Thurso is the most northerly town on the British mainland with records dating back to Viking times, when it was under Norse Orcadian rule and a major gateway to Scandinavia and the Northern Isles. The area is fringed to the north and east by dramatic coastal scenery and is home to internationally important colonies of sea birds.

Thurso Bay and the distillery overlook the turbulent waters of the Pentland Firth towards the imposing cliffs of the Orcadian Island of Hoy – on a clear day the Old Man of Hoy can be seen in the far distance. The Thurso area was inhabited long before the Vikings arrived to give it its name.

In May 2011 one of our team went to locate the site of the old Wolfburn Distillery in Thurso, Caithness. After 150 years of neglect what we found was a barely discernible pile of stones, but one thing remained from the yesteryears of Wolfburn Distillery; the water. The cold clear waters that fed the mash tun and stills all those years ago were still flowing just as they always had, and if the Wolf Burn was still there then we reckoned the whisky could be too.

A short walk downstream from the old site we found a small flat piece of land carpeted with thistles. We could take just a little of the water each day and once again turn it into whisky. The purchase of the land was finalized in May 2012 and the first ground was broken a few months later in early August. Things were on the move, plans were being drawn up, equipment was being sourced from far and wide and by the end of September the structures of the new buildings were beginning to take shape.