Glendronach
Established in Speyside, the Glendronach Distillery is one of the most renowned distilleries in the world. Offering beautiful core range bottlings such as the Glendronach 12 Years Old and the Glendronach 18 Years Old Allardice, and limited releases such as the Glendronach 25 Years Old Grandeur and Glendronach 13 Years Old Virgin Oak Cask from The Duchess, this Highlands distillery is much loved by a broad audience.
The Glendronach Distillery is named after the adjacent Dronach Burn, (“Glendronach” is Gaelic for “Valley of the Dronach”) the water source used for the spirits production. Looking at its turbulent history of neglect and destruction due to a massive fire, the existence of the Glendronach Distillery remains a little miracle.
The Glendronach Distillery was founded in 1826 by James Allardice, the son of a well-known Highlands landowner. The Duke of Gordon, who introduced the Excise Act in 1823, was a huge fan of Glendronach Single Malt Whisky and even introduced James Allardice to the aristocracy of London. Unfortunately, these privileges didn’t serve the best interest to the Glendronach Distillery. James Allardice became more and more involved in the upper class society and neglected his distillery for years, until ten years later the Glendronach Distillery was destroyed in a fire. This could have mend the end of the distillery’s legacy.
But above all expectations, a few years later both the remains of Glendronach’s premises and its licenses were purchased by Walter Scott, the former distillery manager of the Teaninich. Over the years, Glendronach changed hands multiple times until it was purchased in 1920 by Charles Grant, a member of the legendary Grant family, well-known for their successful Glenfiddich Distillery. The Grants well-maintained and operated Glendronach for decades until it was sold in 1960 to William Teachers & Sons. The distillery’s premises were renovated and two extra stills were installed, by which the production capacity was doubled up.
Glendronach was acquired by Allied Distillers Ltd. in 1976, who made some unfortunate drastic changes to the distillery’s maturing process by replacing the traditional European Oak Casks with American White Oak Casks. This change of ways might have saved some of the production's expenses, but it also changed the well-known character of Glendronach Single Malt Whisky. This very detail might have contributed to the fact that years later, the Glendronach Distillery was one of the numerous distilleries that was forced to shut down due to the late 20th century’s whisky market saturation.
When the Glendronach Distillery was purchased by the BenRiach Distillery Company in 2008, they immediately recognized that these American White Oak Casks weren’t serving the best interest to spirit’s quality and made an astonishing £4 million investment to restore the European Oak Casks and Sherry Casks to the production process. A reflection of passion and craftsmanship which has restored the full, rich and complex flavors of the classic Glendronach Single Malt Whisky! The Glendronach Distillery manager Bill Walker managed to turn Glendronach into a luxurious product, well known for the Single Cask Sherry Releases. Glendronach was finally built to last! This resulted in changing ownership in 2016 when Brown-Forman, the owner of Jack Daniels, purchased The BenRiach Distillery Company for a staggering 285 million pounds.
What Glendronach will bring its future is just like any good matured whisky, only time will tell!
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