Glenlivet

In the 1820s there were some 200 illicit stills in the ‘glen of the Livet’. In 1824 George Smith a farmer-distiller became the first licence holder in the glen and, with his agents in Edinburgh, began to market it as ‘Old Vatted Glenlivet’- the very first ‘brand’ of Scotch. On the back of this success, in 1858 Smith built a new distillery on a larger site further down the glen, supplied with water from Josie’s Well, a now legendary spring rich in minerals. He also invested in a pair of unusually shaped stills, uncomonly high and wide, of a novel ‘lantern’ design. The fame of Glenlivet’s well-respected style encouraged other distillers to attach the name to their own and dozens of Speyside distilleries have, at some stage, used the name Glenlivet.