Location and contact details
Location: Glenturret Distillery, The Hosh, Crieff, PH7 4HA
Visit Type: Vistor Centre
Co-ordinates: 56.391262, -3.855655
Telephone: +44 (0) 1764 656 565
Web: https://theglenturret.com/ 
Twitter: The Glenturret (@DrinkGlenturret)Facts and figures
| Location | Perthshire |
| Founded | 1775 |
| Owner | Art & Terroir |
| Water Source | Loch Turret in Glenturret |
| Stills | 1 wash still 1 spirit still |
Opening Hours
The distillery is open four tours throughout the year, although opening hours vary; check for details of opening hours. Tours are hourly from 1030; last tour 1630 between March and October and at 1630 November to February.
Tours
Blending Experience
£75
Discover if you have the skills to be a Master Blender with the whisky Blending Experience. Enjoy an in-depth tour of the most traditional distillery in Scotland followed by a guided nosing and tasting session in the specially built sample room within the warehouses. Your knowledgeable host will then test your sensory skills with our Malt Challenge and guide you in the art of blending your very own whisky. This experience includes a tasting of four exceptional premium Glenturret single malts and the opportunity to sample a range of whiskies whilst creating your own blend. Receive 100ml unique blend and certificate. You will also receive a voucher for tea or coffee with cake.
Duration: 2 hours
Distillery and Tasting Experience
£10
The Distillery Experience will take you through the traditional art of making the Glenturret single malt whisky which uses hand operated, time honoured methods. The distillery hosts will also bring to life the history and heritage of one of Scotland's most iconic whisky brands. At the end of your 60 minute tour you will enjoy two whisky tastes from the exceptional distillery whisky range.
Glenturret Tasting: Sample three whiskies from the Glenturret Single Malt Range. You will also receive a souvenir nosing glass to take home and for drivers they offer a complimentary drivers dram set to take the whisky tastes home to enjoy.
Apertour
£10
Taking pictures of your Distillery Tour has often been forbidden in the spirits industry. At The Glenturret though, they have invested in state of the art monitoring technology that allows you to snap away and take those images you have always wanted.
Selfies by the stills? Filters on the washbacks? The specially designed tour has a lower capacity to allow you more time to get the snap you want! Just don't forget to tag us them you put your amazing pics online!
This tour is designed for mobile device photography and quick snaps with a camera, due to timing constraints they cannot allow tripods and ancillary lighting. Photography is only permitted during the Apertour where the guide will be using the monitoring device.
Fusions of Fudge Experience
£30
Working alongside a local fudge producer the Glenturret have created a delectable fudge and whisky fusion - each variety of fudge being perfectly matched with three specially selected Glenturret Single Malt Whiskies.
Before the tasting, take a tour with one of Glenturret's knowledgeable and passionate tour guides to learn how they produce our hand crafted Single Malts.
Your complimentary Fusion of Fudge Gift pack can be collected from the Glenturret Gift shop on departure. Each pack contains the fudge varieties sampled on tour along with a further bar of fudge infused with Glenturret 10 year old, lovingly created to excite your taste buds.
Warehouse Experience
£40
The Warehouse Experience invites you into the exclusive bonded warehouses which house the maturing casks of Glenturret whisky. Following an in-depth tour of Scotland’s most traditional distillery enjoy a guided nosing and tasting session in the specially built sample room within the warehouses. This experience includes four premium whisky tastes from the exceptional range of Glenturret single malts.
Duration: 1½ hours
Review: Distillery and Tasting Experience (14:30 on 22/09/2019)
Price: £10
It was when looking for something to do after Tullibardine that I discovered that Glenturret was no longer owned by the Edrington Group and was therefore no longer The Famous Grouse Experience at Glenturret.
Instead the distillery is now independent and markets itself as the old distillery in Scotland.
Bookings are done primarily via their website and is a nice smooth process. When browsing their site, I spotted the restaurant and figured that lunch at the distillery would fit in my plans quite well, and with the Book Now being prominent, I decided to book. One quick call to the distillery and I had a booking for lunch to take place an hour and a half before the tour; the gentleman I spoke to offered to put me through to the reception to book a tour, but I already had the tour booked.
My plan had originally been to tour Tullibardine, find somewhere to have a country walk and then arrive at Glenturret for lunch. However, on the day, it was raining quite heavily and, having skipped the walk, I arrived at 1300 instead of 1400.
I stopped into reception and the chap at the desk called the restaurant and moved my lunch and tour bookings. Lunch was very good; there is a range of dishes available, but being me opted for the burger with chips and added cheddar and onion rings (I'd have loved to add crispy bacon, but, alas, this was not an option).
A (very generous) slice of tasty cheese cake (chocolate and strawberry) to finish off and I had a short 15 minutes to wait for the tour. There was nine of on the tour; a group of three Canadians, a group of four Canadians, a man from Suadi Arabia (who abstained from the samples at the end) and I.
Glenturret is an old distillery (in fact the oldest operating distillery in Scotland) and this is reflected in a lot of the equipment which has more manual processes than normal, such as the small, open mash tun.
With the visit being on a Sunday not all functions are in production. The mash tun was empty, but the wash backs were in use and both stills were running.
The tour guide talked us through a short brief history of the distillery and a thorough run through of the roduction process. Each section was well descirbed as you were in the relevant room looking at the equipment.
I've said to a few people recently that the standard of distillery tours has been rising in Scotland since our first visit in 2012. The tour at Glenturrent was very good and I think would be appropriate for both beginners who don;t know the process, but also for experienced distillery visitors like myself.
On this tour you get to sample two whiskies at the end:
The Glenturret is produced at this distillery, but the other is from a blender and is a blended malt whisky.
I'd recommend booking a visit early; I wanted to do the Warehouse Tour, but by the time I got my plans firmed up and tried to book, there were no spaces left and so I did this tour. No regrest as it is a good tour, but I'll have to come back and do the Warehouse Tour fairly soon.
History
The distillery was officially established in 1775, but had previously been under the control of illicit distillers, who sought to avoid paying taxes to England, since 1717. This early history has led to claims that Glenturret is the oldest distillery in Scotland, a title contested by other establishments such as Littlemill, Glenisla,Bowmore and Glen Garioch.
The distillery was originally known as “Hosh†and was originally owned by the Drummond family. "Hosh" comes from the gaelic "cois", meaning foot. It was taken over by John McCallum in 1845 till 1875 when Thomas Stewart took it over and renamed it Glenturret in its centenary year.
The First World War saw the closure of the distillery, but following the war it reopened again under the Mitchell Brothers until 1921 when the great depression and prohibition in America saw it closed again. The buildings during this period were kept as storage by the Murrays of Ochtertyre. It did not reopen again to production till 1957 when it was revitalised by James Fairlie. Fairlie was a whisky enthusiast and his intention was to create a malt whisky created in traditional fashion and to preserve the craft of distilling. The distillery was bought by Cointreau in 1981 and from there passed to Highland Distillers in 1990. Since then it has become the home of “The Famous Grouse Experienceâ€, which was nominated for an Interactive Entertainment Award at BAFTA in 2002.
