Cool Finds

Researchers Discovered the Remnants of a Secret, Illegal Whisky Distillery in a Stunning Scottish Park

The copper still, likely used to make whisky, would have been hidden away from the oversight of tax collectors after Scotland outlawed unlicensed distilling centuries ago

Sonja Anderson | Daily Correspondent

May 11, 2026 4:23 p.m.

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Archaeologists in the Scottish Highlands discovered a fragment of copper with a spirited history. The piece belongs to a whisky still—a heating vessel used to distill the amber liquor—and it was found near a small stone hut called a bothy in the Ben Lawers National Nature Reserve. Researchers think the site was once a secret whisky distillery, active after Scotland banned unlicensed private distillation in the 1780s.

“In the early 19th century, illicit whisky distilling in these hills became a real battle of wits between excise [tax] officers and distillers,” says Derek Alexander, the National Trust for Scotland’s head of archaeology, in a statement from the charity. “To find the remains of stills in these upland areas, you need to think like an excise officer. Those who distilled spirit in this bothy will have picked the location carefully to make sure they were well hidden.”

Whisky was developed first in either Ireland or Scotland, likely when medieval monks experimented with Mediterranean methods of distillation. They called their amber product “aqua vitae,” which is Latin for “water of life.”

The euphemism wasn’t always accurate. According to one Irish text, the Annals of Loch Cé, in 1405 a man named Richard MacRaghnaill died after drinking “uisce-betha,” Gaelic for “water of life.” So to Richard, the text quipped, the liquid was actually “uisce-marbtha”—“water of killing.”

In Scotland, the oldest written mention of whisky appears in a 1494 tax record, which lists “Eight bolls of malt to Friar John Cor wherewith to make aqua vitae.” A century and a half later, the beverage had gained enough popularity that the Scottish Parliament opted to tax it. In 1644, Scotland levied its first taxes on whisky. Then, in the 1780s, the government passed acts that required distilleries to be licensed.

“Suddenly, it becomes illegal, and what was your normal farm activity then goes underground,” Matt Ritchie, an archaeologist at Forestry and Land Scotland, told Live Science’s Tom Metcalfe in 2019.

Rather than pay the tax, “distillers and smugglers went to great lengths … moving their illicit stills and hidden bothies into upland areas to avoid detection,” per the statement. Excisemen who enforced Scotland’s whisky taxes found themselves in a “game of cat and mouse” with distillers, according to the National Trust for Scotland.

Because the government also taxed the malted barley used to make Scotch whisky, some commercial distilleries used corn instead, Ritchie told Live Science: “The big lowland distilleries are using pretty rough stuff, but your Highland or illicit whisky still is producing good-quality whisky from good-quality ingredients.”

The stone bothy at the site contains a sturdy hearth and evidence of burning, as well as a “substantial stone-capped drain that ran beneath the internal floor,” both of which indicate it was used as a distillery. It’s well-hidden, nestled in a gulley, Alexander says in the statement.

Whisky starts out when grain and water are mashed, then yeast is added to create alcohol. The distillation takes place in a copper still. Researchers believe the recently discovered copper piece is An Gearradan, a Gaelic term meaning “the connecting piece” between the arm and the head of the still. They matched the artifact to an early-20th-century Gaelic-labeled illustration of a small whisky still.

“If the still had been found by the excise officers, the still would’ve been taken away and destroyed,” says Alexander. “So, the fact that we’ve found this connecting piece here suggests the still was dismantled in a hurry and its components whisked away by the smugglers as they dispersed. The connecting piece may have been forgotten in the rush and left behind.”

The recent excavation is part of an archaeological project called Pioneering Spirit, sponsored by The Glenlivet distillery. So far, researchers have identified 30 sites of bygone illegal distilling. For illicit distillers, the hills, rivers and waterfalls in what is now the Ben Lawers National Nature Reserve provided both adequate concealment and ample water, for making mash and cooling vapors.

“Distillers of illicit whisky would’ve travelled light and left little trace of their activity, and so a find like this is especially rare and exciting,” Alexander says in the statement. “It gives us a glimpse into an activity that was once rife in the hills of Ben Lawers and which was seen by many as an act of community resistance.”

Sonja Anderson | Read More

Sonja Anderson is a writer and reporter based in Chicago.