Wolfburn is a wheelchair-accessible distillery. We will happily accommodate wheelchair users as much as possible but be ware there are some areas we cannot get you to.
If you have specific mobility requirements, please email tours@wolfburn.com before you visit so we can make sure everything is set up for you. We'd rather have that conversation in advance than have anything catch you off guard on the day.

Yes. Registered assistive and guide dogs are welcome throughout the distillery and on all tours.

Yes — and this is one of the genuinely good reasons to make the trip. The distillery shop stocks a range of exclusive and limited releases that aren't available online or through retail, including expressions from our Kylver Series and Small Batch range.

You can also fill your own bottle of Wolfburn whisky directly at the distillery — choosing your expression, then filling, corking, sealing, and labelling the bottle yourself. It's a decent thing to do with your hands, and it makes a better souvenir than a fridge magnet.

No booking required. The shop is open Monday to Friday, 10am to 4pm, and you're welcome to just walk in. You don't need to have booked a tour.

The shop stocks our full range of core single malt whiskies — the 12 Year Old, 10 Year Old, 8 Year Old Northland, Aurora, Morven, Langskip, and Pentland Whisky Liqueur — alongside distillery-exclusive releases, merchandise, and accessories. You can also fill your own bottle from our in-store cask selection.

We will happily do our best at the shop to wrap any purchases for you to take away with you.  

You must be 18 or over to purchase alcohol from wolfburn.com. By placing an order, you confirm you are of legal drinking age in your country of residence. We reserve the right to request proof of age on delivery.

We ship to most countries worldwide. Currently, due to local customs regulations, we're unable to ship to Canada, Finland, France, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Lithuania, Mexico, Poland, Spain, Sweden, and Slovakia. We're working to resolve some of these restrictions over time.

If you're in a country we can't currently ship to, check our Where to Buy page for a stockist near you.

UK orders are typically delivered within 3–5 working days. If you're ordering from outside the UK, delivery times vary by destination — international orders generally arrive within 7–14 working days, though customs processes can occasionally add a little extra time to that. Either way, we'll send you a confirmation email with tracking details once your order is on its way, so you'll know exactly where it is.

UK standard delivery is free on all orders over £100, and for orders under that, shipping is a flat £7.49. International delivery rates vary depending on where in the world you are, so the most accurate figure will show at checkout once you've entered your delivery address.

You have 30 days from receiving your order to request a return — just make sure the item is unused and in its original packaging, and drop us an email at sales@wolfburn.com with your proof of purchase. Return shipping costs are your responsibility, and shipping costs are non-refundable. If you're ordering from within the EU, you have a 14-day cooling-off period as standard. Once we've received and inspected your return, any approved refund will be back on your original payment method within 10 business days. Please note that sale items, gift cards, and distillery tour bookings can't be returned — but if your order arrives damaged or incorrect, get in touch straight away and we'll make it right.

Email sales@wolfburn.com with your order number and we'll track it down. If there's been a problem with your delivery, we'll sort it out.

We accept all major credit and debit cards, including Visa, Mastercard, and Maestro, as well as PayPal, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Shop Pay. We also accept Union Pay, iDEAL, and Bancontact for our international customers.

If you're a UK retailer, register via the Trade section on our website and we'll be in touch to set up your account. For international distribution enquiries, email sales@wolfburn.com with details of your business and the market you're operating in.

For all trade enquiries, email sales@wolfburn.com. Include your business name, location, and a brief note about what you're looking for and we'll come back to you.

All Wolfburn whiskies are sold in cases of six, though you can mix and match individual bottles to build an order that works for you. There's no minimum order value, but all UK orders over £100 qualify for free shipping — and given our case sizes, you'll likely clear that without much trouble.

Wolfburn is sold in over 35 countries. Check our Where to Buy page on wolfburn.com for a stockist near you. If there's no listing for your country and you'd like to explore distribution options, email sales@wolfburn.com.

We're always glad to hear from visitors — good feedback or otherwise. Here's how:

Email: Drop us a note at tours@wolfburn.com for feedback about your distillery visit, or info@wolfburn.com for anything else.

Google: Search "Wolfburn Distillery" on Google and leave a review — it makes a real difference for other visitors deciding whether to make the trip.

TrustPilot: You can always leave your feedback here - it helps us massively.

TripAdvisor: We're listed on TripAdvisor if that's your preferred platform.

Judge.me: If you bought something online, your order confirmation includes a review link.

If something wasn't right, please tell us directly. We're a small team and we genuinely want to know — we'd rather fix it than have it happen again.

Single malt Scotch whisky is made from malted barley, at a single distillery, in Scotland, then aged in oak casks for a minimum of three years. That's the legal definition, and every word in it matters.

"Single" refers to the use of malt from a single distillery — not a single cask, not a single batch. Every bottle of Wolfburn is produced entirely at our distillery in Thurso, Caithness, using Caithness water, copper pot stills, and no artificial additives. By law it must be bottled at a minimum of 40% ABV. We bottle at 46%, but that's a deliberate craft decision, not a legal requirement — more on that below.

There are six stages, all of which happen the traditional way.

Malting: The only part of the process we don’t do. Barley is steeped in water until it begins to germinate, then dried in a kiln to halt the process. This activates the enzymes that will convert starch to sugar. Wolfburn uses unpeated malt and peated malt depending on our requirements throughout the year.

Mashing: The dried malt is ground into grist and mixed with hot water in the mash tun. Natural enzymes break the starch down into fermentable sugars, producing a clear sugary liquid called wort.
Fermentation: Yeast is added to the cooled wort, converting sugars into alcohol over several days. The result is a beer-like liquid called wash, typically around 8% ABV.

Distillation: The wash is distilled twice in copper pot stills — first in the wash still, then in the spirit still. The distiller makes precise cuts to collect only the "heart" of the run: the cleanest, most characterful spirit. This is the new make spirit, typically around 65% ABV.

Maturation: New make spirit is filled into oak casks and moved to our seaside warehouses in Thurso. Scotch whisky law requires a minimum of three years. During maturation, the spirit interacts with the wood, gaining colour, softening in character, and developing flavour.

Bottling: Wolfburn is bottled at 46% ABV, without chill filtration. What goes in the bottle is as close to what came out of the cask as possible.

By Scotch whisky law, a minimum of three years in oak. In practice, most Wolfburn expressions mature for considerably longer — our core range runs anywhere from five to eight years depending on the expression.

Maturation is where most of the work happens, and most of the waiting. The cask contributes colour, tannins, vanilla notes (from American oak), and deeper fruit characters (from sherry-seasoned European oak). Meanwhile the angel's share — the whisky that evaporates through the cask each year — takes roughly 1 to 2% of the volume annually in Scotland's cool climate. Patience isn't optional. It's part of the craft.

Because 40% is the legal minimum — not the sweet spot. We bottle at 46% because that's where the whisky retains its full texture and flavour, particularly the heavier oils that give Wolfburn its characteristic mouthfeel.

There's a practical consequence too: at 46% ABV, those natural oils and fatty acids stay in solution rather than precipitating out. That's why we don't need to chill filter. The whisky stays naturally clear at serving temperature without any intervention. It's a connected set of decisions that starts with one question: what does this whisky taste best at?

Most distilleries chill their whisky to around 0°C before bottling. At cold temperatures, fatty acids and proteins naturally present in the spirit can cluster together and make the whisky appear hazy — particularly when water or ice is added. Chill filtration removes these compounds to keep the liquid visually clear at all temperatures.

Wolfburn doesn't do this. We bottle at 46% ABV, which means those compounds stay naturally in solution without any cold treatment needed. If you add cold water and your Wolfburn turns slightly cloudy, that's not a fault — it's what happens when whisky hasn't been stripped of its natural character. We think the richer texture is worth it. The haze is harmless and temporary.

The cask is where whisky gets most of its colour and a significant portion of its flavour — so this choice shapes the character of the final spirit considerably.

Ex-bourbon casks are made from American white oak and were previously used for bourbon maturation, which by law must begin in new charred oak. Once used, they're sold to Scotch whisky producers. They tend to give whisky vanilla, honey, coconut, and lighter fruit notes — elegant and approachable.

Ex-sherry casks have been seasoned with Oloroso or other sherry styles, typically in European oak. They contribute richer, darker flavours: dried fruit, dark chocolate, Christmas cake spice, leather. More intense, more complex.
Wolfburn uses both across our range, either as single-cask expressions or vatted releases that draw on both cask types. The combination — vanilla softness and rich fruit — is a signature of several of our core expressions.

The angel's share is the whisky that evaporates naturally from the cask during maturation. As the spirit breathes through the oak staves, a small amount escapes into the air each year. In Scotland's cool, damp climate, roughly 1 to 2% is lost annually — considerably less than in warmer whisky-producing regions like India or Kentucky, where evaporation can reach 10% or more per year.

At Wolfburn, our seaside warehouses in Caithness stay cool and stable, which keeps evaporation moderate. The angel's share is part of the cost of making genuinely aged whisky — you accept from the start that not everything you put in the cask will end up in the bottle. The angels, in our experience, have reasonably good taste.

Yes and no — and the distinction is worth understanding.

Peat level is measured in ppm: parts per million of phenols absorbed by the barley during kilning. Heavily peated Islay whiskies like Laphroaig sit at 40–45ppm. Ardbeg runs similarly. Octomore — the outlier's outlier — exceeds 200ppm. Wolfburn's peated expressions are somewhere else entirely.

Morven, our lightly peated single malt, is made at 10ppm and matured in ex-Islay quarter casks — small barrels that previously held one of Islay's most celebrated heavily peated whiskies. The smoke on Morven comes through as a refined, gentle presence: initially smoky on the nose, with fruit and fresh sea air behind it, and vanilla from the oak. It's peat with intention, not aggression.

Northland, our 8 Year-old, sits at just 5ppm — barely a trace that appears only in the finish, overlaid on a sweet, fruity dram matured in American oak quarter casks. Northland was Wolfburn's very first whisky expression, and the light peat is deliberate: a quiet nod to the original Wolfburn Distillery of 1821, which, like most Scottish distilleries of its era, would have used peat in production.

The rest of our core range — including Aurora — is fully unpeated. So wherever you sit on the smoke question, there's a Wolfburn for you.

New make spirit is the clear, colourless liquid that comes directly off the copper pot stills after distillation. It's whisky-in-waiting — technically it doesn't yet meet the legal definition of Scotch whisky, which requires a minimum of three years in oak casks.

New make is diluted slightly with water to 63.5% before being filled into casks. At this stage the spirit is already recognisably Wolfburn — the distillery character is established at the still. What maturation adds is colour, depth, and the softening of rougher alcohol edges. If you join a distillery tour, you can often see the new make spirit flowing: it's a good way to understand how much (and how little) the casks change the spirit over time.

Yes — and in the case of Wolfburn, it's a genuine point of difference. We use water drawn from local Caithness springs for both mashing and dilution. Our particular Caithness water is naturally hard and high in minerals, which affects how the enzymes work during mashing and how cleanly the spirit develops during distillation.

Distilleries have long argued about the significance of water to the final flavour — the debate has plenty of well-credentialled participants on both sides. What we'd say is this: our water is local, consistent, and an integral part of how Wolfburn tastes. We wouldn't swap it.

A quarter cask holds roughly 50 litres — about a quarter of a standard American barrel. That smaller volume creates a much higher ratio of wood surface area to spirit, which accelerates maturation and extracts flavour from the oak more intensively than a full-sized cask would in the same period. The result is a more immediate, wood-forward character.

For Morven, our lightly peated single malt, we use ex-Islay quarter casks specifically. These casks carry residual character from their previous life — a subtle, earthy depth that complements Morven's own 10ppm peat level. The cask isn't just a vessel; it's part of the flavour.

What that means in the glass: Morven opens with refined smoke and sea air, backed by vanilla and oak wood shavings. The ex-Islay casks are doing quiet but significant work in the background. 

Dunnage warehouses are the traditional method — single-storey stone buildings where casks lie on their sides, stacked two or three high on wooden runners close to the earth floor. Wolfburn uses dunnage exclusively, and the Caithness climate is unusually well-suited to it.

The benefits come down to consistency. The thick stone walls moderate temperature year-round, preventing the dramatic seasonal swings that push maturation unevenly — too fast in summer heat, too slow in sharp winter cold. The naturally humid air keeps evaporation at the lower end of the 1–2% annual range typical in Scotland. And the earth floor keeps conditions cool and stable throughout.

The result is slower, more patient maturation — the kind that allows spirit character to develop gradually rather than being hurried along by temperature fluctuation. Racked or palletised warehouses allow higher stacking and faster throughput, but they trade some of that consistency in the process. Wolfburn's dunnage approach isn't nostalgia. It's a considered choice about how we want our whisky to develop.

Wolfburn sources its malted barley from a variety of Maltsters. The barley arrives already malted — steeped, germinated, and kilned to the peat specification needed for each expression. Most of our range uses unpeated malt; Morven is made with lightly peated malt at 10ppm. Malting at this scale is a specialist process, and working with dedicated maltsters ensures the consistency in raw material that everything else in the distillery depends on. 

During distillation, the spirit doesn't run cleanly from start to finish — it arrives in stages, and only one of those stages becomes whisky.

The first liquid off the still is the foreshots: high in alcohol and harsh congeners, it's redirected away from the spirit receiver. Then comes the heart: the clean, characterful middle section that will eventually be filled into casks. Finally the feints — heavier, oilier compounds that are also collected separately and redistilled later.

The distiller's job is to decide precisely when to open and close those cuts. It's done by nose and taste and a simple water test, not by clock. The foreshots smell aggressive and spirity; the heart opens with fruity, floral character; the feints bring heavier, pungent notes. A tighter cut produces a lighter, more elegant spirit. A wider cut includes more body and weight.
At Wolfburn, those decisions are made by our distillers the same way craft distillers have made them for centuries: smell it, taste it, trust the call. The character of every bottle starts here, at the still.
 

By law, single malt Scotch whisky must be distilled in copper pot stills. Copper isn't an aesthetic choice — it's chemically essential. During distillation, copper reacts with various compounds produced during fermentation, removing them from the spirit. A still made from any other material wouldn't achieve the same result.

Still shape also has a significant bearing on flavour. Taller stills with longer necks tend to produce lighter, more delicate spirit — heavier vapour compounds condense and fall back before making it out, leaving only the lighter fractions to pass through. Shorter, more squat stills yield heavier, oilier, more robust character. Every distillery's stills are slightly different, and those differences are permanent fixtures in the flavour of the whisky they produce.