Glen Flagler / Glenflagler / Killyloch whisky

Glen Flagler / Killyloch Distillery Profile by Robert Karlsson

Operational: 1965 – July 1985
Region: Eastern Lowlands
Neighbours: Kinclaith, Littlemill
Address: Tower Road, Moffat, Airdrie, North Lankashire, M6 8PL
Last Owner: Inver House Distillers Ltd.

The distillery of Glen Flager had a brief but very interesting existence.
It began its life as a paper mill which in 1964 was bought by the American company Publicker Industries. The Moffat Papers Mills was during two years completely rebuilt and many buildings and operations were added to the old complex. The Garnheath grain distillery was the main reason for the initial operation and its purpose was to supply spirits to the company's blendwhiskies. But why settle for that? So not one, but two (some even inaccurately claim three, I'll get back to that later) malt whisky distilleries were also built during the reconstruction of the mill; Killyloch and Glen Flagler.

If you know your Scottish geography you immediately react and wonder why they chose the name of Killyloch when the local water source is named Lilly Loch. OK, perhaps not too common to name your distillery after your water source after all. Anyway, this was simply due to a mix up of the templates that were used when marking the casks. It seems to have been more work to repaint the casks than change the distillery name, so they went with Killyloch instead of Lillyloch which was originally intended.

So, now we have a huge grain distillery and two malt distilleries. Why not add a couple of warehouses?
And why settle with a couple, they built 32 of them. Add to that the biggest malting operation in Europe, a cooperage and a large bottling and blending plant. Moreover, Glen Flagler boasted at the time the biggest mash tun in the whole of Scotland, made of stainless steel. These guys were ambitious.

The spirit stills of Glen Flagler were onion-shaped and had broad short necks. The wash stills were interestingly enough replaced in 1969 to support continuous production. This is a special solution and the aim with this was supposedly to produce something more akin to what the American market might have wanted.

The third, not yet named single malt made here was an attempt at making peated malt and a recipe variant. It was named Islebrae and supposed to have been made at 15ppm or as high as 40ppm phenols as some claim, unclear which one is correct, perhaps both? Killyloch was unpeated and Glen Flagler probably lightly peated at ~3ppm. Unfortunately enough for this ambitious operation the market turned south and operations ceased for Islebrae and Killyloch already in 1970, a very brief existence indeed. The maltings were sold in 1978 but Glen Flagler survived until July 1985 when it too were closed and demolished. The grain operation survived for another year but were sold in '86 and ultimately demolished after another two years in 1988.

Today the bottling and blending plants remain alongside 37 warehouses with room for some 500.000 barrels and office buildings. The complex is used extensively by Inver House Distillers who operate the Balmenach, Balblair, Knockdu, Pulteney and Speyburn distilleries.

Glen Flagler and Killyloch has both been released in recent years as super exclusive distillery releases (I have seen prices at around 500 to 1000£). Glen Flagler was released in numerous distillery bottlings and all are today collectors items. Both also exist as bottlings from Signatory who to my knowledge are the only ones that have bottled these as independents, rare to say the least. Islebrae is probably one of the most difficult malts to locate.

I have personally only sampled one bottling of Glen Flagler, and unfortunately in a somewhat intoxicated state (sacrilege I know…), but found it lowlandish in style. That being quite dry, citrusy, grassy, lightly spicy and refreshing. Some claim the Killyloch to be sweeter in character than the Glen Flagler. Hopefully I can prove or misprove that myself within my lifetime.

All in all an ambitious project which unfortunately for us Lowland-lovers was tragically short-lived.

Robert
 

1) The name of the Glen Flagler distillery is sometimes spelled as Glenflagler as well.

2) Glen Flagler and Killyloch are probably the 'distilleries' with the fewest entries on the MMMonitor.
In March 2009 they had just seven entries between the two of them;

Glen Flagler NAS (40%, OB, Medieval label, Import House Milan)
Glen Flagler NAS (70 Proof, OB, Black & red shield label, 1970's, 1 2/3 Fl. Oz.)
Glen Flagler 29yo 1973/2003 (46%, OB, 931 Bts.)
Killyloch 1967/2003 (40%, OB, 371 Bts.)
GlenFlagler 23yo 1970/1994 (50.1%, Signatory, D., C#1260+7861, 350 Bts., D. 10/'70 Btl. 05/'92)
Glen Flagler 23yo 1972/1996 (51.3% Signatory, C#228442, 255 Bts.)
Killyloch 22yo 1972/1994 (52.6%, Signatory, C#206413, 230 Bts.)

3) More trivia may be added later.
 

Glenflagler 23yo 1970/1994 (50.1%, Signatory Vintage, Casks #1260+7861)
Nose: Starts out very flat and restrained but opens up. Spicier with time. Dill & tarragon.
Taste: Sweet with a faint herbal undercurrent. The herbal element grows stronger over time.
Score: 79 points - which is quite impressive given the herbal side. The nose has a lot to offer. 

Glen Flagler NAS (70 Proof, OB, Black & Red shield label, 1 2/3 Fl Osz., Bottled 1970's)
Nose: Light and subtle, but with some substance. Slightly farmy. Would have been better at higher proof.
Taste: Malty, coffee. Feels almost below 40% at first, but powers up. Unbalanced. Woody. Dry. Tannic.
Score: 75 points - but I imagine some oxidation may have affected the contents of the bottle here.
 

These were not all the (official and independent) expressions of Glengoyne 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. 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.
 

I did have the pleasure of sampling some Garnheath, though.
The father of fellow malt maniac Olivier Humbrecht had obtained a cask in the past and bottled it for charity some time ago. Olivier brought a bottle to Scotland during one of our maniacal trips and a few of us enjoyed a few drams along the banks of the river Ness - in Inverness and near Loch Ness. Excellent whisky!

The Glen Flagler and Killyloch 'distilleries' were not
traditional buildings like Auchentoshan or Glenkinchie,
but sets of stills within another distillery - in this case
the Moffat grain whisky distillery, East of Glasgow.

Anyway, there's not much I can tell about Glen Flagler and Killyloch from personal experience; I haven't visited the distilleries yet and until recently I had not tried the whiskies they produced there either. However, by March 2009 I had sampled two expressions of Glen Flagler, both scoring in the 70's.
That's not too bad - but not overly impressive either... So, Glen Flagler really is one of those 'brands' that are mostly interesting for collectors and not so much for the 'drammers' looking for the best whisky. However, if you want to know more, please check out Robert Karlsson's distillery profile;

Built in 1965 by Inver House Distillers within the Moffat
grain distillery complex, it was located closer to England
than most other Scottish distilleries. The complex had
three sets of two stills, each producing their own type
of whisky - two malt whiskies (Glen Flagler & Killyloch)
and a grain whisky (Garnheath). The Killyloch stills
ceased production in the early 1970's, Glen Flagler and
Garnheath followed a decade later.
 
When I wrote this (december 2005) I haven't sampled
any of the malt whiskies from these distilleries yet.