Driving into Dufftown – granite terraces lining its slinky streets, dark slate tiles bedecking the roofs – a tall pillar of steam punctures the skyline: Glenfiddich Distillery. Suddenly, I’m transported back to a time before my own, to communities supported by industry – to blackened Yorkshire coalmining villages and New Lanark cotton dancing in the air; to Sheffield’s deafening steelworks and gritty shipbuilding in Glasgow.

“Everyone in Dufftown either works at a distillery, or in an industry connected to it,” says Struan Grant Ralph, Glenfiddich’s global brand ambassador, “Rome was built on seven hills, but Dufftown was built on seven stills.”