History

Legal distilling was unknown on the remote Ardnamurchan peninsula until independent bottler Adelphi opened its distillery there in 2014. This is not however the first distillery to bear the Adelphi name.

The original was built in the Gorbals district of Glasgow in 1826, passing into the hands of Archibald Walker in 1880, making the firm the only distiller to make whisky in Scotland, Ireland and England. By 1887 it was producing over 500,000 gallons of both malt and grain whisky a year. It was bought by DCL in 1903 and its pot stills stopped four years later. Grain was made until 1932. The site is now where Glasgow’s Central Mosque stands.

Archibald Walker’s great-grandson, Jamie, started Adelphi as an independent bottler in 1993. Its current owners bought the firm in 2004. 

Plans for the distillery were submitted in 2011 and approved by the local council in April 2012. The construction began in 2013 and the distillery was completed in May 2014. 

Ardnamurchan commenced production in 2014. The first official whisky of the distillery (meeting the 3-year statutory requirements) was released in 2017.

In 2018, local children were given a charitable gift of Ardnamurchan whisky casks as an investment.

As of 2020, the distillery had filled over 10,000 casks.