Mosstowie

Mosstowie – The Forgotten Legend of the Lomond Stills

Anyone looking for the Mosstowie distillery on a map of Scotland will search in vain. For Mosstowie was not an independent distillery, but a fascinating experiment – a ‘distillery within a distillery’. Between 1964 and 1981, the unconventional Lomond Stills at the Miltonduff Distillery near Elgin in Speyside produced a single malt with a distinctive character, which today ranks among the most sought-after rarities in the world of whisky.

The story of Mosstowie begins with a practical problem. The Canadian spirits group Hiram Walker, which had taken over Miltonduff in 1936, needed a greater variety of single malts for its flagship blend, Ballantine’s Finest . The solution was provided by engineers Arthur Warren and Alistair Cunningham with the Lomond still – an ingenious invention that combined elements of a pot still with those of a column still . The swan neck was fitted with three perforated, coolable plates, known as ‘rectifier plates’. Thanks to their adjustable position and temperature, the reflux of the distillate could be precisely controlled, thereby varying the character of the whisky – an extraordinary level of flexibility for a single distillery.

In 1964, two of these Lomond stills were installed at Miltonduff and production of the Mosstowie Single Malt began. Lightly peated, with a subtle smoky note, it was intended for use in blends such as Ballantine’s Finest . However, the project was plagued by technical difficulties from the outset: Cleaning the plates proved notoriously difficult, and there was a lack of demand from other blenders. In 1981, after just 17 years, the Lomond stills were dismantled and replaced with traditional pot stills. Mosstowie was history.

There were never any official bottlings – Mosstowie was produced exclusively for blends. However, a few casks escaped this fate and found their way into the hands of independent bottlers. Gordon & MacPhail, Signatory Vintage and Duncan Taylor preserved its legacy. Their bottlings, such as Gordon & MacPhail’s legendary 40-year-old from 2020, are now extremely rare collector’s items that fetch record prices at auction.

Mosstowie remains a quiet but fascinating hero of Scottish whisky history – proof that even a failed experiment can give rise to unforgettable legends.