Glenallachie 1981 - 22 Year Old - First Cask - Single Cask 597

Glenallachie is a modern whisky distillery, built in 1967, and until recently was a relatively obscure Speyside workhorse making high quality spirit for former owner Pernod Ricard’s blended whiskies. That all changed in 2017, when Glenallachie was purchased by a consortium headed by Billy Walker following the sale to Brown-Forman of his revived Benriach, Glenglassaugh and Glendronach distilleries. 

Since the takeover, Glenallachie has been revealed to be another hidden gem, and now has a core range of high quality aged expressions, complemented by superb small batch and single cask prestige bottlings. Glenallachie’s spirit is muscular and suited both to sherry casks and long ageing, making the distillery an ideal candidate for Mr Walker’s magic touch. Older official bottlings of Glenallachie turn up sometimes at auction - the best value are the cask strength sherried editions released by Pernod Ricard around 2005-2008.

The First Cask range was a prolific series of single malt whisky bottlings by the UK’s largest mail order wine company Direct Wines Ltd, owner of Laithwaite’s and The Sunday Times Wine Club. From the early 1990s until the mid-Noughties Direct Wines released dozens of outstanding single cask whiskies annually under the First Cask label, almost all of which were bottled at 46%.

These whiskies were not particularly highly sought-after on release, probably because they were only sold online through a wine club.  Back then, of course, it was not widely known that the casks had been sourced from Signatory Vintage, which would certainly have raised their profile among whisky fans. Nowadays, although still frequently excellent value at auction, the First Cask collection - which includes hundreds of long-aged whiskies from distilleries including Brora, Port Ellen, Ardbeg and Macallan - is finally getting the recognition it deserves.