Corgarff Castle stands in a wild and isolated spot at the head of Strathdon in the Aberdeenshire countryside. It was built in the 16th century as a fortified tower house. After the Battle of Culloden in 1746, it was converted into barracks for government troops, at which time the defences were bolstered with the addition of a star-shaped curtain wall.

For almost a century it was used as a base for the suppression of Jacobite sympathisers and later excisemen, to tackle the illegal production and smuggling of whisky. Ironically, it briefly housed a (legal) distillery in the 1820s.