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Billy Walker & Glenallachie

In miNiZ116 Frank Wynn & I brought you the story
of Billy Walker and two men from South Africa
buying first BenRiach, then Glendronach, then
finally Glenglassaugh. In June last year they sold
the three distilleries to Brown Forman. One of the
three was not content to take the money and retire.
Less than a month later Billy walker, together with
two other Scotch industry personalities, Trisha
Savage and Graham Stevenson, bought
Glenallachie from Chivas Bros (Pernod Ricard). They call themselves The
Glenallachie Consortium. Interestingly, two of the three previous distilleries Billy was
involved in, BenRiach & GlenDronach were also bought from Pernod Ricard.

Glenallachie is a relatively recent distillery, built in 1967 by
Mackinlay McPherson, a subsidiary of Scottish & Newcastle
Breweries. Glenallachie is located in the heart of Speyside near to
Aberlour, Balvenie, Macallan and Glenfiddich. The Glenallachie
distillery was bought by the Invergordon Distillers Group in 1985.
Invergordon closed Glenallachie in 1987. Two years later the
distillery was sold on to Campbell Distillers, a subsidiary of Pernod
Ricard. They put Glenallachie under their Chivas Bros subsidiary,
who handle their whisky & gin portfolio.

The sale included not only the distillery and stock of maturing
whisky but also the well known White Heather brand together with
the lesser known MacNair brand. The first release under the new
owners is due in March. I cannot tell you if that includes any
miniatures but, with their previous experience, miniatures are
almost a certainty at some point.

The Glenallachie distillery is not well known but it has a theoretical
annual production capacity of 2.8 million liters of pure alcohol.
Although production is currently reported to be only around the 2.0
million litres of Scotch per year it is potentially among the top 30 whisky distilleries in
Scotland. The curious thing is that most of the production currently goes into various
Chivas Bros blends including Chivas Regal, Passport, 100 Pipers, Queen Anne,
Highland Clan, House of Lords and Clan Campbell.

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