OLD PULTENEY TURNS 200
Two hundred years in the making. Four days to capture it.
How Monumont Studios travelled to the far north of Scotland to deliver the hero film, social campaign and full asset library for Old Pulteney's landmark bicentennial.
200 YEARS OF HERITAGE
4 SHOOT DAYS
50+ ASSETS DELIVERED
Wick CAITHNESS, SCOTLAND
When Pim Pam Agency came to us with the Old Pulteney brief, the scale of what was being asked for was immediately clear. This wasn't a product launch or a seasonal campaign. This was a once-in-two-centuries moment — a distillery founded in 1826 on the remote northeastern tip of Scotland, announcing to the world that it had reached 200 years. The hero film had to be worthy of that number.
Pim Pam had the creative vision. They needed a production partner who could execute it at the highest level in one of the most logistically challenging locations in the UK, and come back with not just the hero film but an entire arsenal of content — social cutdowns, product films, location footage — everything the campaign would need to run across every platform and touchpoint for the anniversary year.
That's the kind of brief we live for.
The brief: cinematic scale, one shot at it
Old Pulteney has always leaned into its location. The distillery sits in Wick — a town that was once the herring capital of the world, only accessible by sea when the distillery was founded, shaped entirely by the North Sea that surrounds it. The whisky is called the Maritime Malt for a reason: that coastline isn't just scenery, it's an ingredient.
Pim Pam's creative direction called for a hero film that matched that identity. Cinematic and epic — big skies, dramatic weather, the landscape of Caithness at its most elemental. Not a polished, sanitised brand film shot in a controlled environment. Something that felt like the place: proud, windswept, built to last.
The challenge was that Wick is nearly 300 miles from the nearest major city. You can't half-plan a shoot up there. Weather windows are unpredictable, the logistics are unforgiving, and when the light is right on the North Sea, you need to be ready. Four days. One chance to get everything.
A distillery that's stood for 200 years on Scotland's far north coast deserved a film that looked like it. We went up there to find the weather, the scale, the light — and bring it back.
On the ground in Caithness
Four days in Wick. We worked across the distillery itself and the surrounding landscape — the harbour, the coastline, the open Caithness countryside that stretches out toward the Pentland Firth. Inside the distillery we captured the craft: the stills, the casks, the copper and oak that have defined Old Pulteney's character across two centuries. Outside, we chased the scale.
Caithness in the right conditions is unlike anywhere else in the UK. The light is extraordinary — long, low, constantly shifting. The weather moves in off the Atlantic fast and changes the character of a location within minutes. You can't manufacture that in a studio and you can't fake it in post. You have to be there, ready, and fast.
The hero film was built around those conditions — landscape and weather used as active storytelling elements, not background dressing. The cinematography leaned into the drama of the location: wide frames that place the distillery within the vastness of its surroundings, tighter craft shots that bring the viewer inside two hundred years of production. The scale of the anniversary, expressed through the scale of the place.
From hero film to full content library
The hero film was the anchor, but the real brief was broader. Pim Pam needed Old Pulteney to show up fully across the anniversary campaign — on social, in digital, in retail, across PR. That meant arriving back from four days in Caithness with more than a single film. It meant a complete content ecosystem.
WHAT WE DELIVERED
Hero brand film — 200th anniversary campaign
Multiple social cutdowns — platform-optimised formats
Distillery footage library — interiors and production craft
Location asset library — Wick, harbour and Caithness landscape
Product films — expressions and pack shots in motion
50+ assets total across all formats and platforms
The social cutdowns were engineered from the shoot rather than retrofitted from the hero film. Knowing what the campaign needed across Instagram, LinkedIn and digital display, we planned the four days to capture content that would work at every length and in every format — not just material that could be trimmed down from the long form. The result was a library that gave Pim Pam and Old Pulteney genuine flexibility across the whole anniversary campaign rather than a handful of cuts of the same footage.
The location and distillery libraries were equally deliberate. Two hundred years of heritage means two hundred years of visual material to draw from — the weathered stonework, the copper stills unchanged since the nineteenth century, the oak casks stacked in warehouses that breathe in the sea air. We documented all of it. That library doesn't just serve the 200th anniversary campaign — it gives Old Pulteney an asset bank they can draw on for years.
Why this kind of brief suits Monumont
Brand campaigns at this scale — a heritage whisky brand, a milestone anniversary, a creative agency with a strong vision, a location that doesn't forgive poor planning — require a production company that can operate without a safety net. You can't send a second unit back to Wick. You get four days and you come back with everything.
That's the kind of brief that plays to what we do. The planning that goes in before a camera turns. The ability to work across landscape, craft and product in a single sustained shoot without losing quality at any point. The understanding that the agency's creative vision is the thing being served, and that our job is to make it real at the highest possible level.
Old Pulteney reaches 200 years in 2026 with a campaign that matches the occasion. The hero film exists. The content library exists. And somewhere in the archives, there are 50-plus assets from four days on the far north coast of Scotland that will keep telling the story of the Maritime Malt for a long time to come.
