Glen Ord Distillery

Glen Ord Distillery lies about 13 miles north of Inverness in an area perfect for growing barley. It was built in 1838 on a site with associated with illicit distilling.  Glen Ord was being sold in places like Singapore in the late 1800’s. It’s a hard to find whisky in the UK as most production still goes to the Asian market.

Glen Ord has its own maltings. After the barley is cut it needs to be prepared for the distillation process by malting it. This is a cycle of wetting and drying the barley to fool it into thinking it’s springtime in order for it to germinate. This converts starches to the sugar required for the fermentation process. In the past this process was done by hand and it was laborious work, expensive and results could vary. Industrial maltings such as the one at Glen Ord are able to produce malt at much higher quantities and to quite exact specifications. Indeed Glen Ord supplies other distilleries including Talisker on Skye. There are a small number of distilleries with a traditional malting floor.