ABERLOUR

The distillery was founded in 1879 by James Fleming, who shrewdly built it on the site of St Drostan's Well, thus securing forever this priceless source of pure spring water. When the journalist Alfred Barnard visited Aberlour in the 1880s, as part of his exhaustive survey of Scottish whisky distilleries, he described James Fleming's new establishment as a "perfect modern Distillery".

In 1898 a fire destroyed several of the distillery buildings and most of the whisky stocks. Under the supervision of Scotland's foremost designer of whisky distilleries, Charles Doig of Elgin, the Aberlour Distillery was largely rebuilt.

Over the past 100 years, with modernisation and technology, the landscape of the distillery has inevitably altered, though many of the original features are still there and the traditional working character of the place remains unchanged. The latest addition is the new Visitors Centre - the Fleming Rooms - named after the founder of the distillery.