Qualla: Wolfburn Distillery https://qualla.com/wolfburn-distillery en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:25 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/g/f/m/m/wolfburn-distillery-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Wolfburn Distillery https://qualla.com/wolfburn-distillery Wolfburn Distillery: Introduction https://qualla.com/wolfburn-distillery/ Photo credit Htayler, CC BY-SA 4.0. In 1826 the Wolfburn Distillery, on the western edge of Thurso, produced 28,056 Total Gallons of Proof Spirit - roughly 125,000 litres - making it the biggest distillery in Caithness. The figure survives because the Excise demanded a return and the return is in the tax archives. Almost everything else about the original Wolfburn is missing. There are no photographs - the technology hadn't quite arrived. There are no architectural drawings. There aren't even reliable accounts of when it closed: sometime in the 1860s, after running for roughly forty years and being handed down through three or four generations of the Smith family, William Smith having founded it in 1821. By 1872 it appears on the first Ordnance Survey map of the area marked, simply, as a ruin.

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Image: Htayler | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/f/m/m/wolfburn-distillery-wp/gfmm-wolfburn-distillery-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Wolfburn Distillery: The Stream That Names It https://qualla.com/wolfburn-distillery/ Photo credit Htayler, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Wolf Burn is a small stream that rises in the moorland south of Thurso and runs down through farmland to the sea. It is not a river of any importance to anyone except the distillery that has twice taken its name. Why the burn itself is called the Wolf Burn is unclear - probab...

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Image: Htayler | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/f/m/m/wolfburn-distillery-wp/gfmm-wolfburn-distillery-the-stream-that-names-it.mp3 0:06 2 full Wolfburn Distillery: The Long Silence https://qualla.com/wolfburn-distillery/ Photo credit Htayler, CC BY-SA 4.0. What happened to the original Wolfburn is not entirely clear. The 1860s were a difficult period for many smaller distilleries: the Spirit Act of 1860 changed the tax structure in ways that favoured larger operations, and a few decades of consolidation followed. The Smith family s...

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Image: Htayler | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/f/m/m/wolfburn-distillery-wp/gfmm-wolfburn-distillery-the-long-silence.mp3 0:06 3 full Wolfburn Distillery: The Revival https://qualla.com/wolfburn-distillery/ Photo credit Htayler, CC BY-SA 4.0. In 2012 a private consortium gained planning approval from Caithness authorities to build a new distillery in Henderson Park, on the western edge of Thurso. They kept the old name. The site lies about 350 metres from where William Smith had worked, and the new distillery draws it...

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Image: Htayler | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/f/m/m/wolfburn-distillery-wp/gfmm-wolfburn-distillery-the-revival.mp3 0:06 4 full Wolfburn Distillery: Coming of Age https://qualla.com/wolfburn-distillery/ Photo credit Htayler, CC BY-SA 4.0. Scotch whisky cannot be called Scotch whisky until it has aged in oak for at least three years and a day. For a new distillery, that wait is the hardest part of the business plan. Wolfburn's early releases were young - good young whisky, but young - and the distillery built a rep...

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Image: Htayler | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/f/m/m/wolfburn-distillery-wp/gfmm-wolfburn-distillery-coming-of-age.mp3 0:06 5 full