This cache is bringing you to a mothballed distillery, the previous Convalmore Glenlivet Distillery Grounds.
The Convalmore distillery was located in the heart of Speyside. It was founded in 1893 or 1894 by the Convalmore-Glenlivet Distillery Co. Ltd. and was one of the few whisky distilleries in the area that was NOT designed by Charles Doig. Instead, local architect Donald Mackay drew up the plans for Convalmore. If Google is not mistaken, this was the only Scotch whisky distillery that was designed by Donald.
According to the records, whisky production at Convalmore started in February 1894. One decade later, in March 1904, the distillery was purchased by W. & P. Lowrie & Co. Ltd. for the measly sum of £6000.- The new owners didn't get to enjoy their distillery for very long; they encountered financial problems one year later.
W. & P. Lowrie & Co. Ltd. was bought by James Buchanan. James Buchanan used to be an important client of the Lowrie company. After the transfer of ownership, the Convalmore distillery was owned by James Buchanan & Co. Ltd. This company had to rebuild the distillery after a devastating fire in 1909. They must have felt adventurous, because they experimented with continuous distillation of malt spirit - also known as a 'silent malt' - for a while. This special column still was removed again in 1916.
One decade later, in 1925, Convalmore was sold by James Buchanan & Co. Ltd. to Distillers Company Limited (DCL); one of the predecessors of Diaeo. The sale marked the beginning of four decades of relative peace and quiet for Convalmore. The first significant changes after the 2nd world war came in 1962 when the direct coal firing of the stills was replaced by (indirect) steam heating. I imagine this change in the whisky production meant that Convalmore became a tad greener.
In 1964 the number of pot stills was expanded from two to four, so that Convalmore continued with 2 wash stills and 2 spirit stills. By the time those new stills were getting old (pot stills have a life span of 20 to 30 years on average, they slowly dissolve in whisky) there was no point in replacing them; Convalmore was mothballed in 1985. This makes the investments of the 1970's look a little bit silly; the bonded warehouses were expanded and they even built a dark-grains plant and a new mash house. In a way this proves that the crisis that hit the whisky world in the early 1980's was not foreseen by large parts of the whisky industry.
The ownership of the old distillery buildings and the surrounding site transferred from United Distillers to it's current owner.
Apparently they had no intention of using the distillery for the production of malt whisky, because the distillation equipment has since been removed. The old buildings of the Convalmore distillery are now used for the storage and maturation of casks of their own production. It's highly unlikely that Convalmore distillery will ever produce whisky again.
To find the cache: you are standing infront of an old gate, obviously not in use very often. The ground in front of you look a bit as being a lost and long forgotten place as well. You are looking for a very wee cache, a small magnetic.
Congratulation to allieballie for being the FTF here!.