Dornoch

According to ScotchWhisky.com, the brothers Simon and Philip Thompson founded the business in 2013 as the Black Isle Whisky Company, an independent bottler working mainly for third parties; Companies House shows Dornoch Distillery Company Limited incorporated in February 2013. The name changed in 2015, when they won planning permission to turn a nineteenth-century fire station into a distillery. They spent a year raising money, including selling their own flat, and the distillery started work in December 2016. Since January 2024 the company has been owned by Thompson Independent Traders Ltd, registered at the distillery. The company is also planning a larger second distillery, Struie, named after the ridge above the Dornoch Firth.

The distillery occupies an old fire station in the grounds of Dornoch Castle, a fifteenth-century building now the Dornoch Castle Hotel, in the town of Dornoch in Sutherland, on the north side of the Dornoch Firth. It is in the Highland region. The brothers' bottling business keeps its warehouse on Station Road and a shop in Station Square in the town, and the castle bar holds a large collection of old and independent bottlings. The opened sources do not name the water source.

The company says it uses organic heritage barley varieties, seven-day fermentations and direct-fired copper stills, giving up modern efficiency in favour of character. Under the Thompson Bros label it also sources, matures and bottles single casks and small batches from other distilleries at its Station Road warehouse, all without chill-filtration or added colouring. One series hides the distillery and age under the cork seal so that drinkers judge by taste first. Still sizes and cask policy for its own spirit were not given in the sources opened.

The company describes its aim as "old-style single malt" with oily textures and what it calls authentic Highland spirit. ScotchWhisky.com calls Dornoch an experimental Highland distillery. Output is small; members of its society get early ballot entries for releases, and the castle bar serves its spirits. It reports that the Thompson Bros bottlings were named Best Independent Bottler 2024 by OSWA.