January 19, 2026

Towser the World’s Greatest Mouser

How a tortoiseshell cat at Scotland’s Glenturret Distillery caught 28,899 mice and earned a Guinness World Record.

From the early 1960s to the late 1980s, a tortoiseshell cat worked the night shift at a Scottish whisky distillery and quietly became the most successful working cat in recorded history.

Her name was Towser.

By the time her career ended, she had caught an estimated 28,899 mice, a number so improbable it earned her a permanent place in Guinness World Records as The World’s Greatest Mouser.

Towser worked at Glenturret Distillery, near the town of Crieff in central Scotland. The distillery goes back centuries, and like all whisky operations, it stored large quantities of barley. And where there is barley, there are mice.

For generations, the solution was simple: you hired a cat.

Towser arrived at Glenturret in 1963, a long-haired tortoiseshell who quickly decided the distillery suited her just fine. The floors were warm, the warehouses were full of hiding places, and the work was steady. She stayed, and she excelled.

Each night, Towser patrolled the malt barns and storage areas. Each morning, her catches were reportedly laid out on the stillhouse floor, neatly lined up for inspection by the stillman. Afterward, Towser collected her food and settled in for the day’s sleep, only to repeat the routine again that night.

She did this for nearly 24 years.

No one actually counted every mouse as it happened. Towser was simply doing her job. But later, Guinness officials observed her hunting over several days and extrapolated the total. The result was an estimated 28,899 mice, averaging more than 3 per day for almost a quarter of a century.

The number has never been surpassed.

Local stories say Towser was sometimes given a few drops of whisky in her milk at night. Obviously, this is not advice, but Towser lived to nearly 24 years old, passing away in 1987, just weeks short of her birthday. Her successor, a cat named Amber, reportedly never caught a single mouse.

Towser was exceptional by simply showing up every night and doing the work.

Today, Towser is remembered with a statue outside Glenturret Distillery, her paw prints preserved as part of the site’s history. Visitors come to photograph the monument, read her story, and learn that one of the most enduring records in the world doesn’t belong to an athlete or a machine, but to a small tortoiseshell cat doing exactly what she was meant to do.

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