Macduff is located on the north coast, east of Speyside, where the Deveron River flows into the sea. The distillery owes its name to the place of the same name. The name means "son of Duff". Duff is a family name of a clan that owned a lot of land in this area. The distillery was built in 1960 by four businessmen from Glasgow under the company name Glen Deveron Group. Twelve years later, Macduff distillery was sold to current owner William Lawson's, now part of Bacardi Ltd. The distillery has been regularly renovated to try out new developments in distilling technology. Macduff was Scotland's first distillery to use metal washbacks and also one of the first to heat the stills with steam. The stills were insulated up to the neck until 1990 to save energy. The condensers were placed horizontally to ensure optimal cooling. Between 1970 and 1972 there was a single malt bottling plant at the distillery. In 1976 a factory was built to process the by-products, such as marc and pott ale, into animal feed and in 1984 a cask room was built to mix the different barrels of malt whisky. The stillhouse of the Macduff distillery now contains two wash stills and three spirit stills, which are heated with steam. The current washbacks are made of stainless steel. Bourbon and sherry barrels are used for the maturation of the malt. The barrels are used four times and repaired and maintained in our own cooperage. The brewing water comes from several local water sources and the cooling water is taken from a small stream called Gelly Burn. Only 5% of the production is sold as single malt and the rest is used for the production of blended whiskies. The Macduff distillery is one of the least visited distilleries due to its remote location