About Convalmore (silent)
(Conval-Mor) Convalmore was founded in 1893 in Dufftown and was the fourth of the town’s “Seven Stills”. It was built during the late Victorian whisky boom, but the original company did not last long, with ownership passing first to W.P. Lowrie and then to James Buchanan. That connection to Buchanan was important to the distillery’s working life, as Convalmore spent most of its years producing malt for blends rather than building a large single malt identity of its own.
A fire damaged the distillery in 1909, and when it reopened it briefly included an experimental continuous still alongside its pot stills, an unusual attempt to produce malt whisky in a different way. The experiment did not last, but it remains one of the more distinctive parts of Convalmore’s history. After joining DCL in 1925, the distillery was expanded in the 1960s to four stills before being mothballed in 1985.
The site was later sold to William Grant & Sons, whose neighbouring Glenfiddich and Balvenie operations use the former Convalmore buildings for warehousing. Because the distillery was closed before single malt bottlings became common, Convalmore is now seen far more often through rare independent releases and occasional Diageo bottlings than through any regular core range.