Gordon & MacPhail unveils branding for whisky distillery being built in Cairngorms National Park

The family owned firm was granted planning permission for the distillery in the Cairngorms National Park last year and work started on site in July of this year. It said the selected name reflected the “stunning location overlooking the Cairngorm mountains, at the gateway to Speyside”.

Scheduled to open in spring 2022, the distillery will include a visitor experience, tasting rooms, retail space and a coffee shop.

Brands director Ian Chapman said: “We have put the consumer right at the heart of the process of creating the brand, as we have with the design of the distillery itself.

“We wanted to make sure it was clearly Scottish, but easy for consumers to pronounce and to spell. This will be particularly important for our international markets when English is not the first language.

“We also had to be mindful of Benromach, our other distillery. We wanted the new brand to complement, not compete.”

The Elgin-based firm said that Benromach was positioned as a traditional, hand crafted brand so the new one had to broadly occupy “more contemporary territory”.

Working with Glasgow based branding agency Good, the company is said to have “cast its net wide” looking for ideas for a name, asking staff and shareholders for suggestions. More than 300 ideas were eventually whittled down to a shortlist that met select criteria.

An icon has been developed to symbolise the brand – the fragmented shape representing the coming together of many pieces to form a cairn.

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