Location and contact details
Location: The Pulteney Distillery Company, Huddart Street, Wick, KW1 5BA
Visit Type: Vistor Centre
Co-ordinates: 58.435177, -3.085532
Telephone: +44 (0)1955 602 371
Web: http://www.oldpulteney.com/ 
Twitter: Old Pulteney Whisky (@OldPulteneyMalt)Facts and figures
| Location | The Pulteney Distillery Company, Huddart Street, Wick, KW1 5BA |
| Founded | 1826 |
| Owner | InterBev (Inver House Distillers) |
| Stills | 1 wash still 1 spirit still |
Opening Hours
Opening hours are Monday to Friday 1000 to 1600 between October to April and 1000 to 1700 between May and September when the distillery is also open Saturdays between 1000 to 1600. Check for details of opening hours.
Tours
The Pulteney Tour
£10
Intimate and enlightening, the Pulteney Tour provides a great taste of what it takes to produce our whisky and is an ideal way to get acquainted with our historic home.
You will experience a behind-the-scenes tour of our distillery.
Of course, no tour is complete without sampling the end product, and this one concludes with a dram of our definitive 12-Year-Old and one of our latest additions to the fleet Huddart.
Allow one hour for the tour and tasting.
The Pulteney Tour with Additional Expressions
£25
If the Pulteney Tour is enticing, this enhanced version provides a fuller flavour of the award-winning range of Single Malt whiskies that they produce. In addition to the full Pulteney Tour experience and a dram of Old Pulteney 12-year-old, you’ll be treated to a further 3 selected Old Pulteney expressions.
Review: The Pulteney Tour (11:00 on 04/10/2019)
Price: £10
I booked and paid for the tour online so arrival was a case of checking in and waiting for the tour to start; our guide wss Daniel and there was a total of seven on the tour (which is half their maximum).
The tour starts in the visitor centre with an explanation of the ingredients in whiskey, where we got to nose their barley and a peated one for comparison. We then moved into the production areas, starting with the Porteus mill whre Daniel explained how it was used and pointed out the related destoner and dust extractor. The distillery was towards the end of some work done so we didnt follow the usual path through the distillery.
We moved onto mashing where we saw the copper top mash tun (unusual, not required and expensive to have a copper top to the mash tun, but it looks nice) before moving to the fermentation room and the stainless steel wash backs. All of the processes were being wel explained and we got to ook into the open mash tun and through windows into the wash backs, but Daniel did then open one of the them so we could smell the wash directly.
Then to the still room and their flat top wash still, reason was explained, and spirit still and spirit safe.
We then took a walk to the filling store and then to an onsite warehouse, before returning to the visitor centre for a sample of two spirits:
The tour had a good level of detail and was well presented; it is always nice to have a tour from a someone who grew up nearby and who can add more local colour.
History
The Pulteney Distillery is a malt whisky production and aging facility in the Pulteneytown area of Wick, Caithness, in the Highland area of Scotland. The distillery produces the Old Pulteney single-malt whisky at a number of ages and has a visitor centre in Huddart Street.
The distillery was established in 1826 in the name of Sir William Pulteney (who died in 1805), and for whom Pulteneytown is named. The distillery is the most northerly on the Scottish mainland and was quite inaccessible, except by sea, when established. Barley was brought in by sea, and the whisky was shipped out the same way. Many of the distillery workers were also employed as fishermen. The herring fishing industry is no longer part of daily life in Wick but the distillery continues to operate, producing a Highland single-malt with a reputation as one of the finest available. Characteristics of the whisky are attributed to exposure to sea air during maturation.
The distillery closed in 1930 due to declining trade after the local parish enforced prohibition laws but re-opened in 1951 when the vote was rescinded after the law was abolished. It is now owned by Inver House Distillers.
The Pulteney site uses water from an old mill lade, constructed by Thomas Telford. This stream flows out of Loch Hempriggs, 3 or 4 kilometres (2 miles) to the south/southwest, and is reputed to have powered a barley mill at or near the site of the distillery.
The Old Pulteney 21-year-old single malt whisky secured the top award and was named "World Whisky of the Year" in Jim Murray's 2012 Whisky Bible. Runners-up were American bourbons George T. Stagg and Parker's Heritage Collection Wheated Mash Bill.[2] In 2006 the 12-year-old malt was declared the best in its class with a gold award at the International Wine and Spirit Competition.
