencekirk, AB30 1YB
Visit Type: Vistor Centre
Co-ordinates: 56.853558, -2.579216
Telephone: +44 (0) 141 248 5771
Email: info@fettercairndistillery.com
Web: https://www.fettercairnwhisky.com/ 
Twitter: Fettercairn Whisky (@https://twitter.com/fettercairnwh)Facts and figures
| Location | Aberdeenshire |
| Founded | 1824 |
| Founder | Sir Alexander Ramsay |
| Owner | Whyte & Mackay |
| Water Source | Sources on the Grampian mountains |
| Stills | Two wash (12,800 l), two spirit (12,800 l) and 11 Washbacks |
Opening Hours
The tour season starts on Friday 19th April 2019 and we close again for the winter at the end of September.
Tours
Distillery Tour
£7.50
Duration: 45 mins
Cost is only for those over 18 years of age, under this age there is no charge. For adults, the tour concludes with a dram of whisky, and a visit to the shop.
Drivers' packs are available for those who wish to take their dram away.
Upgrade options available:
2 drams for £10 pp or 3 drams for £20.00 pp.
Review: Distillery Tour (10:00 on 24/09/2019)
Price: £7.50
Fettercairn distillery is one which I only recently found you could visit. When organising my trip this year, I started planning my route going up the middle of the country, east through Speyside and South visiting Royal Lochnagar and Fettercairn, until I realised that closes for tours at the end of September. I then switched my route around to make sure I could visit Fettercairn, and am really happy that I did so as it was a fantastic tour.
The distillery has a visitor car park just past the main distillery entrance. I was a few minutes early so parked up and took a walk around the outside of the distillery, which is on a corner allowing you to see three sideof the distillery, making some good photo opportunities.
I'd booked the Fettercairn tour by email and had to pay upon arrival. There was a group of six other people booked on the tour which was meant to start at 1000. Fortunately, for me, by 1010 they had not arrived and so I received a one-on-one tour fro Jennifer. As many distilleries do nowadays, they allow photography through the distillery, with the exception of the filling store and warehouse.
On the tour we saw the filling store, with barrels in process of being filled, which I have not seen before, and ten the main production area. This included seeing the mill, mashing, fermentation and distillation with each of the processes described very well.
Jennifer opened a few of the wash backs so I could see the wash at different stages of fermentation. The stills at Fettercairn are of a unique design, so you hear the history of this and get to see them action.
The tour then moves onto a visit to one of the warehouses where you can see the barrels maturing. The final part of the tour returns to the visitor centre for a tasting of the 12 Year Old Highland Single Malt Scotch Whisky.
This was one of the best tours I've done, including all of the ones over the last few years.
History
Fettercairn Distillery was founded in 1824 by Alexander Ramsay, owner of the Fasque estate, who converted a corn mill at Nethermill into a distillery. After losing his fortune, Alexander was forced to sell the estate to the Gladstone family in 1829. John Gladstone’s son William Gladstone, went on to become Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer and was instrumental in passing various reforms on the taxation of whisky.
In 1973 Whyte & Mackay acquired Fettercairn distillery and it has remained with the company since.
