Glen Moray Distillery

The Glen Moray Glen­livet Dis­tillery is a dis­tillery in Spey­side, Scot­land that pro­duces sin­gle malt scotch whisky. The dis­tillery is owned by Glen­morangie plc. Their main prod­uct is the Glen Moray brand of sin­gle malt scotch whisky, and like the malt whisky pro­duced at the Glen­morangie dis­tillery, Glen Moray malt is also used in the com­pa­nies range of blended whiskies, Bailie Nicol Jarvie and High­land Queen. Glen Moray is also used in small quan­ti­ties in vat­ted malt whisky Glen­morangie plc sell to inde­pen­dent bottlers.

His­tory

Glen Moray started life, like sis­ter dis­tillery Glen­morangie, as a brew­ery and was con­verted to a dis­tillery with 2 stills in 1897. Early life at Glen Moray was unevent­ful and the dis­tillery closed in 1910. The dis­tillery was pur­chased by Glenmorangie’s own­ers, the Mac­Don­ald and Muir fam­i­lies at some time dur­ing the 1920s. The dis­tillery received 2 addi­tional stills in 1958 and at present has an annual capac­ity of around 2,000,000 litres.

Glen Elgin Distillery

The Glen Elgin Dis­tillery is sit­u­ated 10 miles south of where the river Lossie exits to the sea and about 40 miles east of Inverness.

Founded at the end of the whisky boom in 1898, it was built and designed by the notable dis­tillery archi­tect Charles Doig of Elgin.

The Whisky

The Glen Elgin 12 year old has a pos­i­tive, aro­matic and a whiff of smoke, with notes of almonds, or marzipan.

This whisky is one of the six Clas­sic Malts in the New Col­lec­tion of Clas­sic Sin­gle Malts, replac­ing Crag­gan­more as the Spey­side representative.

Glenrothes Distillery

Glen­rothes Dis­tillery is loa­cated beside the Burn of Rothes in the Spey­side region. The Glen­rothes is used in blended scotch whiskies such as Cutty Sark and The Famous Grouse. The Glen­rothes is owned by Berry Broth­ers and Rudd.

Pro­duc­tion

The Glen­rothes is mainly matured in Span­ish ex-Sherry casks, and some ex-Bourbon casks. The Glen­rothes is unique com­pared to other sin­gle malts in that, begin­ning in 1994, the bot­tlings are not deter­mined by age but by vin­tage. Besides the sig­na­ture line in which each year of pro­duc­tion is bot­tled as one vin­tage, The Glen­rothes is also sold as “Select Reserve”, a recently intro­duced non-vintage line. Spe­cial bot­tlings include “Sin­gle Cask” bot­tles, which are taken from one sin­gle cask of whisky from a par­tic­u­larly excep­tional year. Sin­gle casks released include: 1966 Cask 1438, 1966 Cask 1427, 1967 Cask 6994 and 1967 Cask 6998. In the late 1980s, a few years years before Glen­rothes Dis­tillery decided to bot­tle The Glen­rothes as vin­tages, some casks of whisky prior to 1974 were left to mature together. These casks were bot­tled as a 30-year-old Glen­rothes. Only 1134 bot­tles were produced.

Char­ac­ter

The house style is a warm­ing, mouth-coating creamy spirit, with the clas­sic Spey­side “pear drop” char­ac­ter. Tast­ing notes fre­quently also men­tion the descrip­tors “lemony”, “grassy”, “aniseed”, “liquorice” and “toffee”.

The dis­tillery

The dis­tillery was built in 1878 by James Stu­art & Co, who then also worked the nearby Macallan dis­tillery. The first whisky ran off the stills on the 28 Decem­ber 1879, the same day as the Tay Bridge disaster.

The dis­tillery itself had a shaky start and a che­quered his­tory. Over-proof whisky is noto­ri­ously highly flam­ma­ble and the dis­tillery has paid the price. Exten­sion work began in 1896 on a sec­ond malt kiln, and an increase in stills from two to four but, before the work was fin­ished, a fire in Decem­ber 1897 caused seri­ous dam­age. The dis­tillery saw fur­ther dam­age with a seri­ous explo­sion in 1903.

Then, in 1922, a fire in Ware­house Num­ber One caused the loss of 200,000 impe­r­ial gal­lons (900,000 litres) of whisky. As bar­rels exploded in the heat, the matur­ing whisky gushed into the adja­cent Burn of Rothes, where locals were reported to have lifted water by the buck­et­ful. Another fire in 1962 afforded the oppor­tu­nity for expan­sion and a fur­ther re-build in 1982 extended the still hall to five wash stills and five spirit stills.

Glenlivet Distillery

The Glen­livet Dis­tillery is a dis­tillery near Ballindal­loch in Moray, Scot­land that pro­duces sin­gle malt scotch whisky.

The Glen­livet dis­tillery is the old­est legal dis­tillery in Scot­land; it was founded in the same year that dis­till­ing was legalised by the Gov­ern­ment, and it has oper­ated almost con­tin­u­ally since. The dis­tillery remained open through­out the Great Depres­sion and it’s only clo­sure came dur­ing World War II. The Glen­livet dis­tillery has grown in the post-war period to become one of the biggest sin­gle malt dis­til­leries in order to keep up with global demand; The Glen­livet brand is the biggest sell­ing malt whisky in the United States and the third biggest sell­ing sin­gle malt brand globally.

Today, the dis­tillery is owned by the French alco­holic bev­er­ages com­pany Pernod Ricard and they over­see the dis­til­leries pro­duc­tion of 5,900,000 proof litres per annum. The major­ity of this — enough for 6 mil­lion bot­tles — is sold as The Glen­livet sin­gle malt, with the remain­der being used in Pernod Ricard’s blended whisky brands.

Pro­duc­tion

The dis­tillery draws water from Josie’s Well, a short dis­tance from the dis­tillery. Bar­ley is deliv­ered slighted peated from Greencore’s Buckie malt­ings and Glenlivet’s stills are lantern shaped with long, nar­row necks, all of which helps to pro­duces a light tast­ing spirit. The dis­tillery has 4 wash stills each with a capac­ity of 15,000 litres each and 4 spirit stills with a capac­ity of 10,000 litres.

Spirit from the dis­tillery is then matured in oak casks for­merly used to mature bour­bon (ex-bourbon), as is nor­mal through­out the indus­try, with some prod­ucts being fin­ished in casks pre­vi­ously used to store sherry and port.

Glen­livet is cat­e­gorised as a spey­side dis­tillery. The stan­dard range of prod­ucts are bot­tled at 12 Years, 15 Years and 18 Years, with a num­ber of pre­mium prod­ucts bot­tled at 21 Years and older. Glen­livet also pro­duces a range for the travel retail and duty-free shop mar­kets, which dif­fers slightly from the nor­mal range.

The main prod­uct range from the dis­tillery is The Glen­livet range of sin­gle malt scotch whisky, but whisky from the dis­tillery is also used in the pro­duc­tion of Pernod Ricard’s other brands, includ­ing the well known and pop­u­lar Chivas Regal and Royal Suite brands.

Bot­tling of The Glen­livet and asso­ci­ated blended brands takes place at Chivas Regal’s bot­tling plant at New­bridge just out­side of Edinburgh.

His­tory

Illicit dis­til­leries were com­mon­place through­out the Spey­side area from medieval times but were largely made redun­dant with the pass­ing the Excise Act, in 1823. It was under this leg­is­la­tion that legal dis­til­leries could be formed, sub­ject to hold­ing a license. George Gor­don, 5^th Duke of Gor­don, was instru­men­tal in the pass­ing of this leg­is­la­tion and his ten­ant, George Smith, who was oper­at­ing an illicit dis­tillery at the time, became the first per­son to apply for and receive a license to legally pro­duce spirit. This would prove to be an unpop­u­lar deci­sion, every other dis­tiller was oper­at­ing ille­gally at the time and hop­ing the new Excise Act would be repealed, some­thing which would not hap­pen if some dis­tillers accepted the new law. Threats were made against George Smith, so George Gor­don pro­vided Smith with two pis­tols to be used to ensure both his own safety and that of the dis­tillery. In 1824, The Glen­livit dis­tillery was estab­lished at Upper Dru­min by George and his youngest son James Gor­don Smith.

George Smith estab­lished a sec­ond dis­tillery dur­ing 1849, named the Cairngorm-Delnabo Dis­tillery but by 1855 or 1856, both dis­til­leries were run­ning at full capac­ity, and were unable to meet ris­ing demand. The oper­a­tion of two sep­a­rate sites was also prov­ing dif­fi­cult and expen­sive, so plans were formed around the same time to build a new, larger dis­tillery fur­ther down the hill at Min­more. Con­struc­tion of this new dis­tillery was under­way when the old Upper Dru­min dis­tillery was destroyed by fire dur­ing 1858. Con­struc­tion of the new Min­more dis­tillery was sped up and sal­vage­able equip­ment from the Upper Dru­min dis­tillery was trans­ferred to the new Mim­more dis­tillery. The Delnabo dis­tillery was closed at the same time and the best parts of the equip­ment were also trans­ferred to the Min­more plant. Pro­duc­tion com­menced at the new plant dur­ing 1859 and it was around the same time the legal entity of George & J.G. Smith, Ltd. was formed.

George Smith died in 1871 and his son James Gor­don Smith, inher­ited the dis­tillery. The qual­ity of the prod­uct from their dis­tillery had resulted in the other dis­til­leries in the area renam­ing their prod­ucts to ‘Glen­livet’ and by the time of George’s death, sev­eral dis­tillers were doing so. J.G. Smith decided to take legal action and tried to claim own­er­ship on The Glen­livet name, this legal action was only par­tially suc­cess­ful — the ver­dict forced other dis­tillers in the area to stop call­ing their whisky Glen­livet and gave J.G. Smith sole per­mis­sion to use the brand, but per­mit­ted other dis­til­leries to hyphen­ate their dis­tillery name with the ‘Glen­livet’ name, which resulted in new dis­tillery names such as the The Glen Moray-Glenlivet Dis­tillery, a dis­tillery which is sit­u­ated nearby.

The dis­tillery remained open through­out the Great Depres­sion, an event which affected many other dis­til­leries; it wasn’t until the Sec­ond World War that the dis­tillery was moth­balled for the first time, by Gov­ern­ment decree. In the after­math of World War Two, Britain was heav­ily indebted and needed to export large quan­ti­ties of goods to earn for­eign rev­enue (mainly United States dol­lars). Dis­till­ing was an ideal indus­try with whisky much in demand over­seas. Dis­till­ing restric­tions were rapidly lifted and out­put from the dis­tillery was at pre-war lev­els by 1947, despite ongo­ing bar­ley, fuel and man­power limitations.[1] Bread rationing was retained until 1948 in order to ensure sup­plies of grain for the distilleries.

Glen­livet Dis­tillery (George & J.G. Smith, Ltd.) merged with the Glen Grant Dis­tillery (J. & J. Grant Glen Grant, Ltd.) in 1953 to form the The Glen­livet and Glen Grant Dis­tillers, Ltd.. The com­pany would go on to merge with Hill Thom­son & Co., Ltd. and Longmorn-Glenlivet Dis­til­leries, Ltd. in 1970 before chang­ing their name to Glen­livet Dis­tillers Ltd in 1972. The com­pany was then pur­chased by Cana­dian drinks and media com­pany Sea­gram in 1977. Seagram’s alco­hol pro­duc­tion inter­ests were acquired by Pernod Ricard and Dia­geo dur­ing 2000, with own­er­ship of Glen­livet Dis­tillers pass­ing to Pernod Ricard. Glen Grant Dis­tillery was sold to Cam­pari Group in 2005.

The Glen­livet is the best sell­ing malt whisky in the United States, and the fourth best sell­ing in the UK with a 7% mar­ket share. Cur­rent global sales total 6 mil­lion bot­tles per annum.

Glen Grant Distillery

Glen Grant is a Spey­side dis­tillery, that pro­duces sin­gle malt Scotch whisky. The dis­tillery was owned by Chivas Broth­ers Ltd, best known for their Chivas Regal blended scotch whisky. It is the world’s second-biggest sin­gle malt whisky brand.

Glen Grant was pur­chased by the Ital­ian com­pany Gruppo Cam­pari in Decem­ber of 2005. It is the biggest sell­ing sin­gle malt Scotch whisky in Italy.

Glenfarclas Distillery

Glen­far­clas Dis­tillery is sit­u­ated in Ballindal­loch, Scot­land. Glen­far­clas trans­lates as mean­ing val­ley of the green grass. The dis­tillery is owned and run by the Grant fam­ily. The dis­tillery has six stills which are largest on Spey­side and are heated directly by gas burners.

The dis­tillery has a pro­duc­tion capac­ity of around 90,000 litres of fin­ished whisky per year. Nor­mally four stills are used for pro­duc­tion with two kept in

His­tory

The dis­tillery was first granted a licence in 1836 when it was run by Robert Hay. In 1865 it was bought by John Grant and is still owned and run by his descen­dants, mak­ing it truly independent.

Dailuaine Distillery

The Dis­tillery was founded in 1852 by William Macken­zie. When he died in 1865 his widow leased the dis­tillery to James Flem­ing, a banker from Aber­lour. Together with William Mackenzie’s son he founded Macken­zie and Company.

1884 Dailu­aine is ren­o­vated and enlarged. At this point it is one of the largest dis­til­leries in the high­lands. in 1889 Charles Doig builds the first pagoda in Scotland.

1891 Dailuaine-Glenlivet Dis­tillery Ltd. was founded. In 1898, Dailuaine-Glenlivet and Talisker Dis­tillery Ltd. are fused to Dailuaine-Talisker Dis­til­leries Ltd.

1915 Thomas Macken­zie died and the com­pany was sold to John Dewar & Sons, John Walker & Sons and James Buchanan & Co. one year later.

1917 a big fire destroyed the pagoda-roof. The dis­tillery had to close, reopened three years later and was bought by Dis­tillers Com­pany Lim­ited (DCL) in 1925. 1960 the Dis­tillery is com­pletely ren­o­vated and is enlarged from four to six stills. Since 1983 the malt is no longer pro­duced inhouse.

1987 Dailu­aine was taken over by United Dis­tillers (UD).

Balmenach Distillery

Bal­me­n­ach Dis­tillery was estab­lished in 1824 by a fam­ily of smug­glers called Mac­gre­gor who resided in Tom­intoul. Sit­u­ated in the dis­trict of Crom­dale on the banks of the River Spey the dis­tillery stands in beneath the nearby hill of Tom Lethendry where the Jaco­bites were defeated in bat­tle in 1690.

Bal­me­n­ach Dis­tillery is one of the ear­li­est dis­til­leries sanc­tioned as a result of The Excise Act of 1823.

The Dis­tillery is owned by Inver House Dis­tillers Lim­ited, a pri­vately owned dis­tiller whose other dis­til­leries include: The Speyburn-Glenlivet Dis­tillery; Knock­dhu Dis­tillery; Bal­blair Dis­tillery; and, Old Pul­teney Distillery.

WhiskyCast Episode 138: March 30, 2008

In the last episode, I mentioned the growing controversy over proposed UK legislation that would set specific labeling standards for Scotch Whisky, including a new name for what have been known as "vatted malts". Trouble is, support for "blend…

Continue read this article at WhiskyCast

WhiskyCast Episode 137: March 23, 2008

Inver House was recently named Distiller of the Year in Whisky Magazine's annual Icons of Whisky Awards for its work in re-launching the Balblair single malt, along with Old Pulteney and An Cnoc. We'll hear from master blender Stuart Harvey about the behind-the-…

Continue read this article at WhiskyCast