Did you know Speyburn was ahead of its time in its early days?

When you visit the Speyburn distillery, you’re not just walking into any distillery. Next to the building bearing their logo, on the right, stands an immense structure. Inside is the very element that once made Speyburn astonishingly innovative.

Speyburn was founded in 1897. Back then, malt for the spirit was dried over a coal fire in one of the buildings, but to meet soaring demand they brought in Henning from London to produce malt faster and with greater precision using six pneumatically powered rotating drums.

It must have been deafening, and even today it’s an impressive sight to behold these gigantic steel giants.

At the time, this was a groundbreaking system, and Speyburn Distillery was the first to carry out malting in this way. The initial steps of the malting process also took place in that same building: steeping in steep backs and then drying on wooden floors inside that vast structure.

Today, only a handful of distilleries still malt their own barley (think Springbank). Kilchoman, Benriach, and a few others still malt a portion for their production.

At the Speyburn distillery, the transport from barley to malt was once powered by an electric installation driven by a waterwheel. All of the original equipment can still be admired. Even the enormous belts that powered the mechanism are still there, radiating history and craftsmanship. In 1968, Speyburn stopped malting on-site, and like many others, now sources its malt from large industrial maltsters.

Fans of vintage mechanical installations can indulge themselves at Speyburn. You can get up close to everything, even touch it, because this part of the distillery is essentially a museum. The working distillery is modern and fully computer-controlled.