THE RECORD / STUDY 02
A brewery on the Morangie farm.
The still in Study 02 is a modern one. It stands in a stillhouse converted from a warehouse in 1990, on a site above the Dornoch Firth that has distilled whisky since 1843. This is the record behind it: the farm brewery that became a distillery, the 1887 rebuild that gave Tain its tall stills, the Edinburgh merchants who owned it for most of a century, and the French group that paid £300 million for it.
A brewery, then a distillery, 1843
Glenmorangie began as a brewery. The building on the Morangie farm at Tain, in Easter Ross, dates to 1738 and was, in the words of a nineteenth-century account, "noted from Tain to Inverness for its fine ale". William Matheson bought the farm in the early 1840s and in 1843 converted the brewery to a legal, licensed distillery. The company dates its story from that year and describes Matheson as a farmer who built the distillery with his wife, Anne.
The name is Gaelic. The company translates Glenmorangie as "Valley of Tranquility". Matheson died in 1862, the year the railway reached Tain. A decade later the business was stocking a London warehouse with 20,000 gallons of whisky.
Glenmorangie: 175 years of whisky making · Our History · Glenmorangie DistilleryRebuilt in 1887, and the gin-still legend
When Alfred Barnard visited for his 1887 survey of distilleries, Glenmorangie was a small farm distillery making around 20,000 gallons a year. That year it was sold to the Glenmorangie Distillery Company, owned by the Maitland brothers and Duncan Cameron, and rebuilt. The new plant had two steam-heated stills about eight metres high, which the trade press calls the tallest in Scotland to this day. Most of the buildings on the site date from that rebuild.
The tall necks are usually explained by a story of second-hand gin stills. The versions disagree. Some say Matheson bought used gin stills in 1843; the scotchwhisky.com reference says the 1887 pair came from John Taylor's gin distillery. The company's own archivist, quoted in 2018, has found no hard evidence for the legend. The current twelve stills keep the long-necked design either way.
Glenmorangie: 175 years of whisky making · Glenmorangie (Whiskypedia) · Distillery in Focus: Glenmorangie · Glenmorangie DistilleryMacdonald & Muir, 1918, and Glen Moray
In 1918 the distillery was sold to a partnership of two firms: Macdonald & Muir, an Edinburgh wine and spirit merchant formed in 1893 by Roderick Macdonald and Alexander Muir, and the broker Durham & Co. Macdonald & Muir took a 40 per cent stake at first and had full control by the late 1930s. In 1920 the same firm bought Glen Moray, in Elgin, which had restarted after a silent period in the First World War.
The Macdonald family ran both distilleries for the rest of the century. Glenmorangie was bottled as a single malt once more from 1959. Glen Moray left the group in 2008, when the Glenmorangie Company agreed heads of terms to sell the distillery and brand to the French firm La Martiniquaise so it could concentrate on Glenmorangie and Ardbeg.
Glenmorangie (Whiskypedia) · The Glenmorangie Company (Whiskypedia) · Our Story · The Glenmorangie Company moves ahead with the sale of Glen Moray Distillery and brand · Glenmorangie: 175 years of whisky makingTarlogie water and the Sixteen Men of Tain
The distillery draws its mashing water from the Tarlogie Springs in the hills above the site. LVMH describes the water as mineral-rich. In 1989 the company bought the whole catchment, about 650 acres, to protect the supply. A 2017 visitor account says the springs provide 70 per cent of the water the distillery uses.
For most of the twentieth century the workforce was small enough to name. Gordon L Smart was distillery manager for fifty years from 1920, following his father Alexander, and his core team became known in the company's marketing as the Sixteen Men of Tain. The company now speaks of 24 Distillers of Tain under distillery manager Edward Thom.
Our History · Glenmorangie Distillery · Distillery Visit: Glenmorangie · Glenmorangie Distillery: The Sixteen Men of Tain · GlenmorangieThe tallest stills in Scotland
Two stills served until 1976, when two more were added. In 1990 a three-storey warehouse was converted into a new stillhouse and the count doubled to eight. Four more followed in 2008 or 2009, sources differ, to make twelve: six wash stills and six spirit stills. Dr Bill Lumsden puts the main distillery's output at just over six million litres of alcohol a year.
LVMH says the stills have "copper necks that are 5.14 metres high". Two independent accounts put the whole still at about eight metres. Most write-ups quote 5.14 metres as the height of the still itself; a 1990s tour anecdote turned it into a giraffe. The company's explanation is consistent: the long neck and the boil ball at its base send heavier vapours back down, so the spirit that reaches the condenser is light and fruity.
Glenmorangie: 175 years of whisky making · Glenmorangie (Whiskypedia) · The Lighthouse: Glenmorangie's new distillery · Glenmorangie · Glenmorangie Distillery · Here's how the giraffe became an unofficial mascot for Glenmorangie whisky · Why and how stills influence whiskyArdbeg, and the £300 million sale
In 1997 the company bought the run-down Ardbeg distillery on Islay from Allied Distillers for £7 million, giving it a second single malt with, in the trade reference's words, a very different profile. In 2004 the Macdonald family put the business on the market. LVMH, owner of Moët Hennessy, beat Pernod Ricard with a £300 million offer, announced in October 2004 and expected to complete by the end of December. Glenmorangie, Ardbeg and Glen Moray all passed to the French group.
The Macdonald family's firm had held the distillery since 1918. Lumsden has since said the group leaves its Scotch brands "very much left to our own devices", which he credits for the freedom to experiment.
The Glenmorangie Company (Whiskypedia) · LVMH victorious in battle for Glenmorangie · Glenmorangie bought for £300m · Glenmorangie sold to French firm · Inside the Lighthouse, Glenmorangie's innovation hubDr Bill Lumsden, Signet and the Lighthouse
Bill Lumsden, a biochemist, joined Glenmorangie in 1995, the year it released Madeira and Tain l'Hermitage wood finishes. Cask finishing at Tain began in the late 1980s. His own contributions include Signet, launched in 2008 with high-roast chocolate malt in the mash, and the annual Private Edition series, which reached its tenth release in 2019.
In September 2021 the company opened the Lighthouse, a 20-metre glass stillhouse and brewhouse on the Tain site designed by Barthélémy Griño of Paris, with a £1 million grant from Scottish Enterprise. Its two stills are built to the same specification as the main stills but carry water-cooling jackets on the neck, a purifier on the lyne arm and both copper and stainless steel condensers, so one plant can imitate many. Lumsden calls it a place where flavour takes precedence over yield.
Glenmorangie: 175 years of whisky making · Celebrating Signet: inside Billy Wonka's chocolate factory · Glenmorangie's new home for imagination · The Lighthouse: Glenmorangie's new distillery · Inside the Lighthouse, Glenmorangie's innovation hubWhat Highland single malt means in law
The Scotch Whisky Regulations 2009 define Single Malt Scotch Whisky as Scotch whisky distilled in one or more batches at a single distillery, from water and malted barley without any other cereal, in pot stills. Scotch whisky itself must be distilled in Scotland at less than 94.8 per cent alcohol, matured in Scotland in oak casks of no more than 700 litres, and aged for at least three years.
The same regulations protect the name Highland. Regulation 10 defines it as the part of Scotland north of a line running from the Firth of Clyde at Greenock across to the North Sea, and a whisky may only carry the name if it was distilled there. Tain lies well north of that line, so Glenmorangie is a Highland single malt by definition, not by style.
The Scotch Whisky Regulations 2009, regulation 3 (definitions) · The Scotch Whisky Regulations 2009, regulation 10 (localities and regions)Made at Tain
- Glenmorangie The Original 12 Years Old
- The signature whisky, matured for twelve years in bourbon casks. The company calls it creamy and complex; its distillery tour follows this one whisky through the plant. Distillery Tours
- The Lasanta 15 Years Old
- Re-released in 2025 after fifteen years in a mix of sherry and bourbon casks. Barthélémy Grino's Glenmorangie Distillery is an experimental whisky lab
- The Quinta Ruban 14 and The Nectar 16
- The 14 and 16 year old expressions in the core range, both listed by the company at 46 per cent. Bestsellers listing
- Signet
- Launched in 2008 and made with around 20 per cent high-roast chocolate malt in the mash bill. Lumsden assembles it from four components and asks that it not be called a blend. Celebrating Signet: inside Billy Wonka's chocolate factory
- Private Edition
- An annual limited release created by Lumsden. The tenth edition came in 2019. Celebrating Signet: inside Billy Wonka's chocolate factory
- The Altus 25 Years Old
- Matured in bespoke bourbon casks with a portion finished in Malmsey Madeira, a reference to the 1995 Madeira finish the company calls the first of its kind. Glenmorangie 25 Years Old, The Altus
Questions people ask
How tall are the Glenmorangie stills?
LVMH, the owner, says the stills have copper necks 5.14 metres high. Two independent accounts give the whole still as about eight metres, or 26 feet 3 inches, with the neck making up 16 feet 10 inches of that. Most write-ups quote 5.14 metres as the total height. No public source states where either measurement starts or ends.
Glenmorangie · Glenmorangie Distillery · Here's how the giraffe became an unofficial mascot for Glenmorangie whiskyWhy are Glenmorangie stills compared to a giraffe?
Because 5.14 metres is roughly the height of an adult male giraffe. Brendan McCarron of Glenmorangie has said the comparison started on a distillery tour in the 1990s when a visitor made the connection, and it stuck. The company now uses the giraffe as its emblem and supports giraffe conservation.
Here's how the giraffe became an unofficial mascot for Glenmorangie whisky · About UsHow many stills does Glenmorangie have?
Twelve in the main stillhouse, six wash and six spirit, after four were added in 2008 or 2009. The Lighthouse, opened in 2021, holds two more that are used for experiments rather than production, so fourteen on the site in total.
Glenmorangie (Whiskypedia) · Distillery Visit: Glenmorangie · The Lighthouse: Glenmorangie's new distilleryWere the Glenmorangie stills really gin stills?
That is the story told to explain the tall necks, but the versions conflict: some say William Matheson bought second-hand gin stills in 1843, while the scotchwhisky.com reference says the 1887 pair came from John Taylor's gin distillery. Glenmorangie's archivist, quoted in 2018, has found no hard evidence either way.
Glenmorangie: 175 years of whisky making · Glenmorangie (Whiskypedia) · Distillery in Focus: GlenmorangieWho owns Glenmorangie?
LVMH, through its wine and spirits arm Moët Hennessy. LVMH bought the company from the Macdonald family for £300 million in 2004, beating a rival bid from Pernod Ricard. The purchase included Ardbeg and, until 2008, Glen Moray.
LVMH victorious in battle for Glenmorangie · Glenmorangie bought for £300m · The Glenmorangie Company moves ahead with the sale of Glen Moray Distillery and brandWhat is the Glenmorangie Lighthouse?
An experimental distillery opened on the Tain site in September 2021: a 20-metre glass stillhouse with two stills, a separate brewhouse and a sensory laboratory at the top, designed by Barthélémy Griño. Dr Bill Lumsden uses it to test raw materials, fermentation and distillation without touching the main plant.
Glenmorangie's new home for imagination · The Lighthouse: Glenmorangie's new distillery · Barthélémy Grino's Glenmorangie Distillery is an experimental whisky labSources are linked under each section. Company statements are attributed as such. Where sources disagree, the page says which figure it uses and why. Corrections: hello@stillbound.ai.