Glenlossie

One of the colourful people in the whisky world of the second half
of the 19th century was John Duff, former manager at Glendronach
and founder of the Longmorn distillery. After running a hotel for a
few years he started John Duff & Co. with a few business partners
in 1876. In the very same year they launched Glenlossie distillery.

Glenlossie is a remarkable distillery for many reasons, but the malt
whisky it produces is fairly obscure. One thing that sets Glenlossie
apart from most other malt whisky distilleries in Scotland is the fact
that the premises actually house two separate distilleries; in 1971
the Mannochmore distillery was constructed next to Glenlossie.
But I'm getting ahead of myself - there's more history to convey...

John Duff had been an innkeeper at Lhanbryde and had a keen business sense; as partners in his enterprise he chose the local public prosecutor and the burgh surveyor. However, in 1888 (after a decade of running Glenlossie) he decided to emigrate to South Africa with his wife and three daughters. John had planned to build a new distillery in Transvaal and invested large sums of money in what would likely have been Africa's first malt whisky distillery. Unfortunately, president Paul Kruger obstructed John Duff's plans; he loathed anything British - which included Scotch whisky.

Unfortunately, the whisky bubble imploded shortly
afterwards. Within a year after his bold investments
John Duff went bankrupt. When the legal proceedings
were wrapped up in 1909 the Longmorn distillery had
already been taken over by some of his customers,
including Arthur Sanderson and Thomas Dewar. While
Longmorn and Benriach went through some difficult
times around the year 1900, Glenlossie did just fine.

In 1894 John Duff partnered up with George Thomson and Charles Shirres to build the
Longmorn distillery with their company; the Longmorn Distillery Company. After a fairly
modest investment of 20,000 pounds the four stills were heated up for the first time in
December 1894. The whisky produced there quickly became popular with blenders, so
it wasn't long before John Duff became overly confident and decided to buy out his two
partners so he could become the sole owner of Longmorn. What's more, he decided to
invest 16,000 pounds in building yet another distillery; Benriach (a.k.a. Longmorn #2).

1) Glenlossie has not recently been bottled as an OB - unless you count the 10 years old 'Flora & Fauna' bottling (depicted above) that was first released in 1990.

2) Glenlossie made full use of the nearby Elgin-Perth railway line and even had its own platform. 

3) The Boby Mill at Glenlossie came from Teanninich distillery.

4) The onion shaped stills at Glenlossie have retained their shape and size since 1876.
The spirit stills use a 'purifier' between the lyne arm and the condensers. The purifier acts as a mini-condenser, which returns a proportion of the alcohol vapours back to the pot to be re-distilled. The action of 'purifiers' increases the amount of reflux within the stills, which should result in a lighter, more delicate whisky. UDV's only other distillery which uses purifiers is Strathmill in the town of Keith.

5) More trivia on Glenlossie will be added later...
 

Glenlossie 15yo 1993/2008 (52.6%, Exclusive Malts for GEO), cask#184, 320 Bts.)
Nose: Grainy with a whiff of vinegar. Faint lemon too? Odd and dusty. Sweetens out after fifteen seconds.
The bouquet drops off quickly after that. No, wait, now it makes a comeback again. A little perfumy?
Not a real high flyer, but it's certainly not boring - so my score for this whisky reaches the 80's eventually.
Taste: Ambivalent start, followed by a powerful centre. Dry, woody finish with quite some 'bad' tannins.
Coffee & smoke. Bitter finish. Sweetens out after some breathing, lifting it into the 80's (but barely…)
Score: 81 points - I usually love tannins in the finish, but these are somehow not really the right kind...

Glenlossie 1989/2007 (46%, Jean Boyer 'Best Casks', Re-coopered Hogs, Single cask)
Nose: Almost nothing first. Light fruit candy sweetness. Melon later on. A tad too subtle for my tastes.
Taste: Watery, smooth start. I gave it some time, but still nothing much happened. No 'flaws' either, mind you.
Score: 71 points - I'm afraid that's not terribly impressive for a whisky that's almost twenty years old...

Glenlossie 40yo 1966/2006 (50%, Adelphi, C#3779, 213 Bts.)
Nose: Sharpish and chemical in the nose at first with some interesting organics in the background.
Certainly better than average on the palate, but it just doesn't leave a big enough impression for me.
Wow... Here's another one that NEEDS time. It grows better and better... An oldie?
Taste: Overly woody on the palate, but the sweetness balances it out. Hey, liquorice?
Erm…. Well, I have to admit that after five minutes it had evolved into medal material.
This was especially true after sellery and more organics emerged in the nose.
Score: 89 points - although it took a LOT of time getting there...

The Glenlossie 1993/2004 (46%, Murray McDavid, Bourbon cask, MM 0413)
Nose: Sweet and creamy - almost oily. It grows oilier - is that a Glenlossie characteristic?
Still, this remains on the gentle side - not a 'cod oil' monstrosity like the Isle of Jura 10yo.
Spices and organics. Based on the nose I could go for the 80's - but it's a bourbon cask...
Taste: Just as I feared - prickly and quite harsh. A beer-like bitterness in the finish.
This just isn't my kind of malt - too much like a blend or grain whisky for me... Wait...
It mellows out a bit over time, but just as the palate grows on me the nose drops off.
Score: 75 points - the endearing nose is all that keeps it from dropping below average.

Glenlossie 1977/2003 (45%, Samaroli '35th anniversary', C#633, 360 Bts.)
Nose: Light, grains, spicy - sweetening out. Pinch of salt. Slowly emerging organics.
Taste: Peppery. Dry with perhaps a pinch of salt. Bitter finish.
Score: 83 points - which makes it one of the best Glenlossies I've tried so far.

Glenlossie 1993/2003 (43%, The Spirit Safe / Jean Donnay, 374 Bottles)
Nose: Fruity and a little oily. String beans. Rhubarb? Chalk? Citrus? Very odd.
A little restrained and water didn't seem to help much. Then it grows more mellow.
After that, more spices emerge. Unfortunately, it has the 'cod oil' I'm kind of allergic to.
Intriguing development; it grows fruitier and maltier over time and it really needs a while.
Taste: Fairly flat and weak start. Gritty and quite dry towards the hotter finish.
There's plenty of sweet liquorice in the start, developing into salt liquorice later on.
After a while it seems sweeter in the centre, but the finish still has a beer-like bitterness.
Score: 79 points - it improves with some time and air, but I still can't recommend it.
I had a hard time rating this one. An odd puppy, but the best Glenlossie I've tried so far!

Glenlossie 10yo 1989/2000 (43%, McGibbon's Provenance, distilled Autumn 1989, bottled Spring 2000)
(This bottling was not coloured and not chill filtered).
Nose: Soft, grainy start. Heather and lemon grass (?) after a minute.
Slightly oily. More spicy after some breathing. Water doesn't help.
Taste: Soft and faintly sweet at first, evolving into a warm maltiness.
Smooth and clean. Bourbon drought in the short finish. A little bland.
Conclusion: 68 points - One would expect a northern Speysider to show some Highland characteristics, but this one seems more like an 'ersatz' Lowlander. I suspect this one would perform much better in the summer.

Glenlossie 17yo 1973 (40%, Antica Casa Marchesi)
Nose: The nose showed a lot of 'old bottle effect'; sourish with clear 'Maggi' tones and a hint of sulphur.
Taste: There was a lot of sherry on the palate but it was a 'fun' malt to taste.
I realise that doesn't tell you very much, but I don't know another way to describe it.
Score: 89 points - which was quite a surprise since other (younger) bottlings I've tried scored much lower.
 

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

After his African dream had been shattered John Duff decided to try his
luck in North America - but he didn't fare much better there. In the USA
many distillers were active (some of them illegal) and the anti-colonial
sentiments against the British were still alive and well in some circles.
In 1892 John decided to return to Scotland with his family. Back 'home'
he returned to the whisky world as a distillery manager at the 'Bon
Accord' distillery in Aberdeen (renamed later to 'North of Scotland').
 
This kept John off the streets for a few years, but his entrepreneurial
spirit grew restless again at the end of the 19th century when the
whisky industry was booming, so he started another whisky distillery.

In 1919 Glenlossie was taken over by DCL (Distillers Company Ltd.).
After a fairly large fire in 1929 (this was always a risk with distilleries) Glenlossie was transferred to SMD (Scottish Malt Distillers) in 1930. In 1962 the number of stills was expanded from four to six and in 1971 the Mannochmore distillery was constructed right behind Glenlossie. This counts as a separate distillery, but it's hard to see from the road - its buildings are not identified as part of the Mannochmore distillery.

The Glenlossie distillery itself may not seem like a very large plant, but the Glenlossie Bonds are fairly massive.
Some 200,000 casks are stored there - originating from many different Diageo distilleries. After the Mannochmore buildings were added to the site, the workforce used to switch between Glenlossie and Mannochmore, each operating only six months in a a year. Later, when demand for malt whisky increased, both distilleries operated full time.
 
Glenlossie may be relatively obscure as a single malt, but it's connsidered a top class malt whisky by blenders.
That's why Glenlossie used to be an important part of the Haig blends - among other things.

Glenlossie whisky

2007 - For many years the same production crew switched back and forth between the Glenlossie and Mannochmore distilleries, operating each distillery for circa six months and laying down stocks before relocating to the other.
From 2007 onwards both distilleries worked full time again.