Arbikie was first discovered as a farm distillery in 1794.

Centuries past, distilling was a local craft with a truly local flavour. In these distant times, all ingredients for the pot would still be taken from the farm and immediate surroundings. Arbikie’s 1794 Highland Rye Single Grain Scotch Whisky is a celebration of this field-to-bottle tradition - reviving a genuinely authentic way of distilling and producing a spirit with a sense of place and a taste of the land and sea that surrounds the distillery. This field-to-bottle process ensures that Arbikie understands the effect of every ingredient vital to the entire whisky production, and, in turn, they respect and nurture the environment they depend on.

Records show that rye grain was used in Scotch whisky production until the late 19th century, so Arbikie set it their mission to revive this tradition. Rye is not very adaptable to the area. It is a tall grass which can be very challenging to harvest with combines. But, being a family-owned farm distillery, Arbikie had the room to innovate, with the land to plant rye seeds and the equipment in place to produce rye whisky. When they launched their first limited edition Highland Rye in 2018, it saw the revival of rye whisky in Scotland, the first rye scotch in two hundred years.