The 1890s saw a boom in the Scotch whisky trade, and the establishment of this – Dufftown’s sixth distillery at the time – by Peter MacKenzie and Richard Stackpole. The two converted an old saw mill and, despite a few wranglings over the distillery’s water supply, set about producing a whisky so popular that it survived the whisky crash of 1898, the US Prohibition Act of 1920, and thanks to Arthur Bell and Sons, the great depression of the 1930s to become a global brand, known for its accessible, balanced taste.

Speyside is an area around the River Spey in Moray and Badenoch and Strathspey, in northeastern Scotland. The term Strathspey usually refers to the upper part of the strath from the source of the Spey down to the capital, Grantown-on-Spey, whereas the anglicised form, Speyside, refers to the area from Grantown-on-Spey to the mouth of the river at Spey Bay. Recently there has been some controversy over attempts to anglicise the name into Spey Valley. The tourist area from the south starts at Dalwhinnie and continues North along the A9 towards Newtonmore, Kingussie, Aviemore and on towards Grantown-on-Spey. Speyside has the greatest number of distilleries of any of the whisky-producing areas of Scotland.