The history of Cardhu is forever entangled with the stories of two of the sharpest, most inventive and strong-willed women in Scotland’s early whisky narrative: Helen and Elizabeth Cumming
In 1885, the distillery was rebuilt, stills from old distillery building were sold to William Grant who set up Glenfiddich distillery. The new building and stills tripled the amount of whisky it had previously produced. These higher production levels led to Johnnie Walker and Sons buying much of Cardhu’s output to put into their increasingly popular blend. The distillery is now run by Diageo and the distillery’s Scotch whisky makes up an important part of the Johnnie Walker blended whiskies.
In 2003, Diageo provoked controversy over its decision to change its Cardhu brand Scotch whisky from a single malt to a blended malt whilst retaining the original name and bottle style. Diageo took this action because it did not have sufficient reserves to meet demand in the Spanish market, where Cardhu had been successful. After a meeting of producers, Diageo agreed to make changes. In 2006, the Cardhu brand changed back to being a single malt.
Region: Speyside
Area: Moray
Current Owner: Diageo
Founded : 1824
Founder : John Cumming (The Cumming Family)
No. of wash stills: 3
No. of spirit stills: 3
Capacity (litres): 3,300,000.00
Website: www.cardhudistillery.com
English