The Auld Alliance

SPEYSIDE

Constructed with Aberdeen red brick within a framework of iron beams to a Charles Doig design, the distillery is an attractive sight when strolling along the Speyside Way. Imperial came under the ownership of DCL in 1925 and was closed for a spell until 1955. Its fortunes improved in 1965 with the doubling of its number of stills from two to four, but in 1985 the distillery was closed, before being bought by Allied Distillers in the same year. Imperial has been mothballed since 1998.

Gordon and McPhail had this interesting little section on Cooling Water: A distillery requires a large quantity of cold water to supply the condensers in the still house. This water cools the hot alcohol vapours from the stills and leaves the condensers at a considerably higher temperature. At Imperial Distillery the cooling water travels for two and a half miles and comes from the Ballintom Burn. As it travels by gravity there is no power required to feed the water into the condensers, which makes for a very efficient system. A problem arose with reintroducing the hot water from the condensers back into the burn, as, by law, it was too hot. Allied's Chief Engineer Manager, Tom Dunn, managed to overcome this problem by designing a series of walls within the dam. This created a long canal by which the hot water has to travel before it reaches the outlet and is reintroduced into the burn safely.