The Glenrothes Whisky is Vegan Friendly

Company email Sept 2021:
"Single Malt Whisky is an extremely tightly-controlled liquid. There are many limitations on what distillers are allowed to use and how they can produce whisky.

Single Malt Scotch whisky can only be made a single distillery. All of The Glenrothes's whiskies are made at our distillery in Rothes, Speyside in the north-east of Scotland.

All single malt whiskies contain only malted barley, yeast & water. There is nothing added through our whisky making process. We naturally ferment the sugars extracted from the malted barley in washbacks (fermentation vessels) with yeast (as beer breweries would do).

We then distil that liquid in our copper stills to around 70% ABV before it is filled into oak casks for maturation (a minimum of 3 years for all Scotch whisky).

We do not add any colouring agents to our whisky (some distillers add colour for uniformity however this does not impact flavour). Typically spirit caramel (E150A) is what is added - this is the only thing allowed to be added to the whisky once matured - other than water for dilution purposes.

At The Glenrothes, we do not use this colouring. The oak casks that we use naturally impart our whisky's colour.

So, in short, whisky (and generally all distilled higher strength spirits) is suitable for vegans and those following plant-based diets.

Single malt Scotch whisky can only be bottled in Scotland - our bottling site is Great Western Road in Glasgow, where there are sterile measures in place to make sure that the liquid does not come into contact with any contaminants"

Company email (April 2013):
[Editor's note: Craig verified that "sea shells" as referred to in the May 2012 response would actually be diatomaceous earth, thereby making The Glenrothes vegan-friendly.]
"Diatomaceous earth also known as D.E., diatomite, is a naturally occurring, soft, siliceous sedimentary rock that is easily crumbled into a fine white to off-white powder.

Diatomaceous earth consists of fossilized remains of diatoms, a type of hard-shelled algae. It is used as a filtration aid in the chill filtration process when we make all of our whiskies. This is made into a paper that the whiskies will then be passed through.

As this material is made from fossilised algae it does affect the vegan whisky consumer.
If a whisky is un-chill filtered then you will have no problems with our whiskies."

Company email (May 2012):
"We have consulted our production team who have confirmed that as part of the filtration process, the sheets we use include material made from sea-shells so we cannot state The Glenrothes is suitable for vegans."