Glenallachie is one of the younger distilleries in Scotland. It was built
in 1967 (partly in 1968) by Mackinlay McPherson Ltd., a subsidiary of
Scottish & Newcastle Breweries Ltd. Glenallachie is located in a part
of Speyside that's especially rich in distilleries; Banffshire. You can
find the distillery just South of Aberlour at the foot of Ben Rinnes.

The Glenallachie distillery was bought by the Invergordon Distillers
Group in 1985, together with the Isle of Jura distillery. Invergordon
closed Glenallachie in 1987. Two years later the distillery was sold on
to Campbell Distillers, a subsidiary of industry giant Pernod Ricard.
They added Glenallachie to the 'Chivas Regal' part of their whisky
portfolio, which also includes brands like Aberlour and Glenlivet.

The Glenallachie distillery is relatively unknown, but with an
annual production capacity of 2,800,000 liters of pure alcohol
per year it's actually among the Top 30 distilleries in Scotland,
production-wise. However, if my information is correct they
haven't used their stills at full capacity for some time; they
annually put out less than 2 million liters.
 
These numbers might have recently changed, though...
When I started work on this 'DD section' shortly after the new
millennium came along, many distilleries didn't operate at full
capacity. However, when I'm writing this reviewed profile (in
the Spring of 2008), worldwide demand is at a peak and the
Scotch whisky industry is going on full steam.
 
Most of the output of Glenallachie still goes into Chivas' own
blends like 100 Pipers, Glen Campbell, Highland Clan, House
of Lords, Passport, Queen Anne and - of course - Chivas Regal.
There have been two or three official bottlings over the years
(like the 12 years old from the 1980's depicted at the right).

1) Glenallachie is one of three distilleries built by William Delme Evans.
He also built the Isle of Jura and Tullibardine distilleries, founded in 1960 and 1949 respectively. Delme Evans owned part of those two distilleries (he was Managing Director at Jura) but this wasn't the case with Glenallachie.

2) The 'designer' of the Glenallachie distillery was Lothian Barclay.

3) The Glenallachie malt whisky is an important component of the Glen Campbell and House of Lords blends.

Glenallachie 8yo 1991/1999 (43%, Signatory Vintage, C#1340, Distilled 5/3/1991, Bottled 10/3/1999).
Nose: Soft. A little nondescript at first. Hints of oil & sour fruit. Sweet coffee?
Dried apples. Nuttier and maltier after a minute. It grows more powerful over time.
More sweet and spicy notes after fifteen minutes. Notable improvement!
Taste: Very smooth, put powerful as well. Honeyish sweetness. Big burn.
Long, dry finish. Really good; considerably better than the nose, IMHO.
Score: 78 points - four points more than an 11yo 1985/1997 SigVint I tried some time ago.
Is Glenallachie one of those malts that perform better at a young age?

Glenallachie 9yo 1991/2000 (43%, Signatory Vintage, Sherry Butt #1345, 902 Btl.)
Nose: Starts out restrained. Faint notes of fresh early fruits - mostly apples. Citrus?
Not a lot of 'sherried' notes. Quite MOTR, with more malty and nutty notes later on.
Just like the sample from Butt #1340 I tried in July 2002 it grows sweeter with time.
Taste: Soft, sweet and nutty start. Quite flat and nondescript. Dry, woody finish.
Score: 71 points - it's not bad but it could have done with some more character.

Glenallachie 11yo 1985/1997 (43%, Signatory, Distilled 10/1985, Bottled 6/1997)
Nose: Very nice! Clearly Speyside; Complex with citrussy overtones at first.
More pepper later. Menthol after that. A lot of development.
Taste: Very smooth and slightly oily. Cold menthol or eucalyptus in the finish
Score: 74 points - interesting, but not very enjoyable. Loses points on the palate.

Glenallachie 12yo 1992/2004 (43%, Signatory Vintage, Cask #453)
Nose: Appears quite young. A little grainy. Not too expressive - slightly farmy. Herbal & clean...
Taste: Touch of bitterness. Fairly flat and unimaginative. Decent enough but loses some points.
Score: 70 points - no obvious flaws but no highlights either. I've grown spoilt over the years...

Glenallachie 13yo 1989/2003 (60.8%, Cadenhead's, Bourbon Hogshead, July 2003, 318 Bottles)
Nose: Restrained in the start. Hint of burnt toffee. Fudge. Mellowing out. Suggestion of some organics.
Taste: Bittersweet oranges like Cointreau. Southern Comfort? Almost liqueurish. Big sweet fruity finish.
Score: 86 points - it manages to improve on an impressive start. Hard to believe it's a bourbon cask!
The nose moves to tangerine with time. I hesitated to add water. When I did I got some warm milk.
After a minute the water really takes effect - a true 'peacock's tail', like Serge would say. Great!

Glenallachie 1981/2004 (55.9%, Scotch Single Malt Circle, Cask #600)
Nose: Ah! A subtle richness. Nicely balanced sherry with a hint of coffee.
The nose sweetens out with water. No other comments for this one this time...
Taste: Potent enough, with just the right amount of tannins for me. Salty.
Flattens out after adding water. No other comments for this one this time...
Score: 82 points - the nose shows lots of development; it grows farmier with time.
 

These were not all the (official and independent) expressions of Glenallachie 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 list wouldn't fit on two seperate HTML pages anymore) I gave up. My Liquid Log still contains my tasting notes on most malts I've sampled and scored - but finding notes on a specific expression could be tricky. You might want to use the search box at the top of this page for that. The mAlmanac now contains personal selections of the best and the worst single malts I've tried so far - as well as the ones with the highest 'Bang-For-Your-Buck' value. 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.
 
 

Single malt bottlings of Glenallachie are very rare - and the vast majority of those were
produced by independent bottlers. After 'a decade of heavy dramming' the malt maniacs
had managed to find less than two dozen independent bottlings, most of them bottled
by Signatory Vintage. When I write this reviewed profile (Spring 2008), Cadenhead's
has bottled only three expressions that we know of - but they were amongst the best.
Other expressions to hunt down are a 31yo bottled in 2002 by Douglas Laing and a
bottling by the Scotch Single Malt Circle in 2004 - Cask number 6000 to be precise.