Distillery Directory

The Distillery Directory is designed to help you find whisky distilleries by name and location, then follow their records to understand what each site is and what is known about it. It is a reference tool, not a list of recommendations, and inclusion does not mean a distillery is producing spirit or welcoming visitors today.

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How to use the directory

Start with a distillery name if you know it, or choose a country to explore by location. The planned inputs are a name search, country and area filters, and separate filters for distilling status and visitor access.

Select an entry to read its supporting record rather than treating a search result as the whole answer. Before arranging a visit, check the official website for booking requirements, accessibility and age rules for tours; the directory should not be used to establish opening hours or availability.

What belongs in the directory

The directory's inclusion rule is that a distillery must have distilled spirit. A planned or licensed site does not qualify on that basis alone. Brands, independent bottlers and owner groups are different entities and should not appear as distilleries unless there is a separately verified distillery record.

An entry should distinguish the physical production site from the names used on bottles. A brand name or a bottler's address must never be used to infer where a whisky was distilled. Where the source distillery is not disclosed, the directory must leave that origin unestablished.

Reading a distillery's status

Status is not a single open or closed label. Each entry should keep four questions separate, with a source and verification date for each:

• Business status: what is the legal position of the business?
• Distilling status: what is established about production at the site?
• Visitor access: is public access documented, and under what conditions?
• Site status: what is established about the physical site?

These fields must not stand in for one another. A visitor facility and a distilling operation answer different questions, while a surviving building does not establish that production continues. Read the verification date alongside the status, not as a guarantee of today's position.

Method and sources

The build should match search terms against verified names and recorded name variants, then apply the selected filters to the corresponding fields. Results should be ordered alphabetically, not ranked by quality, popularity or commercial relationships. When a status filter is applied, show otherwise eligible records with an unknown value separately, labelled unknown, rather than among confirmed matches.

Each published entry must draw from the site's shared, verified entity fact sheet, with supporting sources and dates available in its record. Ownership and status information require dated evidence; a name appearing on a list is not enough to establish present production. Corrections belong in that shared record so the directory and related pages remain consistent. [1]

Limits of the directory

The directory is a route into evidence, not a live production monitor or booking service. Missing information means only that the field is not established in the record; it does not prove that a facility, activity or service does not exist.

Sources

1. whiskydistillery.co.uk, MASTER WRITING PROMPT, version 5 LOCKED, 7 November 2026, rules 3, 5, 6 and 10; P10: Distillery Directory, supplied item brief, November 2026. Internal editorial specifications; no public source URL supplied.

This page was drafted from the supplied editorial specification; no individual distillery records were supplied or verified.

Last checked: November 2026