GlenAllachie marks 50 years with first own-label whiskies

by Melita Kiely

Speyside distillery GlenAllachie is due to release a limited-edition range of single cask whiskies to mark its 50th anniversary – its first launch since Billy Walker acquired the site last year.

The single malts have been bottled to celebrate 50 years since the distillery’s inaugural production run on 17 February 1968, and comprise:
  • GlenAllachie 1978, cask 10296, Sherry butt, 55.9% abv
  • GlenAllachie 1989, cask 986, Sherry butt, 57.7% abv
  • GlenAllachie 1989, cask 2587, hogshead, 45.5% abv
  • GlenAllachie 1990, cask 2515, Sherry butt, 44.9% abv
  • GlenAllachie 1990, cask 2517, Sherry butt, 54.6% abv
  • GlenAllachie 1991, cask 100285, hogshead, 55% abv
More than 3,500 50ml bottles have been allocated globally, with 720 set for the UK market, 2,391 for general export and 425 for Taiwan. Each whisky is bottled at cask strength and carries an RRP of £200-£699 (US$280-$985). The whiskies come ahead of GlenAllachie’s core range, which will be launched in June this year – the first time the distillery has bottled its own-label whiskies. The range will feature a 10-year-old, 12-year-old, 18-year-old, 25-year-old and a cask-strength release. Speaking to The Spirits Business earlier this year, Walker said that “within a couple of years, we will probably plug in a 15-year-old”. “GlenAllachie has always been prized as an important blending ingredient, not just by Chivas Brothers but also by other whisky companies, which would buy casks to add to their own blends," Walker said. “What’s really exciting about these special-edition single cask bottlings is that we’ll be able to demonstrate the really high quality of GlenAllachie as a standalone whisky. “GlenAllachie produces a much more muscular spirit than many of the other distilleries on Speyside and so it works well with lots of different casks, whether they’re American oak barrels and hogsheads or European Sherry butts. “Discovering these hidden gems in the warehouses has given us a great opportunity, not only to give whisky connoisseurs a taste of what’s to come later this year when we launch the full GlenAllachie range, but also to celebrate the half century since this very special distillery first fired up its stills. “Why wait when it’s ready to be enjoyed by the world?” Walker, former managing director of the BenRiach Distillery Company, bought the GlenAllachie distillery with a consortium of investors for an undisclosed sum from Pernod Ricard last year. The consortium included Trisha Savage, former general manager at BenRiach, and Graham Stevenson, ex-managing director at Inver House Distillers. In January this year, GlenAllachie appointed Richard Beattie as its new operations director. To learn more about Walker's plans for GlenAllachie, see the March issue of The Spirits Business magazine.