You’ve found your way to the legendary North Port distillery site - or, as it might be known today, the only place in Brechin where you can bag a bottle of milk and, once upon a time, a cask of whisky! Stand here for a moment and let your imagination whisk you back to 1820. The air is filled with the scent of malted barley and woodsmoke, and the distant clatter of carts on cobbles blends with the laughter and banter of whisky workers. The Guthrie brothers, local farmers with a twinkle in their eye (and probably a dram in hand), decided that growing crops just wasn’t exciting enough. So, they set up a distillery they originally called ‘Townhead’ - but don’t get attached to that name! Like a whisky that’s matured a little too long, it kept changing.
First it was Townhead, then Brechin Distillery, and finally, in 1839, North Port Distillery - just to keep things interesting and avoid confusion, since their neighbors at Glencadam Distillery popped up just a stone’s throw away. Nothing says friendly competition like “We’ll take the north - you take... not the north?”
Through boom, bust, and barrels, North Port survived company sales and the tough times of war. Twice, production halted - first in the late 1920s and again during World War II, when barley was rationed and the stills fell silent. Imagine the disappointment! No warm, golden spirit to toast to better days - just ration books and the hope that whisky would return. And return it did, until 1983, when North Port’s story as a working distillery came to an end.
Today, no casks line the storehouses, but if you listen closely, maybe you’ll hear the echoes of laughter, the clinking of glasses, and the dreams of the Guthrie brothers floating through the aisles of what’s now a supermarket. The whisky may be rare, but the spirit of North Port lingers on - and honestly, who doesn’t like shopping where legends once lived?
