Tomatin Distillery Celebrates Allan Bartlett’s Win as Cooper of the Year
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Allan Bartlett, our cooper at Tomatin Distillery, has been named Cooper of the Year in the Scottish round of the Icons of Whisky 2025!
To be named Cooper of the Year recognises Allan’s excellence in the art of coopering, as well as his commitment to ensuring the casks we use are of the best quality.
The awards were announced at the 2025 Whisky Magazine Awards Scotland dinner, held at the Signet Library in Edinburgh on 5th December 2024.
Allan has been Tomatin’s cooper for the last 15 years. He trained under former head cooper Iain Duthie (pictured below), who held the post for almost four decades.
As head cooper, Allan is responsible for inspecting each of our casks before it is filled and making repairs where necessary. This year alone, he has inspected and repaired 2,500 casks!
We pride ourselves on our commitment to a first-class maturation policy, and Tomatin is one of few Scottish distilleries with an on-site cooper. Having Allan in our team allows us to work with a wider range of cask suppliers by bringing quality control in-house. As well as purchasing from cooperages, we work directly with wineries, breweries and distilleries to source casks. These include Symington Family Estates in Portugal, which supplies the Tawny Port casks that mature our Tomatin 14 Year Old.
Beyond his coopering expertise, Allan is a valued member of our tight-knit Tomatin community. Having grown up on the distillery grounds, he joined Tomatin straight from school and still lives on-site, as do more than half our workforce.
The whole Bartlett family has a strong connection to Tomatin Distillery; Allan’s father Bruce is one of our warehousemen, and his mother Rose is the office manager. On living and working at Tomatin, Allan said: “There’s a mellow contentment here. It’s more than work; it’s our life.”
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