Dr Tim Dolan Memorial Lecture

100 years ago Neil M. Gunn from Caithness, the future author of The Silver Darlings and The Lost Glen, took up the post of excise officer at the Glen Mhor distillery in Inverness. While there he wrote Whisky in Scotland. In 1937 he moved on to become a full-time author, his books including Highland River – about his brother John’s career as a physicist and their fishing family background – and the philosophical The Atom of Delight.

He died 50 years ago; and ten years later Glen Mhor itself was lost. But ten years further on, and further along the road east in Moray, the closed distillery of Benromach was purchased by the Elgin-based whisky specialists Gordon & MacPhail. The firm, born in the same decade of the 1890s as Glen Mhor and Neil Gunn, regenerated the distillery in meticulous detail to revive traditional production. Benromach’s manager Keith Cruickshank is joined by its production manager Murdo MacKenzie to tell the story of a distillery reborn.

We round off with a toast to a lifelong friend of the Festival and the distilling industry in Scotland and beyond, the late Dr Tim Dolan from Jedburgh and Aberlour, who gave of his time and expertise so generously to help the lives and careers of so many others in the industry and the community.

Organised by the Institute of Brewing and Distilling

Tickets £8 (over-18s only) can be booked through this LINK.

For further insight into the art and science of distilling, there is another Festival initiative developed by Tim and taking place this morning: the Miniature Whisky School, with this year Highland Park focusing on the complex links between peat and whisky and including a visit to their peat workings at Hobbister.