Bladnoch

By the company's account, John and Thomas McClelland were granted a licence to distil on their Bladnoch farm in 1817, and their family ran and expanded the distillery for nearly a century. Bladnoch Distillery Limited was formed in 1956, the stills silent in the war were restarted, and the still house grew to four stills in 1966. Arthur Bell & Sons, later part of Guinness and United Distillers, owned it from 1983.

The brothers Raymond and Colin Armstrong then bought it, in 1993 by the company's account or from United Distillers in 1994 according to ScotchWhisky.com, and made under 100,000 litres a year. It was mothballed in 2009, and a later operating company went into administration. David Prior bought the distillery in 2015, paid for a £5 million refurbishment and restarted production in 2017, the year of its 200th anniversary. Nick Savage became master distiller in 2019.

The distillery stands at Bladnoch, by the River Bladnoch near Wigtown and Newton Stewart in Dumfries and Galloway, in the Lowland region. The company says it draws its water from the River Bladnoch and buys malt from British growers. The buildings are about 200 years old; during the refurbishment the mash tun was put back under the grist mills and the stills returned to the original still house with its wooden roof.

At its peak under the McClellands the site had six washbacks and made about 230,000 litres of alcohol a year. When David Prior bought it the equipment was in poor condition; director Gavin Hewitt told ScotchWhisky.com in 2017 that it had been almost entirely replaced, and that two extra stills had been added to double the earlier capacity. The first new casks, filled in June 2017, were first-fill bourbon barrels and sherry butts, and the plant was set up to make a peated spirit as well. Prior also bought about 2,500 casks of older stock, used for releases while the new spirit matured.

The master distiller at the restart, Ian Macmillan, described the new spirit as "grassy and malty... a classic Lowland style", according to ScotchWhisky.com. The company has called Bladnoch the "Queen of the Lowlands", a name it uses for the distillery at its nineteenth-century peak. Its current range is sold in themed collections and single casks.