A string of different owners followed in rapid succession; Alexander
Conacher & Co., John Conacher & Co, Peter Fraser & Co., Elizabeth
Conacher and P. McKenzie & Co Distillers Limited. The Blair Athol
distillery was finally closed in 1932, before being purchased by
Arthur Bell & Sons Ltd. in 1933. Although Arthur Bell owned Blair
Athol, they didn't actually use it until it was fully rebuilt in 1949.

One more thing: I wrote that Blair Athol was
founded in 1789. Actually, the distillery that was
founded on this location was called 'Aldour',
after the Allt Dour burn that still provides the
distillery with its water today.

Diageo hasn't opened up all its distilleries to
visitors, but Blair Athol is 'hospitable'. The tour
that the maniacs enjoyed was excellent; very
relaxed yet informative. The distillery grounds
are beautifully laid out around a gently curving
little stream. The buildings are covered in vines
and/or that typical black fungus that seems to
like whisky almost as much as us maniacs.

Blair Athol is one of the oldest distilleries in Scotland, founded in
1798 by John Stewart and Robert Robertson near the picturesque
little town of Pitlochry. The young Blair Athol distillery was closed
not long afterwards, however - until it was revived again by John
Robertson in 1825/'26. It ran continuously for a decade after that.

In 1998 Blair Athol's owners United Distillers (UD, part of the well-known Guiness Group) and International Distillers and Vintners (IDV, part of the Grand Metropolitan Group) merged into a new whisky industry giant; United Distillers and Vintners (UDV, more or less synonymous with Diageo).
UDV/Diageo owns almost 30 malt whisky distilleries.

In 1973 two more stills were added to the existing two and in 1992 Blair Athol was expanded with a
visitor centre. Four malt maniacs visited Blair Athol in the summer 2003; in fact it was the very first
malt whisky distillery in Scotland I visited myself. Read the report about our visit to Blair Athol in my
Liquid Log (it's entry #140) for some interesting information about this Midlands distillery.    

The Gaelic name of the stream means 'burn of the otter' - hence the picture of an otter on the label of the Flora & Fauna bottling shown above. I already mentioned that Blair Athol is well worth a visit - at least I think so. It's conveniently located about half a mile South of the centre of Pitlochry, definitely worthy of a vist itself. In fact, it's a perfect stop on any trip through Scotland, because you can find the Edradour distillery nearby as well. In the unlikely event that you experience one of Scotland's short spells of nice weather, a walk from Pitlochry to Edradour (+/- five miles) through the hills surrounding the village is a very pleasant experience indeed. And if you're touring through the Midlands in the comfort of a car, Aberfeldy isn't that far away either.

1) These days (after the year 2000) bottles of Blair Athol are relatively hard to find.
There are no recent OB's that I know of, although Bells used to release a semi-official bottling in the 1980's.
Two later 'semi-official' bottlings were a 12yo Flora & Fauna released in the 1990's and a 27yo 1975 'Rare Malts'.

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

Blair Athol 'Over 8yo' (70 Proof, Bells OB, Black Label, Bottled Early 1980's)
Nose: Rich and fruity. Lemon? Developing spices. Organics. A faint but pleasant hint of peat.
Sadly, it drops dead after a minute - it loses quite a few points here after a promising start.
Taste: It felt a tad gritty on the palate with maybe a faint trace of peat. I didn't expect that...
Quite potent with gentle tannins and a dry finish.  Another 'antique' malt with quite a bit of peat.
Score: 79 points - I couldn't go for 'recoomendable, even on the Scottish soil of Glasgow.

Blair Athol 11yo 1989/2000 (58.1%, Cadenhead's Authentic, Bourbon Hogshead, 324 bottles)
Nose: Transparant and dry. Hint of peat? Not as powerful as I expected, to tell you the truth.
There was an explosion of character with five drops of water, but ten more drops killed it.
Taste: Easily drinkable at an otherwise painbtstripping 58.1%. Very pleasant complexity.
A fruity sweetness that remains entertaining for a long time. Yeah, I like this!
Score: 82 points - definitely a recommendable dram.

Blair Athol 12yo (43%, Flora & Fauna, Bottled +/- 1996, code LLIA0001274, 70cl)
Nose: Very 'flavoury', with a growing sweetness. This one needs a minute to open up.
Smoky. Ginger? Red wine? Sweet and sour? A great nose - excellent and elusive.
Taste: Sweet and fruity. A soft start slowly develops into a prolonged explosion.
Nothing really wrong here, but not special enough to warrant a score in the 80's.
Score: 79 points - hold the water, though... This malt is best drank straight.

Blair Athol 13yo 1989/2002 (58.8%, Cadenhead's Authentic, Bourbon, 240 bottles, 06/2002)
Nose: Sweet and spicy at first. Honey sweetness. Very pleasant, but not a lot of depth.
Light organics. Androgynous. It seems the high proof overwhelms any subtleties here.
Taste: Straight, it's sweetish with a faint coffee sensation. Greasy finish - like oatmeal?
Easily drinkable at C/S. Pleasant mouth feel. Not a lot of change after adding some water.
Score: 79 points - a good malt, but like many other Cadenhead's it may be just a bit too strong.
A very high proof can mask flaws in a malt, but it can also overpower the finer nuances.

Blair Athol 15yo 1990/2006 (61,4%, Blackadder Raw Cask, First fill bodega sherry C#7161, 483 Bts.)
Nose: Quite subtle at first. Rubber. A sherried profile, but I wouldn't call it 'suphury'.
A splash of water dulled the nose at first, but after a minute some extra layers emerged.
Taste: Big, sweet and fruity on the palate - and quite hot. Clear and present tannins.
Too bad there's something perfumy or soapy on the palate keeping it from the 90's.
Score: 88 points - which means I nominated it for a silver medal in the Malt Maniacs Awards 2006.

Blair Athol 16yo 1990/2006 (50%, Douglas Laing OMC, DL REF 923, Distilled 05/'90, Bottled 12/'06)
Nose: Old book store - a hint of antiquity. Then fruitier notes emerge. And then some more.
A very rich fruit cake. Hint of Menthos sweets. Lovely! It doesn't have a lot of 'staying power' though...
Taste: Not as obviously sweet as the nose at first, but then sweetness emerges in the background.
Score: 82 points - quite subtle in the nose but with lots of development in the first few minutes.

Blair Athol 18yo 1977 (50.4%, James McArthur)
Nose: The nose was light, sweet and spicy. Mocca. This appealed to me right away.
It opens up further over time, developing some herbal and oily notes. Very pleasant indeed.
Taste: It had a spicy bite on the palate and feels quite 'hot' at 50% - more so than I expected
Woody and chewy (tannins) with some liquorice - I love that. A tad dry and bitter in the finish.
Score: 82 points - a recommendable dram that loses just one or two points in the finish.
 

These were not all the (official and independent) expressions of Blair Athol whisky 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 complete whisky list wouldn't fit on two separate HTML pages anymore) I gave up. My Liquid Log still contains my tasting notes on most single malts I've sampled and scored, though. You can find a specific expression through the search box at the top of each distillery profile. The mAlmanac now contains (purely personal) selections of some of the best single malts and the worst whiskies I've tried so far - as well as the ones with the highest 'Bang-For-Your-Buck' value. But those tasting notes and scores only reflect my own, purely personal opinions. On Serge's distillery profile on Whiskyfun you can find another perspective on the whisky made at this 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.