I thought this aerial view from my archives might be of interest to fans of Scotch Whisky. Taken in 1988, the group of large red buildings in lower right of picture, close to the banks of the River Leven, comprise Ballantyne's distillery at Dumbarton. Constructed in 1938 on the site of a former shipyard, the Dumbarton Grain Distillery was once one of the largest in Scotland. Within the complex, Malt Whisky was also distilled in the Inverleven Distillery and in the Lomond Distillery. The Inverleven malt was rarely sold as a single malt but was an important ingredient in Ballantyne's blended whisky. The whiskies produced here used water from Loch Lomond which is just a few miles away. This distillery has since closed and been demolished, though Ballantyne's maintain a presence in Dumbarton at their maturation warehouses, off the photo to the right, which are guarded by an army of geese.
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