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Queen Victoriais reputed to have enjoyed this malt and to have used it to lace her claret, thereby ruining two of the world's greatest drinks. She visited the distillery which is at the foot of the mountain of Lochnager (1156m/3789ft), just off the B976 and just over the hill from the Royal family's Scottish home at Balmoral.
A man believed originally to have been an illicit whisky-maker established the first legal Lochnagar distillery in 1826 and the present premises were built in 1845. Three years later the Royal family acquired Balmoral. The then owner John Begg recorded that he wrote a note inviting Prince Albert to come and was rewarded with a visit the very next day. Soon afterwards the distillery began to supply the Queen and became knownas Royal Lochnagar. Over the years the distillery has been rebuilt three times, most recently in 1967. For a period in the late 1970s and early 1980s the distillery stopped using the "royal" prefix but this has now been restored.
It is not a large distillery and they state they employ a complement of 8
people in the production process [jhb]
© Michael Jackson 1994, o.m.
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