A decade later the partnership dissolved and the distillery closed. Simpson junior had decided to pursue his carreer in the distillery trade so he built himself a new one. The site chosen was perfect, access to better water supply and in proximity of the new railroad, the 'Great North of Scotland Railroad' built in 1859. A siding the Boyndie siding, was added to facilitate transports to from the distillery.
 
The distillery prospered until a devastating fire broke out in on May 9, 1877.
The accident demanded a considerable rebuilding of its manufacturing works. The main distillery building was gone but maltings and warehouses were left untouched. Quick rebuilding had it back on tracks already in October the same year and its market position was rapidly reclaimed. As prevention an investment was made in a fire engine which kept permanently on the premises. The distillery prospered and expanded in the mid eighties. Banff went from one wash and two spirit stills to six stills, capable of delivering an annual output of 900.000 liters. The Simpson family formed a limited company with an estimated capital of £72.000 in November 1898. They kept full control over the company until 1921 when the family sold out a large chunk of its equity to a London firm, the 'Mile End Distillery Company', a subsidiary of the brewers 'Taylor Walker & Co. Ltd.'. A joint venture was formed were one of the warehouses were converted to a filling and bottling site.
 
Financial problems, stemming from the depression, caused the London firm to let the 'James Simpson & Co,' go into a voluntary liquidation in 1932. SMD the 'Scottish Malt Distillers Ltd.' a subsidiary of the DCL 'Distillers Company Ltd.' bought Banff for £50.000 the same year and became the new and last owner of the distillery. SMD closed Banff immediately and kept the distillery closed till after the end of WWII but used the full capacity of all warehouses on the premises. The closing was decisions in line with DCL's policy to control over-production of whisky by absorb and close.
 
Saturday August 16, 1941 is a day Banff will never forget.
During the late afternoon of that day a solitary German Junkers Ju-88 blasted the building complex with machinegun fire, emptied its bomb cargo over the distillery and got a perfect hit at warehouse No 12. The blazing fire that broke out was fed by the warehouses highly flammable content of exploding whisky casks. Some casks it was said went propelling high up in the sky crashing to the ground quite a bit from were it left. A river of burning whisky surrounded the place. Several hundred casks were lost that grim afternoon. Not all become victim of the flames. Thousands of liters were finding its way to farmlands and watercourses.
 
Farmers claimed that the cows were not milkable days after due to unsteady foots, not farmers but cows.
Waterfowls, wild and tamed were found flapping drunkenly on the brinks of the Boyndie Burns and its mouth. A fireman, passing his helmet to colleagues, filled to the brim with rescued whisky, ended up in court accused for pilfering. Lord Haw-Haw (P.G. Woodhouse) claimed in his daily propaganda bulletins, transmitted from Berlin, that a major ammunition depot, not a whisky depot, in northern Scotland had been destroyed by Luftwaffe. What was not disclosed to the public was that Banff was a training camp for the ones to become RAF pilots recruited from occupied countries like Norway and, hence, perhaps a strategic target for the Germans. The soldiers were billeted in the barley lofts and in Nissen huts on the site. Repair work after the bombing occurred during the winter of 1941. In 1943 Banff formally became home of one of the RAF Strikewings.
 
The exterior was left almost untouched during Banff's lifespan but the interior underwent several updates over the time. Banff was initially configured for triple distillation but converted to the common and conventional double distilling practice some time after 1924 when the intermediate spirit still was removed. The last major renovation occurred just after the end of WWII where after full production resumed. An accident occurred during the silent season in 1959, on October 3rd. A shattering explosion occurred when repair work on one of the spirit stills ignited contained fumes. The spirit still and large part of the distillery were ruined by the explosion and it took a good month to repair the damages. Luckily no one was harmed, not even the coppersmith and his assistant. The two remaining stills were coal fired by hand until 1963 when mechanized stoking was installed. The stills were converted to indirect heating by oil burners in 1970 and the number of warehouses was increased from 8 to 12.
 
Banff finally closed in May 31, 1983 and became demolished section by section over the following years.
The still house was knocked down in 1985 and the last remains were leveled out in 1991 after a fire on April 11. SMD had, in the mid sixties, applied for and obtained permission for a replacement distillery to be erected at the Inverboyndie industrial estate but never activated the plan. Hence, a group of investors some years later put forward a plan to revitalize the issue. Again permission was granted but again nothing materialized.
 
The process water was obtained from springs on Fiskaidly farm and the cooling water drawn from the Burn of Boydine.
At the end of Banff's life cycle barley was brought in from central maltsters however a minor portion was malted on site.
The strains of barley used is said to have been Golden Promise and Triumph. The yeast strain used was Brewer's. The mill is said to have been a 'King of Nailsworth', in 1924 it was stated that it was the only one in use at a whisky distillery. Data concerning mash tun, wash backs and the size of the wash and spirit stills is not known by the author. The stills were indirect heated, fired by oil burners and the cooling was by traditional submerged worms. The maximal annual production capacity was 900.000 liters of alcohol.
 
There are no remains of the distillery to visit. (...)

And I think that's an excellent point to wrap up Ulf's excellent report ;-)
I think it would be hard for me to add anything meaningful, so let's move on to the trivia and tasting notes...

In 1824, the first (Speyside) distillery by the name of Banff
was built. However, that is not the distillery of which we
could still find some wrecked remains of a warehouse until
recently. In 1863 James Simpson Jr. built a new distillery on
the same spot to replace the old one, but after a fire it had
to be reconstructed again in 1877.

1) Banff is the distillery with the funniest sounding name in all of Scotland.

2) The name of the town suggests that Irish 'immigrants' settled in the area.

3) Do you know of any more trivial trivia about Banff?
Why don't you drop me a note so I can share it with the rest of the whisky world through this page?
 

Banff 24yo 1977/2002 (50%, Silver Seal, Distilled 12/1977, Bottled 01/2002) - 87 points
Nose: Rubber. Bittersweet like orange zest, growing sweeter. A tad coastal. Organics. Maggi. Ginger.
Taste: Sweet. Liquorice. Fruity. Lovely tannins. Again, this one makes a slightly 'coastal' impression.
Great mouth feel, but there's a slight drop-off towards the finish, keeping it from a score in the 90's.

Banff 34yo 1966/2001 (50.1%, Signatory Silent Stills, Butt #3437) - 85 points
Nose: Lovely sherry - but not much else. This is right up my alley, but it lacks some 'width'.
Taste: Smoke & sherry. Dry tannins. Marmelade. Quite extreme. Maybe too extreme for some.

Banff 36yo 1966/2003 (50.2%, Jack Wiebers Premier Malts, Cask #3440) - 89 points
Nose: Sweet and sherried. Big and rich. Organics, cedar wood and smoke. A classic sherry monster.
Taste: Big, sweet and sherried as well. Some sulphur, but it works here. A super sherry monster.

These were not all the (official and independent) expressions of Aultmore I've tried over the years.
My Track Record used to contain a complete overview of all the single malts I've tried, but when I passed the 2000 malts mark (and the list wouldn't fit on two separate HTML pages anymore) I gave up. My Liquid Log still contains my tasting notes on most malts I've sampled and scored - but finding notes on a specific expression could be tricky. You might want to use the search box at the top of this page for that. The mAlmanac now contains personal selections of the best and the worst single malts I've tried so far - as well as the ones with the highest 'Bang-For-Your-Buck' value.

But those are all just my own, purely personal opinions. On Serge's distillery profile on Whiskyfun you can find another perspective on the distillery. Check out the Malt Maniacs Monitor on Malt Maniacs for my scores on all expressions I've tried so far - and those of almost all the other certified malt maniacs as well. The Malt Maniacs Matrix contains a few thousand single malts that were sampled and scored by at least four different malt maniacs, so you can compare our individual opinions.
 
 

In World War II, fate farted in the face of the distillery again
when it was damaged by bombs. Banff was finally closed and
demolished in 1983, apart from the last remaining warehouse
that was destroyed after yet another fire that plagued Banff
on April 11, 1991. That was the combustible story of Banff in
a nutshell, but there's much more to tell about the distillery.
That's why I've copied an E-pistle that fellow my malt maniac
Ulf Buxrud from Sweden wrote about the distillery...

I happen to have an archaeological not to say pathological interest in 'deceased' distilleries.
Hence, I try to not only compile related technical and historic data but also sample remaining
artefacts. In this epistle (my first for MM) I'll summarise what I have learned so far regarding one
of my favourite blasts from the past; the Banff. This distillery is since long gone. Its last remaining
buildings, a warehouse complex, were demolished after a fire that broke out on April 11, 1991.
The distillery has a history of being wing clipped by fires and explosions through passage of time. 

Banff town was founded as a port community in the 1100s. Evidence shows that King Malcolm IV lived here around 1160. The town's harbor silted up and fell into disuse in the 1800s, leaving competing Macduff, on the east side of Banff Bay, to take up the role of principal commercial
port along this stretch of coast.
 
The Banff distillery was built in 1863 in the village called Inverboyndie located a mile west of Banff. It became called the Inverboyndie Distillery by the locals to separate it from the original Banff Distillery. This one, the forerunner, was located at the Mill of Banff near Colleonard and was founded in 1824 by James McKilligan & Co. It changed ownership in 1837 due to the death of the companies founder Major James McKilligan. The new owner, Alex MacKay, operated the distillery until 1852. Mr. James Simpson senior and his son James formed a partnership and acquired the distillery in 1852.