North Port distillery
whisky distillery in Angus, Scotland, UK
North Port distillery was a Highland single malt Scotch whisky distillery in Brechin, Angus.
History
Brothers David, John and Alexander Guthrie, members of a local farming family, founded the North Port Distillery in 1820 under the name Townhead Distillery and created the holding company, Townhead Distillery Company, as owner. The distillery was renamed Brechin Distillery in 1823, and in 1825, the holding company became Guthrie, Martin & Company. The Glencadam Distillery was founded in 1825, a few hundred yards from the North Port, and in a likely bid to avoid confusion, the Guthries changed the name of their facility from Brechin Distillery to North Port Distillery in 1839. Guthrie, Martin & Company became a limited company in 1893, and changed names to reflect this as Guthrie, Martin & Company Limited.
Distillers Company (DCL) and W.H. Holt & Company Limited purchased the distillery and its extensive stock in 1922 and around 1928, transferred it to DCL subsidiary Scottish Malt Distillers. The distillery was latterly operated by its subsidiary Mitchell Brothers.
Production at the distillery ceased for a period from about 1926–28 and lasting until 1937 when it resumed only to be halted again at the onset of World War II due to the fuel and barley rationing instituted by the government. Production resumed in 1948 and continued until DCL closed permanently the distillery in 1983.
The owners sold the site for re-development in 1990 and shortly afterwards, Safeway constructed a supermarket on the site.
The public source identifies “North Port distillery” as whisky distillery in Angus, Scotland, UK. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around North, Port and distillery.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 4, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q948597. Authority coordinates are 56.736, -2.660. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1820, 1823, 1825 and 1839.
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This entry incorporates text from “North Port distillery” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.