A day trip to Glencadam Distillery

My Itinerary

07:42 – 10:41 – Bus Ember(Aberdeen): Edinburgh – Brechin
10:41 – 11:30 – Cafe Bread and Butter Coffee Shop
11:30 – 11:40 – Walk to Glencadam Distillery
12:00 – 13:30 – Glencadam Standard Tour
14:30 – 15:00 – Bus Stagecoach 30 (Arbroath): Brechin – Montrose
15:33 – 17:25 – Train LNER (London): Montrose – Edinburgh

Journey to Glencadam

It is surprisingly easy to get to Brechin from Edinburgh, as the Ember bus to Aberdeen passes through Brechin on its way north. The bus does not leave from the main Edinburgh bus station, but rather from a stop on George Street, just across the road from the Dome and not far from the bus station. On the day I travelled, I arrived around ten minutes early, and the bus was already waiting, which made it easy to find.

The Ember bus is pretty good value for money. There are USB-C and standard USB charging points built into the back of the seats, an onboard toilet downstairs, and a clear LED screen displaying the upcoming stops and estimated arrival times. The seats were also quite comfortable with pretty decent legroom, which was ideal for the long journey.

The trip to Brechin is a bit of a long haul from Edinburgh, taking just over three hours. Thankfully, my bus ran pretty much on time, and I arrived in Brechin around a minute early. The bus stop in Brechin is conveniently located outside the Northern Hotel in the town centre.

I had around an hour to spare before my tour, so I had some time to “explore” Brechin. Truthfully, there isn’t a huge amount to do in the town, although it does have a very impressive cathedral and round tower, which I paid a visit to. The tower is over 1,000 years old and is one of only two cylindrical towers of its type in Scotland. There are also a few shops/bars along the main high street, and I stopped at a nice little café, Bread and Butter Coffee Shop, for a pot of Earl Grey before making my way to the distillery, as it was a bit too early for a pint from one of the local boozers!

The distillery is only around a ten-minute walk from the town centre. I simply walked right from the coffee shop and followed the road towards a roundabout and headed straight over a small bridge which led to the cemetery and football ground. A footpath on the left of the cemetery takes you directly towards the distillery entrance, with the football ground on the left.

Arriving at Glencadam

Glencadam has been around for over 200 years, but the visitor centre is a fairly new addition, having only opened in November 2025.

There are some pretty decent facilities on site. As you enter the visitor centre, you will find a well-stocked shop where you check in for your tour. Through the back of the shop is a small, cosy whisky bar where they have a decent selection of Glencadam and Fettercairn drams available to sample, with the cheapest options starting at a very reasonable £4. It would have been better if someone was at the bar to serve drinks, but maybe next time!

Upstairs, with a lift available, there is a large café area with great views looking back towards the town centre. There is also a small outdoor seating area, which would be a great place to sit when the weather is good. It is apparently quite popular with some locals, which is always a good sign.

The Glencadam Tour

The tour starts in a small room to the right of the shop and lasts around 90 minutes.

The first 30 minutes are spent exploring three rooms, where short videos explain some of the main events in the distillery’s history. The first section looks at the local area and the history of illicit distilling in Brechin. You then learn about some of the production challenges the distillery has faced throughout its long history, including the world wars, Prohibition and a major fire in 1914.

After the history lesson, you head out into the distillery itself, which is located next door to the visitor centre.

The distillery contrasts quite noticeably with the new visitor centre, as things are much more rustic and industrial. The first stop is the mill room, which contains their porteous mill and three large grain storage containers.

From there, it is on to the mash tun and washbacks. Glencadam has six wooden Oregon pine washbacks, and the two farthest from the entrance were almost brand new, having been replaced only a few months before my visit. They are tightly packed into a small space, and all looked to be in pretty good condition. They do have quite a short fermentation time here at only 48hrs, which gives Glencadam a lighter flavour profile.

With production underway, you could smell some good aromas as you walked around; I thought I smelt blackcurrants, although that wasn’t what I tasted later on.

The penultimate room contains the stills. They certainly looked like they had a good few years of use! There are just two stills on site: a wash still and a spirit still. Together, these produce around 1.5 million litres of spirit each year.

Finally, the tour takes you into a traditional dunnage warehouse. This was probably one of my favourite parts of the tour, as the aromas when you walk in are fantastic. There are also some very old casks stored here, with the oldest dating back to 1978.

The warehouse contains a mixture of bourbon and sherry casks, as well as a number of wine casks. One thing that stood out to me about Glencadam is the amount of experimentation they are doing with different cask finishes. This is also evident from the selection of single malts available in the shop, with a variety of different finishes on offer.

The Tasting

The final part of the tour was, of course, the tasting.

This takes place in the visitor centre, in a dedicated tasting room next to the whisky bar at the back of the building. The standard tour includes samples of three whiskies: Glencadam 10 Year Old, Glencadam 13 Year Old and Glencadam Reserva Andalucía.

The Glencadam 10 Year Old was first up, and this was fantastic on the nose. It was packed with fruity notes, with a strong smell of pineapple and banana coming through for me. The 13-year-old was a smooth with a short finish but it lacked depth in the flavour; there was not a lot coming through on the palate for me, and I found it a bit plain.  The final dram was a sherry finish, which had some fruity notes, and I mainly got an oaky vanilla on the palate. Overall I probably preferred the 10 year old which just was a more interesting dram to nose and taste and it was also very reasonably priced.