Glenallachie is one of the 40-odd distilleries scattered around the countryside below the imposing bulk of Ben Rinnes, the mountain that waters many of them with its countless burns and rivers. The distillery is also one of the latest and its buildings, while neat and tidy, are angular and characterless; as one writer pinpointed it, from a distance you could mistake Glenallachie for a motel. However, the new owners, a subsidiary of French pastis-makers, Pernod, are imaginative and will make the most of the site in terms of both whisky making and presentation to the public.

Over a period of just under 20 years, architect William Delmé-Evans became something of a latter-day Charles Doig in his specialising to a degree in designing distilleries. In 1949 Tullibardine in Perthshire went up, 1960 saw both distillery and style of whisky remodelled at Jura and in 1967 Glenallachie was a wholly new creation that no doubt reaped the benefits of the experience gained by Delme-Evans in the course of the earlier work. Glenallachie was built by the owners of the Mackinlay brands which were subsequently taken over by Invergordon. The latter company ‘mothballed’ the distillery for a time in the 1980s before Campbell Distillers bought it to add to their distillery stable of Aberlour and Edradour.

The two pairs of stills date from the distillery’s construction in 1967, and were designed to produce light, well-textured spirit.

Glenallachie has considerable finesse, with a fragrant delicate persona and appealing botanical freshness. Given its lightness, it is surprisingly round in the mouth. With the distillery’s having had three different owners within a short space of time, there may well be some scatter to the official versions in the pipeline but all that seems to be around just now is the 12-year-old at 40% vol. from the Mackinlay days. It is likely to be used in the Clan Campbell blends from now on. Source of water
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