Glenallachie 2008-2022 - 13 Year Old - Murray McDavid - Benchmark - UK Exclusive

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.

Independent whisky bottler Murray McDavid was founded by La Réserve wine merchants Simon Coughlin and Mark Reynier with Gordon Wright from Springbank in 1994. Murray McDavid quickly established themselves in the new wave of indie bottlers, with a string of great whiskies bottled without colouring or chill filtration at a minimum strength of 46%.

After a failed bid for Ardbeg in 1997, Murray McDavid bought Bruichladdich distillery in 2000 and swiftly transformed the rundown distillery’s fortunes, employing Jim McEwan as manager and embracing the wine finishing trend with gusto. In 2012 Murray McDavid & Bruichladdich were bought by Rémy Cointreau, who sold Murray McDavid to Aceo Ltd, another whisky broker and bottling company, the following year.