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New experience for visitors to Glenlivet Distillery after revamp


By Lorna Thompson

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A SPEYSIDE distillery is wowing visitors to its brand home after its 18-month multi-million pound redesign.

The Glenlivet centre, which reopened in June, has overhauled its visitor experiences to introduce guests to key figures in its whisky-making process and take them on a journey through the distillery’s rich history.

The remote glen landscape and the area's smugglers' trail routes are as much stars of the show as the whisky itself in the distillery's new entry-level tour, The Original.

Immersive audio-visuals aim to capture the spirit of the area as visitors are transported on a tour of Glenlivet in swooping aerial fly-overs – learning about the place, the brand's origins and history, the makers and artisans, and the whisky's global success.

Experience leader Lyndsey Gray said: "The whole idea behind the refurbishment was trying to imagine if The Glenlivet founder, farmer George Smith, was still around how would he welcome people? How would his brand home be today if he was here?"

One fresh addition and talking point is The Glenlivet's indoor field of golden barley, harvested by Huntly farmer and distillery supplier Allan Rettie.

All the barley used by the distillery comes from north-east farms.

Lyndsey said: "Allan kindly donated some of the barley to us and we've spent the last 18 months preserving it and testing out how to preserve it. This is some of the barley that would have came to make The Glenlivet."

Locally-grown barley at the Glenlivet Distillery visitor centre's Speyside Room. Picture: John Paul.
Locally-grown barley at the Glenlivet Distillery visitor centre's Speyside Room. Picture: John Paul.
The revamped Tatsing Room at the Glenlivet Distillery's visitor centre. Picture: John Paul.
The revamped Tatsing Room at the Glenlivet Distillery's visitor centre. Picture: John Paul.

Visitors are introduced virtually to Allan, master distiller Alan Winchester, a distillery technician, a cask manager, a cooper and environment experts before being transported right back to The Glenlivet's origins in 1824, which brings to life the battle between illicit distillers and excisemen.

Lyndsey said: "We are focusing on the people behind the brand. That really is at the source of what we do.

"The Glenlivet has been around for 200 years and sustainability is key to what we do now at Chivas. We have an entire department dedicated to it and we want to make sure it's around for another 200 years and that we are protecting the land."

Visitors can still enter the centre's washback, which has been transformed as a space to learn about milling and malting, before going on to the warehouse and all-important tasting.

Although guests can't currently enter the distillery with Covid precautions in place to keep the production team safe, a chance to hand-fill and personalise bottles of cask-strength versions of The Glenlivet 12, 15 and 18-year-old at the new shop is proving popular.

On display in the lounge are a pair of flintlock pistols carried by Smith after he became the first legal distiller in Glenlivet, putting him at odds with illicit distillers. Meanwhile the family of Smith's great-grandson, Captain Bill Smith Grant (1896-1975), have donated his military jacket for display.

Lyndsey said: "It's nice to have some of the family history in amongst everything else so there is that sense of the Smith family being behind all this."


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