400 Years of family history
Our Roots
Four generations have worked this land at Lunan Bay, but the Stirling story with soil goes back further - to before 1660, when the family first put down roots on Scotland's west coast. Father taught son, season after season, an understanding of land that can't be learned any other way, only inherited, harvest by harvest.
In the 1920s, great uncle Bill carried that inheritance east to Lunan Bay on the Angus coast. The land passed to grandfather John, then to Alex Stirling — who, with Mrs Stirling, expanded the estate and built something extraordinary from it: the chance for their sons to turn four centuries of farming knowledge into a distillery. Arbikie was never a departure from the family's story. It was always where it was heading.
CUSTODIANS OF THE LAND
The Founding Brothers
Brothers David, Iain and John Stirling are the vision behind Arbikie - but the story starts long before the distillery did. Like every generation before them, they grew up working the farm, hands in the soil before they ever thought about whisky, learning the land the only way it can be taught.
Each of them built careers away from farming, but none of them ever really left. When the moment came to bring four centuries of family knowledge back to the land in a new form, the brothers returned - and Arbikie Highland Estate Distillery was born from it.
SUSTAINABLE. TRACEABLE. AUTHENTIC.
Provenance
The distillery stands next to the fields that feed it, our Distillery Experience looking out over the very land where it all begins. That closeness isn't incidental - it's the whole point. We've always farmed with absolute respect for the land, and building a distillery here never changed that. Provenance runs through everything: solar power drives production, our whisky travels next to no distance from field to bottle, and nothing goes to waste. The by-products return to the land, feeding the Cattle that graze the fields the barley once grew in. Full circle, exactly as it should be.
A SENSE OF PLACE
Field to Bottle
The soil, the fields, the climate, the people, the traditions - all of it finds its way into the glass. Every drop carries the taste of where it came from. For us, that's never just been about Scotland, but about Angus and, more precisely, home - where the east coast sea crashes onto the shore of Lunan Bay, watched over by our farm and distillery. At Arbikie, the story of any whisky starts long before distillation - it starts with preparing the soil. Our field-to-bottle process exists so we understand exactly what every ingredient contributes to the glass, and that understanding is what lets us respect and nurture the land we depend on. Traceability, sustainability and quality without compromise aren't values we've adopted — they're built into who we are.
HERE TO GO AGAINST THE GRAIN
A Century of Firsts
In 2020, we did what no Scottish distillery had done in over a century - we distilled rye grain into whisky. Highland Rye 1794 was a genuine act of revival, grown on our own fields, and the demand that followed told us we weren't the only ones who'd missed it. But rye was only the beginning. In 2015, we quietly sowed Odyssey barley on our MB01 "Blue Bear" field - the start of a decade-long wait that became The Signature, our first single malt, released in 2026. Two grains, two whiskies, one philosophy unchanged since 1794: nothing leaves this land until it's ready.
A Story of Time, People & Patience
Highland by Designation
The Highland designation in our name isn't geography - it's a protected whisky region, recognised under Scotch Whisky Regulations. Our farm & distillery sit proudly within it.
Scotland's five whisky regions - Highlands, Speyside, Lowlands, Islay, and Campbeltown - are defined by official boundary, not by mountain views or postcode.
The Highland region is the largest, stretching from Perthshire to the far north, and yes, down to parts of the east coast.
