Speyside
Speyside occupies the valley of the River Spey and its tributaries in Moray and Banffshire, in the north-east of Scotland. Fertile arable ground, a network of clean tributary streams and a sheltered inland climate historically supported both barley cultivation and distillation.
The Glenlivet valley was documented in the early nineteenth century as a centre of illicit distillation. Following the Excise Act of 1823 the region legalised rapidly, and the arrival of the Strathspey Railway in the 1860s enabled the Victorian building boom of the 1880s and 1890s. Speyside was formally recognised as a protected region under the Scotch Whisky Regulations of 2009.
Distilleries referenced
The Macallan, Glenfiddich, Glenlivet, Cragganmore
Islay
Islay is a low-lying island of roughly 620 square kilometres, exposed to Atlantic weather systems and covered in extensive peat bogs formed over millennia. It has little native woodland.
Excise records of the eighteenth century document extensive unlicensed distillation across the island, aided by sheltered anchorages away from mainland customs posts. Distilleries were registered progressively from 1779 onwards, and Kilchoman was founded in 2005 as the island's first new distillery in over a century.
Distilleries referenced
Lagavulin, Bowmore, Ardbeg, Laphroaig, Caol Ila, Bruichladdich
Scottish Highlands
The Highlands cover the greater part of mainland Scotland north of the Highland Boundary Fault, encompassing mountain, moorland and coastal terrain with widely varying water sources and climates.
Highland distillation was historically dispersed and largely unlicensed before 1823, carried out on farms and moved south along established drove roads. Legalisation and the later expansion of the rail network brought coastal and inland distilleries into commercial production.
Distilleries referenced
Glenmorangie, Dalmore, Oban, Clynelish
Ireland
Ireland's temperate maritime climate and long agricultural association with barley supported distillation across the island, with historical concentrations in Dublin and Cork close to export harbours.
Distillation is recorded in Irish sources from the fourteenth century, and the first known licence was granted at Bushmills in 1608. Irish whiskey was the most widely traded whiskey in the world by the mid-nineteenth century before Prohibition, trade disputes and war reduced the industry to a handful of distilleries by the 1960s.
Distilleries referenced
Midleton, Bushmills, Cooley
Japan
Japanese distilleries are sited across a mountainous archipelago with four distinct seasons, from the Osaka valley at Yamazaki to the Southern Japanese Alps at Hakushu and the northern island of Hokkaido.
Masataka Taketsuru studied at Scottish distilleries between 1918 and 1920 and recorded his observations in detail. The Yamazaki Distillery opened in 1923, and industry labelling standards defining Japanese whisky were adopted in 2021.
Distilleries referenced
Yamazaki, Hakushu, Yoichi, Chita
Kentucky
Kentucky's limestone bedrock filters iron from its water sources, and its continental climate produces a wide annual temperature range that has historically shaped warehouse design and maturation practice.
Distillation followed European settlement into the Ohio valley during the late eighteenth century. Federal legislation from 1897 onwards, and the definition of bourbon adopted in 1964, established the legal requirements that govern the category today.
Distilleries referenced
Distilleries of Bardstown, Frankfort and Louisville