The conversion of Nethermill made commercial sense in 1824 because the Excise Act of the previous year had legalised small-scale distilling for the first time, opening up the Highlands to legitimate whisky-making after decades in which most of it had been illicit. Alexander Ramsay was one of the first to take advantage. The cold, clear water flowing down from the Cairngorm foothills was the right kind of water for distilling. The barley grew in the fertile fields of the Howe. The chain of logic was straightforward. What Ramsay had not reckoned with was the fragility of his own finances. By 1829 he was forced to sell Fasque, and with it the distillery, to John Gladstone.

John Gladstone's son William Ewart Gladstone became Prime Minister of the United Kingdom four times between 1868 and 1894 and served as Chancellor of the Exchequer on several occasions. As Chancellor he was instrumental in reforming the taxation of Scotch whisky, easing duties that had long been pressed too high. Whether the family connection to a working Highland distillery sharpened his interest in the question is the kind of detail historians cannot resolve, but the appearance is suggestive. In 1887 fire ripped through the Fettercairn distillery and forced it to close for a time. It came back. The Gladstones held it until 1924, when they sold it to Ross and Coulter, who sold it on to Associated Scottish Distilleries in 1939.

Two symbols watch over the Fettercairn brand. The unicorn has been a national emblem of Scotland since the reign of King Robert III, in the late fourteenth century, standing for purity and strength, and it appears in the Ramsay clan crest that Alexander Ramsay carried with him when he founded the distillery. The arch is more recent and more local: a stone arch dominates the entrance to Fettercairn town, built to commemorate a visit by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert in 1861. The royal couple were on a tour of the area from Balmoral, and the town built itself a permanent welcome that has outlasted the visit by more than a century and a half. Both symbols turn up on the distillery's labels.

Inside the still house, Fettercairn does something most distilleries do not. The stills are wrapped in an irrigator ring, a copper cooling system that drenches the upper part of the still with cold water during distillation. The effect is to push only the lightest, purest vapours up through the swan neck, while heavier compounds fall back into the wash to be redistilled. The result is a notably clean spirit, gentler in character than many Highland single malts. The distillery has been experimenting in recent years with charred oak from locally sourced trees, aging some of its whisky in casks made from Scottish wood rather than the more usual American or European oak.

Whyte and Mackay bought Fettercairn in 1973 and has held it since. The corporate parent is now Philippines-based Alliance Global, which acquired Whyte and Mackay in 2014. The Fettercairn range includes the 12, 16, 22, 28, 40 and 50 year old single malts, a Fasque expression named for the estate the Gladstones bought from Ramsay, and the Fior with its limited cask-strength bottlings. The 24 and 30 year old expressions have sold out. From the air, the distillery's pagoda-topped maltings and the wider Fasque estate buildings make a clear mark on the floor of the Howe, with the Grampians rising abruptly behind.