Dornoch Castle Whisky Bar has been named Scotland’s Whisky Bar of the Year at the 2026 Scottish Licensed Trade News Awards, adding another distinction to a Sutherland business whose influence now extends well beyond Scotland.
The award, presented in Glasgow on 5 November, recognises a bar that helped launch an independent whisky business now building a major new distillery. Its origins are considerably more modest.
In the mid-2000s, a customer at Dornoch Castle could order a dram of 50-year-old Glen Grant for £15. It was, according to Simon Thompson, the most expensive whisky on the bar’s shelves at the time.
Today, such old bottlings can command substantial collectors’ prices. But for Simon and his brother Phil, the opportunity to open and taste whiskies produced decades earlier became something of an adventure.
Their family had acquired Dornoch Castle Hotel in 2000. Working behind the bar, the brothers gradually developed an interest in the differences between older Scotch whiskies and their modern counterparts.
During those years, bottles from distilleries including Brora, Rosebank and Port Ellen were still relatively accessible. Their collection attracted enthusiasts from overseas, including collectors and connoisseurs who became regular contacts and, in some cases, friends.
The brothers began questioning why certain older whiskies had characteristics that appeared less common in contemporary production. They were particularly interested in the influence of barley varieties, yeast, fermentation and the equipment used to make spirit.
Eventually, tasting other people’s whisky was no longer enough. They wanted to make their own.
In 2016, they began converting a small fire station, built in 1881 in the grounds of the castle, into Dornoch Distillery.
The project was deliberately paced. The brothers sought support from whisky enthusiasts through crowdfunding, initially aiming to establish the business without bank loans or outside shareholders.
Their reasoning, recorded in a March 2016 statement, is particularly interesting in light of the industry’s present difficulties. They wanted a business capable of surviving an economic downturn or a decline in the whisky market without being burdened by unsustainable debts. Simon described the ambition as being “as hard as a tick”.
It was a cautious approach to an industry in which investment can take years to produce a return because whisky must mature in casks before it can be sold as Scotch, tying up capital long before its eventual release.
The first casks were filled in July 2017.
Rather than attempting to compete with larger distilleries on efficiency, the brothers concentrated on producing spirit influenced by the older whiskies they had studied.
Their methods include heritage barley varieties, long fermentations and direct-fired copper stills. The distillery’s own description of its approach acknowledges a willingness to sacrifice production efficiency in pursuit of particular flavours and textures.
The business also developed its independent bottling operation under the Thompson Bros name, selecting and releasing whiskies from other distilleries alongside its own production.
What began as a small enterprise behind a hotel has since expanded into bottling, blending, retail and international sales.
Now comes a considerably larger undertaking.
The brothers are developing Struie Distillery at Dornoch South, a new facility designed to produce up to 400,000 litres of pure alcohol annually, more than ten times the capacity of their existing operation.
In March 2026, Highlands and Islands Enterprise announced an award of up to £1.57 million towards the energy-efficiency infrastructure of the project.
The proposed development will use renewable energy technologies, including solar arrays, thermal energy storage and high-efficiency heat pumps. It is intended to demonstrate how larger-scale whisky production can reduce its reliance on fossil fuels while maintaining traditional approaches to distilling.
The environmental benefits remain respectable ambitions rather than established results. The effectiveness of the energy systems, their operating costs and their long-term reliability will only be demonstrated once the distillery is functioning.
Struie will also incorporate bottling and warehousing facilities, while a planned visitor centre is expected to attract around 15,000 people annually.
The investment is taking place at a difficult time for Scotch whisky.
Figures published by the Scotch Whisky Association show that export values fell by 1.8% in 2025, while export volumes declined by 4.3%. International tariffs, weakening consumer demand and rising operating costs have placed pressure on producers across the industry.
For the Thompson brothers, the contrast with their original business plan is striking. A decade after setting out to build a small distillery capable of weathering difficult trading conditions, they are undertaking a major expansion during precisely such a period.
Their plans also present a technical challenge. The original Dornoch Distillery was established around production methods that prioritised flavour over efficiency. Struie must operate on a considerably larger scale without losing the qualities on which the business has built its reputation.
Against that industrial backdrop, the latest award brings attention back to the castle bar itself.
Having been highly commended in the same category in 2025, Dornoch Castle took the top prize this year, with The Mother Superior in Edinburgh and The Pot Still in Glasgow receiving highly commended recognition.
Bar manager Jamie Williams said the award reflected the dedication and knowledge of the staff who serve visitors throughout the year.
“Our staff have put in a tremendous amount of hard work to create a space that genuinely champions Scottish whisky,” he said, describing the recognition as an achievement belonging to the whole team.
The bar continues to offer rare vintage whiskies and independent bottlings alongside the spirits produced by the Thompson brothers. Its reputation rests not simply on the bottles available, but on the knowledge of the people serving them. The brothers’ business grew from conversations across a bar, the sharing of unusual whiskies and the relationships developed with people who travelled to Dornoch specifically to experience them.
The buildings associated with the business have histories of their own.
Dornoch Castle was originally a residence of the Bishops of Caithness. The surviving structure dates largely from around 1500, although the site may have been occupied by an earlier bishop’s palace associated with St Gilbert, who founded Dornoch Cathedral in the 13th century.
In 1557, Bishop Robert Stewart transferred the palace to John, 11th Earl of Sutherland. The castle was badly damaged during the conflicts of 1570 and subsequently underwent extensive reconstruction. The surviving tower was later adapted for use as a courthouse and jail, while other parts of the former palace accommodated a school. Following further alterations in the 19th century, the building eventually became a hotel in 1947. It is now protected as a Category B listed building.
The first Dornoch Distillery occupies an altogether different historic structure: the former town fire station built in 1881.
The new Struie development has another connection to Dornoch’s industrial past. Its site at Dornoch South includes the town’s former gasworks, constructed in 1845 and converted into a slaughterhouse in 1885. A surviving stone inscription above the northern entrance records both stages of the building’s history.
In April 2024, archaeologists from Addyman Archaeology surveyed the site ahead of the distillery development, documenting surviving sections of the original gasworks and later alterations. The plans examined at the time proposed adapting the historic building into a visitor centre, with new distilling and warehousing facilities constructed on adjacent land.
The history of the three sites provides an unusual connection between Dornoch’s past and its present. A former bishop’s palace became a hotel and whisky bar; a Victorian fire station became a working distillery; and a 19th-century gasworks is intended to welcome visitors to a new generation of Highland whisky production.
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