The Imperial distillery was built in 1897 (the same year as Queen Victoria's diamond jubilee, hence the name) to start production 1898, only for it to close down with the collapse of the whiskey market a year later in 1899. From then on Imperial has had a rather stop-start history, being reopened multiple times under various different owners only to close down again, and again be left empty. The latest productions closed down in 1998. Today the distillery still stands mothballed, owned as of 2005 by Pernod Ricard who are seemingly keeping it in its mothballed state as a reserve - though the machinery still remains it would take a fair bit of work to get it operational again.
Imperial never produced its own bottled whiskey, with only limited runs being released under the Imperial name and the majority of its production being passed on for use in blends such as Teachers, Long John, Ballantine's and Old Smugglers.
The building is also interesting in that it doesn't follow the traditional stone construction of many of the other Speyside distilleries, instead being of an iron framed construction clad in red bricks from Aberdeen. This was done by the designers in an attempt to make the buildings more fire resistant than the traditional construction, fire being a common problem of the times.
This leads us to today, when our group of explorers (namely myself, Alir147 and Meowmix) set off into the country to find Imperial as part of a day spent out exploring various sites round the area. Sadly we didn't get to spend as much time as I wanted exploring here, as we had to leave to get to another site before the light went, but we did get round the main building of the distillery, and from what we could see the separate buildings were mainly storage or completely emptied so hopefully we didn't miss too much.
Some pictures for your enjoyment...
The stills.
I didn't even realise what this said until I looked at the photos at home![Rolleyes :rolleyes: :rolleyes:](/styles/smilies/rolleyes.gif)
Some misc machinery and books.
Inside the masher, a great big echo chamber and quite surreal to be inside.
I think the sign needs a clean...
The view out over the roof, lovely and snowy![Smile :) :)](/styles/default/xenforo/smilies/xenforo/smile.png)
I think I may recognise a couple of those names...
We would have signed the board too, but the marker had dried up...
The tun room
and from below.
The tourists out on the whiskey trail...
and a wee depot we passed on the way there, just stacked with thousands of whiskey barrels.
Cheers for reading.
Imperial never produced its own bottled whiskey, with only limited runs being released under the Imperial name and the majority of its production being passed on for use in blends such as Teachers, Long John, Ballantine's and Old Smugglers.
The building is also interesting in that it doesn't follow the traditional stone construction of many of the other Speyside distilleries, instead being of an iron framed construction clad in red bricks from Aberdeen. This was done by the designers in an attempt to make the buildings more fire resistant than the traditional construction, fire being a common problem of the times.
This leads us to today, when our group of explorers (namely myself, Alir147 and Meowmix) set off into the country to find Imperial as part of a day spent out exploring various sites round the area. Sadly we didn't get to spend as much time as I wanted exploring here, as we had to leave to get to another site before the light went, but we did get round the main building of the distillery, and from what we could see the separate buildings were mainly storage or completely emptied so hopefully we didn't miss too much.
Some pictures for your enjoyment...
The stills.
I didn't even realise what this said until I looked at the photos at home
![Rolleyes :rolleyes: :rolleyes:](/styles/smilies/rolleyes.gif)
Some misc machinery and books.
Inside the masher, a great big echo chamber and quite surreal to be inside.
I think the sign needs a clean...
The view out over the roof, lovely and snowy
![Smile :) :)](/styles/default/xenforo/smilies/xenforo/smile.png)
I think I may recognise a couple of those names...
We would have signed the board too, but the marker had dried up...
The tun room
and from below.
The tourists out on the whiskey trail...
and a wee depot we passed on the way there, just stacked with thousands of whiskey barrels.
Cheers for reading.