The Big Dram of Dumbarton
Dràm Mòr is Gaelic for "the big dram," and it's run exactly the way that sounds: husband and wife Kenny and Viktorija Macdonald, working from Strathleven House in Dumbarton, choosing one cask at a time. Every bottle is a single cask, natural colour, non-chill filtered, and almost always at full cask strength.
Glen Moray 11 Year - Madeira Hogshead
Dailuaine 13 Year - Portuguese Red Wine Cask
Dailuaine 11 Year - Elijah Craig Bourbon Barrel
Auchroisk 16 Year - Bourbon Hogshead
THE ORIGIN
Whisky Comes Home to Dumbarton
Dumbarton was once one of the most important whisky towns in Scotland. It sits where the River Leven meets the Clyde, in the shadow of Dumbarton Rock and its medieval castle, the ancient capital of the Kingdom of Strathclyde. The town's great grain distillery fed Ballantine's for half a century, and Kenny Macdonald's grandfather Alex served there for years as head foreman. Two generations later, his grandson bottles whisky in the same town under his own name.
The road back ran through Viktorija. In 2013 she founded an export agency helping small, family-owned Scottish distilleries reach the world, having learned the trade from the bottom up: behind the bar at Glasgow's Òran Mór, then on the shop floor at Good Spirits Co. She was the first Lithuanian to build her own business in whisky, speaks seven languages, and holds a Prince Philip award for entrepreneurship. Kenny spent a decade representing some of Scotland's most iconic distilleries at festivals around the world.
In 2018 they started buying casks purely for themselves. By 2019 they had too many to drink, so they became bottlers, with whisky legend Jim McEwan advising on the first series. Today Dràm Mòr reaches 25 countries and sits on the lists of Michelin-starred restaurants. Whisky is being bottled in Dumbarton again, and it's a family doing it.