The Glenallachie Distillery

For most of the 21st century, The Glenallachie was one of Scotland’s youngest whisky distilleries, having been built in 1967 by Mackinlay McPherson Ltd., a subsidiary of Scottish & Newcastle Breweries Ltd. Situated in Banffshire, Speyside, it is in extremely good and storied company. For almost twenty years, Glenallachie produced a series of solid single malts, until it was purchased by Invergordon Distillers Group in 1985, who closed the distillery down in 1987. A mere two years later, the distillery was once again sold off, this tine to Campbell Distillers, a subsidiary of Pernod Ricard, who added Glenallachie to the collection of distilleries under the Chivas Regal part of their portfolio. In the years that followed, the vast majority of whisky produced went into the signature blends of various Chivas brands, including Chivas Regal. The number of stills was upped from two to four, increasing the capacity to 2,800,000 litre of pure alcohol annually.

With production geared toward liquid destined for blends, finding single malt bottlings of Glenallachie was exceptionally difficult, with only a handful appearing via the independent bottlers. That was until 2017, when Billy Walker (Master Distiller, formerly of BenRiach), Trisha Savage and Graham Stevenson, clubbed together an purchase the distillery, forming The Glenallachie Distillers Co Limited. Since then, Glenallachie have released numerous single cask bottlings, a new core range and several limited edition wood finishes. In 2019, they were awarded ‘Scottish Whisky Distiller of the Year 2019’ at the inaugural Scottish Whisky Awards.

What stands out from the Glenallachie range is their use of wood. While a variety of sherry casks—oloroso and Pedro Ximenez in particular—still form the backbone of their whiskies, virgin oak and ex-Bourbon casks have a notable role too. In addition, the distillery has produced some really intriguing cask finished dram, with Moscatel, Koval Rye Quarter Cask and the classic, port cask too. Glenallachie is a very exciting distillery with an interesting and bright future ahead of its.