Glen Albyn Distillery Profile; submitted by Michel van Meersbergen, Holland

The site where Glen Albyn was built in 1846 carries a lot of Inverness history.
Inverness was (and still is) the Malt Capital of Scotland, supplying most of the Northern Highlands and Hebrides with malt. As Inverness effectively run a monopoly on malting it's obvious a lot of money was earned. So much that Inverness saw lots of investments in the form of breweries. The revolution of 1745 turned tides quite heavily. The malt trade was swept away and breweries became a thing of an golden era long gone. In 1846 only a few malt kilns and breweries survived while the rest fell into decay. Glen Albyn distillery was built on the ruins of a malt kiln. History never travels far...

In 1846 Glen Albyn (meaning Great Glen) was founded by Provost James Sutherland of Inverness and received its licence in 1847. Its precise location is unknown. It is known that in 1849 a fire destroyed several buildings and Glen Albyn seized production until 1850. In 1855 Glen Albyn went up for sale but as no buyers were interested the distillery was converted to a flour mill in 1866. Glen Albyn was (re)built in 1884 by Gregory & Co. and started producing again somewhere in 1891. It is uncertain if this was on the same location as the old distillery one stood, but the location of the new Glen Albyn is well known: Telford Street on the South bank of the Caledonian Canal, also known as the Merkinch District.

If having a waterway in your backyard was not enough, Glen Albyn had its own railway linked to the main Highland Railway Company line. For its days Glen Albyn must have been one of the most sophisticated distilleries. Refrigerators to cool the wort, a telephone connection between the distillery office/excise man and the head office in Inverness. Even the condensers and stills were the absolute pinnacle of distilling techniques. This is what Alfred Bernard wrote: "The condensing Worms are of the latest and best approved style, each still has from 300 feet to 400 feet of worm pipes; these worts, after the first few rounds, each branch into two smaller pipes, and, instead of being of the usual round form, are shaped like the letter D, having the flat side down. The reason for this is obvious, the spirit which at first rises in steam is condensed into liquid by the time it reaches these smaller pipes, and having to run on the flat bottom of these is spread over a much larger surface than if running in round pipes, and thereby gives a greater increase in the cooling power, which is a most important factor in the making of a good Whisky. The stills, which were manufactured by Fleming, Bennet & McLaren, of Glasgow, are of the most improved and modern style."  Quite convincing!

Also of modern style was the behaviour of distillery manager John Birnie in 1892. He had a keen eye for the potential of the distillery he helped to built and in his view it was only fair to receive a good share in the company. Mister Gregory and his Company laughed in his face and in a rage of rancour Birnie left to start his own distillery. During the Great War Glen Albyn was requisitioned by the Admiralty and used for the construction of anti-submarine nets. If that was not enough, in 1917 when the Americans had uneasy excuses in the form of the 1915 torpedoing of Steam Ship Lusitania by the Germans and the Russian Revolution to come to the Old Land, Glean Albyn was converted for making sea mines. It's my guess the perfect infrastructure: canal, harbour and railroad made it a perfect spot for this explosive conversion. The US occupation lasted until 1919. Already in 1920 'disaster' struck again. Former manager John Birnie now cooperated with James Mackinlay and better known as the Glen Mhor Distillery took over Glen Albyn…

For years the two distilleries worked together in perfect harmony until 1954. Neighbouring Glen Mhor was the first to use Saladin box malting in Scotland and few years later it was introduced at Glen Albyn. Next big event was the selling of Glen Albyn and Glen Mhor by William Birnie, the 80 years old son of John Birnie sold Glen Mhor and Glen Albyn to DCL. DCL seized to use Saladin box malting in 1980 due to high costs and malting was done elsewhere. In 1983 it was decided to close Glen Albyn. A high costing, small output of a not much needed malt by blenders to which Glen Albyn delivered draw the curtains. In 1986 things got worse, the remaining buildings got demolished to make way for a shopping center. As written before, history never travels far, on the site a shop from the Comet chain sold the latest and innovative household appliances, when they moved several years later the food-chain Co-op took over. Selling amongst countless other items: Cereals and whisky...

Glen Albyn Technical data late 19th century:

Water Source:  Loch Ness (distilling and cooling water for condensers)
Malting: Saladin box (installation date unknown, operated until 1980)
Peat Source:  Dava Moor
Mash tun:  Larch (dimensions: 14 feet in diameter and 4 1/2 feet deep)
Wash backs:  3 (Larch, 4.640 gallons)
Wash still:  1 (converted to steam heating in 1964), capacity: 1.800 gallons
Spirit still:  1 (converted to steam heating in 1964), capacity: 1.500 gallons
Annual output:  75.000 gallons

1) The name Glen Albyn means 'Great Glen' in Gaelic.

2) There actually have been two distilleries with the name 'Glen Albyn' - possibly not on the same site.
The first distillery was destroyed by fire in 1849 and eventually converted into a flour mill.

3) More trivia about the Glen Albyn distillery will be added later...
 

Glen Albyn 33yo 1974/2008 (58.9%, The Clydesdale Company, C#0016/1601, 248 Bts.)
Nose: Grain aroma's. Subtle medicinal notes emerge after a minute, evolving into organics over time.
Quite unique. Bakery aroma's emerging over time.
Taste: Medium start, growing very fruity - but the fruits feel somehow fake. Hint of pine?
Powerdul tannins take over in the finish. Odd, but it grew on me over time.
Score: 85 points - an impressive score for a whisky from such an 'obscure' distillery.

Glen Albyn 25yo 1979/2005 (56%, DT Rarest of the Rare, C#3958)
Nose: Fresh. Hint of lemon. Sweet. Sunlight soap. It may be very rare, but it's not too expressive...
Taste: Peculiar. Very herbal. Sweet. Weird fruits. Pine. An aspirin astringency in the finish that pulls is down.
Score: 58 points - rare indeed, but you should look further if you're looking for a good malt whisky. 

Glen Albyn 22yo 1977/1999 (43%, Signatory Vintage, Cask #1952)
Nose: Sweet, flowery & spicy at first. Then grainier and organic elements. Apple. Coastal traits take over.
Taste: Dry. Light start, growing maltier and more powerful. Liquorice. Quite gritty. Woody finish. Tired cask?
Score: 76 points - which might not seem that impressive, but it's not that bad for Glen Albyn.

Glen Albyn 1973/1998 (40%, G&M Connoisseur's Choice)
Nose: Light and slightly fruity. Vase water. Sublimally interesting. Mellows out. Subtle, but it grew on me.
Taste: Pine in the start. Woody and just a tad bitter. A good drinking whisky but too MOTR for my tastes.
Score: 73 points - just below average, like many other Connoisseur's Choice bottlings of the period.

Glen Albyn 20yo 1963/1984 (46%, Cadenhead's, Dumpy)
Nose: Haha! Some old bottle effect here as well. Nice! Eh, excuse my French, but is that horse dung?
Very interesting. It doesn't seem very accessible at first, but it has a lot to offer. Opens op brilliantly.
Old fashioned menthol sweets? Sweetening out into a  kaleidoscope of fragrances. Very pleasant indeed.
Taste: Leather with hints of liquorice and smoke in the background. Feels a tad thin and gritty.
The finish is chewy and very solid though... Also, the taste improves significantly with some breathing.
Score: 86 points - which makes it the very best bottling of Glen Albyn I've ever had! Two others came very close though; the Glen Albyn 33yo 1974/2008 (58.9%, Clydesdale) and a 26yo Rare Malts from 2002.

Glen Albyn 10yo (40%, Noord's Wijnhandel, Bottled 1990's?, probably fake)
Nose: Very light. Flat, grainy and slightly oily. Grassy. Over time it becomes a little nuttier. Hint of peat?
Taste: Sweet start, growing dustier and grittier. Slightly oily. Flat. Dry and grainy. Mwaah...
Score: 60 points - and please keep in mind that I was feeling relatively generous.

Glen Albyn 10yo (43%, OB, Bottled 1960's)
Nose: Roses. Extremely subtle - might as well have been a blend. The faintest hint of peat?
Taste: Smooth and drinkable, with faint peat on the palate too. Dry, bitter finish. A downbeat ending...
Score: 64 points - but Serge, who has a far better nose seemed to pick up much more to love here.

These were not all the (official and independent) expressions of Glen Albyn whisky I've tried over the years.
My Track Record used to contain a complete overview of all the single malts I've tried, but when I passed the 2000 malts mark (and the complete whisky list wouldn't fit on two separate HTML pages anymore) I gave up. My Liquid Log still contains my tasting notes on most single malts I've sampled and scored, though. You can find a specific expression through the search box at the top of each distillery profile. The mAlmanac now contains (purely personal) selections of some of the best single malts and the worst whiskies I've tried so far - as well as the ones with the highest 'Bang-For-Your-Buck' value. But those tasting notes and scores only reflect my own, purely personal opinions.

On Serge's distillery profile on Whiskyfun you can find another perspective on the whisky made at this distillery.
Check out the Malt Maniacs Monitor on Malt Maniacs for my scores on all expressions I've tried so far - and those of almost all the other certified malt maniacs as well. The Malt Maniacs Matrix contains a few thousand single malts that were sampled and scored by at least four different malt maniacs, so you can compare our individual opinions.
 
 

The Glen Albyn distillery was located west of Inverness, making it a
Northen Highlander by most accounts. However, whisky writer Michael
Jackson felt that Glen Albyn was in fact a Speyside distillery. That's a
bit strange, because he classifies Glen Ord (located just a drunken
crawl to the north) as a Northern Higlander.

Glen Albyn was founded in 1844 by James Sutherland, a Mayor of
Inverness. Rumour has it that Mr. Sutherland ran into some financial
problems about a decade later; the distillery was silent for a while
before it was converted into a flour mill. Glen Albyn was rebuilt and
re-established by Grigor & Co in 1884. Between 1917 and 1919 the
distillery was closed and used as US Naval base. Mackinlays & Birnie
(who already owned the nearby Glen Mhor distillery) bought Glen
Albyn in 1920 and ran it until they were gobbled up by DCL in 1972.

Glen Albyn distillery was closed in 1983.
Together with neighbor Glen Mhor it was demolished in 1986 or 1988 to make way for a shopping complex.

That's the story of Glen Albyn in a nutshell, but you can find much more information in the silent distillery profile that Michel van Meersbergen wrote for Malt Maniacs a few years ago. When I write this I haven't reconstructed that part of the Malt Maniacs site yet, so I've reproduced the article below for your browsing convenience.

Glen Albyn is mostly of interest to completists - only a handful of the circa three dozen expressions the maniacs have tried so far scored in the eighties. So, it would be wise to check the monitor before investing your money in a bottle you found in a store or on eBay. Many bottles of Glen Albyn are below par...