Macallan Distillery...

For 300 years the Easter Elchies House, spiritual home of The Macallan, has stood on the banks of the Spey as a symbol of Scottish fortitude, a monument against the ravages of time. Dating from 1700, the Jacobean Manor is the same house that is depicted on The Macallan's packaging. Outside Easter Elchies House, a holly tree flourishes. Amazingly this tree dates back to the earliest days of the house.

"Elchies" sounds as if it should derive from the same Gaelic root as the dividing, flinty or windy bit of Craigellachie, and there are historians who say that is the case. However, Mr Matheson has a different idea, which really appeals to us. He maintained that "it is one of the few words of Basque origin left in this country" and translated it as "el" - a town or residence and "che" - a hill. Thus, the residence on the hill.

Not far from the house lies a small, walled graveyard. This graveyard remains from the days when there was a church on the site - the church was destroyed by fire during the 15th Century and was never rebuilt. In addition to the church, we know that there was a farm and a mill on the Easter Elchies Estate and it would have been on the farm that whisky making first started on this site.

Farming still continues on the estate, indeed, in late summer the fields around Easter Elchies grow rich and golden with their own harvest. Golden Promise Barley, one of the vital ingredients in the creation of our spirit, continues to be grown on Macallan land to this day.