🥃 The Bonthrones of Fife - Auchtermuchty Distillery
- Jun 23
- 4 min read
(Email originally sent to subscribers on 5th March 2026)
Phew! That’s another successful Fife Whisky Festival in the bag. The lead up is always busy and the weekend itself is as full on as it can be. It’s always great, though, to see so many wonderful faces from the whisky community (from both near and far) enjoying the festival.
And so the email I had planned for last Thursday is here now.
As mentioned previously, these days most whisky chat concerning Fife centers on the fantastic new distilleries that have emerged relatively recently. But there’s a wealth of Scotch whisky history in the Kingdom, including the activities of a certain family by the name of Bonthrone.
Records show that in 1600, an Alexander Bonthrone acquired a brewery in - what is now known as - Newton of Falkland. This brewery was handed down from generation to generation and the buildings still exist today.
But from the early 1800s, the Bonthrone family worked on expanding their business and additional new premises were acquired, the vestiges of which still remain today.
Including this. No doubt some of you have driven by this green door on more than one occasion.
This was the door to one of the bonded warehouses of Auchtermuchty Distillery.
Established in 1829 by Alexander Bonthrone (not the same as the above mentioned because, you know, although whisky is the water of life and all that, he wasn’t 250 years old), the distillery was visited by our favourite whisky writer, Alfred Barnard.
And so, from his account, we know that the distillery produced 3000 gallons of spirit in its first year, greatly increasing production by the time of Barnard’s visit in the 1880s.
There were four barley lofts across the premises, holding around 200 tonnes of barley, and it was, in fact, Orkney peat that was used in the kiln.
The distillery was powered by three water wheels of different sizes, with water being the only power source.
There were two pot stills: (i) the wash still which held 960 gallons and which was nearly one hundred years old at the time of his visit and (ii) the spirit still which held 460 gallons and was reported to be 60 years old, having been previously purchased from a smuggler.
There were five bonded warehouses along the roadside, of which this was one. In total, 600 casks were held on site.
Barnard also mentions that Alexander was assisted in the distillery by his two sons. These were John and William although he did have two other sons (David and George) as well as a step-son (Robert) and two daughters, Helen and Ann.
Having married Jane Henderson in 1849 – she was twenty-four years old; Alexander was fifty-one so make of that what you will – William was the youngest child, having been born in 1861.
When Alexander Bonthrone died in 1890, it was William who more or less took over the running of the distillery. From around this time, the distillery became known as Stratheden although folk continued to call it Auchtermuchty Distillery too. Just to confuse people like me in the future, no doubt.
According to Brian Townsend, in Scotch Missed, the two brothers didn’t get on and John was happy to leave the business side of the distillery to William.
Now, Barnard also pointed out that the annual output of Auchtermuchty distillery was 20,000 gallons with just five merchants taking all the spirit to be sold in Leith, London and Glasgow.
When William Bonthrone died in 1919, his probate record showed that one of the executors of the estate was William Helm - the very same William Helm who had had those unfortunate dealings with the Pattisons. All paths, Leith, and all that.
After William’s death, his son – Alexander – took over the running of the business. But in 1926, Stratheden Distillery closed, having ceased production a couple of years previously. As I’ve mentioned before, this was a difficult time for the Scotch whisky industry. The aftermath of the war, followed by Prohibition in the US, made the waters very choppy indeed and not all distilleries – especially the smaller ones – were able to navigate them.
Five years later, the firm of Arthur Bell bought the bonded warehouses and used them right up until the late 1980s.
Although the Bonthrones had stopped distilling, their brewing and malting operations continued at their other premises in Fife. And there’ll be more on this in tomorrow’s email for paying subscribers.
In 1938, the new private limited company of Alexander Bonthrone & Sons Ltd was formed to carry on the business of maltsters, brewers, distillers etc. The first board of directors consisted of Alexander Bonthrone, maltster, as managing director.
This Alexander wasn’t actually William Bonthrone’s son, as has sometimes been reported; he was actually William’s first cousin twice removed! Likewise with two of the other directors, Grace Cecilia Gaston Bonthrone and David Hugh Gaston Bonthrone.
This side of the Bonthrone family descended from James, the brother of old, marrying-a-woman-half-his-age Alexander. They were more concerned with the brewing and malting side of things rather than the distillery. Again, there’ll be more details in tomorrow’s email for paying subscribers.
The bonded warehouses at Auchtermuchty are currently on the ‘Buildings at Risk’ register and have been for quite some time. Planning permission has previously been sought to convert the buildings into residential dwellings, but as yet no progress has been made. Who knows what the future holds for the vestiges of this lost distillery? For the time being, though, they stand as a reminder of the cyclical peaks and troughs that are inherent to the Scotch whisky industry.
Slà inte! Justine