GlenAllachie

GlenAllachie is a Speyside single malt distillery that has been reawakened in recent years. After decades as a workhorse for the blending industry, new ownership has brought a change of focus. GlenAllachie is now establishing itself as a single malt brand in its own right and is building up a cult following. A combination of an award-winning core range with innovative and experimental limited editions has driven this.

Glenallachie is a rich and fruity style of single malt. The spirit has a creamy and robust feel with nutty notes and green apple.

The style works mature particularly well in ex-sherry casks, predominantly Oloroso and Pedro Ximenez. The core range reflects this with age statements at 12, 15, 18 and 25 years old. There are also 10 years old Cask Strength, 21 and 30 years old expressions, all released in small batches.

Glenallachie is also innovative and experimental with its limited editions and single casks. The versatile spirit works well with different wood types and some unorthodox ones have been featured. These include the Virgin Oak Finish Series (all bottled at 12 years old) and the Wine Cask Series (bottled at 11-13 years old). Other cask types released include Madeira, Marsala, Moscatel, Sauternes and Port.

The annual production capacity at Glenallachie is four million litres. However, new owners have decided to concentrate on producing high-quality single malt and bottling it as such. Therefore they have reduced the capacity dramatically to 700,000 litres per year for their predicted requirements.

The distillery has a 9.5-tonne mash tun which feeds eight metal fermentation washbacks. The reduction in production capacity has allowed the introduction of a very long fermentation time. This is 160 hours and one of the longest in Scotland. There are two pairs of large stills. These work in pairs and have unusual horizontal condensers, rather than the conventional vertical ones.

For a short period each year, Glenallachie now produces heavily peated spirit. This practice was introduced by the current owners in 2017. The malt is peated to a level of 80ppm (Phenol Parts per Million) and uses peat sourced from the Highlands. This level is higher than most Islay single malts.

Glenallachie was founded in 1967 by Mackinlay, McPherson & Co. They were a subsidiary of the Scottish & Newcastle Breweries Limited and built Glenallachie to expand their Scotch whisky capacity. It is located near the Speyside village of Aberlour. The architect William Delmé-Evans, known for several distilleries built in the 1960s, was commissioned. He designed the buildings but also sourced the location for the distillery.

The distillery hit troubled times in the 1980s. Two changes of ownership and a slump in Scotch whisky sales caused closure between 1987 and 1989. First, Scottish & Newcastle sold it to Invergordon Distillers (now part of Whyte & Mackay). They in turn sold to Campbell Distillers (now part of Pernod Ricard and Chivas Brothers).

Glenallachie operated as part of Chivas Brothers until 2017. The spirit was a major ingredient in their popular Clan Campbell blend. Then, The Glenallachie Consortium purchased the distillery along with existing maturing stocks. The company is headed by industry legend Billy Walker. He has previously sold his Benriach, Glendronach and Glenglassaugh distilleries to Brown-Forman. His goal is to establish Glenallachie as a premium single malt brand.