Last Updated on September 24, 2024 by Leah Hall
Come with us on a tour of Glenmorangie Distillery in the highlands of Scotland!
While we were on our Scotland trip, we stayed at Glenmorangie House in the highlands. Along with the stay, we got a free tour of Glenmorangie Distillery, as well!
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Glenmorangie Distillery offers tours with access to the Distillery itself and their warehouses. An expert guide takes you through all stages of the whisky making process from mashing, fermenting, distilling and finally maturation. Check out our other distillery tours at Lindores Abbey and Glenfiddich in Scotland, too!
The pronunciation of Glenmorangie can be difficult. Just remember the “Orange” bit is emphasized like “Glen-MAWrangie.” Glenmorangie is a highland distillery if you want to check out Scotland’s Whisky Regions.
Glenmorangie Distillery History
The story of Glenmorangie started in 1843 with farmer William Matheson and wife Anne built a distillery in the Scottish Highlands on Morangie Farm. Selling their whisky for shillings per gallon, the distillery started small, because of the location.
Little did they know they were starting one of the most famous Scottish distilleries of whisky around the world.
In 1918 Edinburgh wine and spirits merchant Macdonald & Muir bought a 40% stake in the company, gaining full control in the 1930s. The company’s brand of blended whisky was named Highland Queen, highlighting the link between the port of Leith (Macdonald & Muir headquarters), and Mary Queen of Scots, who landed there from France in 1561.
In 1996 the the name was changed to Glenmorangie. The following year Glenmorangie bought the run-down distillery of Ardbeg on Islay from Allied Distillers for £7 million, giving the company a second single malt with a very different profile to Glenmorangie.
In 2004 Glenmorangie was sold to Louis Vuitton-Moët Hennessy. The Highland Queen blended whisky brand was sold off, along with Glen Moray distillery.
Glenmorangie Distillery Tour
Glenmorangie has a number of tours that will please everyone!
- Classic Tour £23 – a great way to learn about single malt as you see the journey of their signature whisky, The Original. You also get to see the bourbon casks where the whisky mellows for 10 years. Finish this whisky distillery tour with a 2 dram tasting.
- Innovation Tasting £35 – Learn about Glenmorangie’s experimental side with this tasting. Takes place in a traditional dunnage style warehouse to explore Glenmorangie’s innovative expressions with a 3-dram tasting.
- Rare Cask Warehouse Tasting £75 – This tasting also takes place in a traditional dunnage style warehouse to explore rare and exclusive bottlings. These showcase Dr Bill’s imagination. Certainly a rare opportunity for visitors to sample four limited whiskies.
- The Wonder Tour £95 – This tour is an in-depth flavor adventure. Explore Glenmorangies’ relentless quest to make new flavors at every turn with this immersive Distillery tour. Then have a four-dram tasting with The Infinita 18 Years Old. This is followed by three more ground-breaking and experimental single malts, each with cheese and chocolate.
On the tour we weren’t able to take videos, and pictures are limited as well for proprietary purposes. We do have a lot of pictures and videos of outside the buildings, though. Just keep this in mind if you are visiting and were wanting to film the tour.
Glenmorangie Distillery is located just beside the A9 road near Tain and is about a 1-hour drive north of Inverness. Since we were at Glenmorangie House we only had about a 20 minute drive.
The water supply for Glenmorangie is rich in minerals and this may account for the whisky’s flavor. But, of course some will argue that the long copper necks of the stills has more influence on flavor. This may be true as the stills at Glenmorangie are some of the tallest in Scotland and it is claimed that tall stills only allow the lightest spirits to pass. The stills are said to be as tall as an adult male giraffe.
The stillhouse has the nickname of Highland Cathedral because of the tall ceilings to accommodate the tall necks of Scotland’s tallest stills. You will also get to peak into the traditional dunnage warehouses with traditional earthen floors where they mature the whisky.
Glenmorangie whisky comes in a very wide range of finishes. Choose from whisky that has been finished in a variety of interesting and only the finest casks. For example these could be Fino Sherry, Port, Oloroso sherry, Claret, and even Madeira. These all add super interesting flavors and worth trying them all. Traditional casks are bourbon.
The Visitor Center is open 7 days a week, so any of the tours above are offered all week long.
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Distillers of Tain
Glenmorangie has had many loyal team members over the years, but few devoted much of their lives to the Distillery as Gordon L. Smart (1895-1972). Gordon was appointed Distillery manager in 1920 after his father Alexander, the previous manager, passed away. It was a position he would fill for fifty years. His core team at the Distillery, the so-called “16 Men of Tain” were also long-term employees and provided a wealth of whisky making experience and skills.
Now there are “24 Distillers of Tain” led by manager, Edward Thom. Thom won the Global Distillery Manager of the year 2022 at the prestigious Whisky Magazine Icons of Whisky Awards.
New Ventures
Glenmoranagie has been working with the Marine Conservation Society & Heriot Watt University to bring back native European oysters to the Dornoch Firth following their extinction from the area. Together they created Dornoch Environmental Enhancement Project, DEEP. The objective is to research and improve the water quality and biodiversity in the firth.
With a new anaeorobic plant, 95% of the waste for the distillery is cleaned. The remaining 5% could be cleaned by oyster beds, but native oysters had become extinct in the nineteenth century. They placed 300 oysters on new beds, made of scallop shells. Growth has been amazing, and the success of the project has been replicated around Europe.
In 2020 Glenmorangie also turned its attention to a taller conservation project with Edinburgh Zoo. With their quirky giraffe high stills, Glenmorangie started a conservation partnership with the to protect giraffes in the wild and provide a habitat for the animal at Edinburgh Zoo.
We hope you enjoyed this tour of Glenmorangie Distillery, and hope you tour in person as soon as you can!
Cheers!
Glenmorangie Distillery
A9, Tain IV19 1PZ
United Kingdom
Other Distilleries to Visit
- Dampfwerk Distillery – Minneapolis
- Waikulu Distillery – Maui
- Holladay Distillery – Missouri
- Humboldt Distilling – California
- Trail Distilling – Oregon
- Ko Hana Distillery – Hawaii
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