One of Scotland’s oldest, and situated to the North East of Aberdeen, the most easterly of all the Scottish distilleries, the Glen Garioch Whisky Distillery has recently announced a Vintage 1995 bottling which is sure to excite whisky fans the world over. Here is a little information about the distillery and why this new product is likely to become a collectors piece.

The History

Glen Garioch was first established in 1797 and remains in the place of it origin to this day. This is in the village of Oldmeldrum some 17 miles to the north east of Aberdeen. This pretty village has itself a long history, with records dating back to the Battle of Barra in 1307.

The area around Oldmeldrum is famous for it fertility and the quality of the grain produced there, also the water in the village is of very high quality so beer from there became famous. For that reason it was only natural to establish a distillery there as well.

The distillery was built by brothers, John and Alexander Manson along with an adjoining brewery . The site had previously been a tannery and drew its water from a supply originating in the Peacock Hills.

The distillery changed hands several times but returned to the Manson family in 1837, finally to pass into new ownership in 1884 when it was taken over by JG Thompson & co of Leith. Shortly after this the producers of VAT 69 ,William Sanderson of Leith purchased a 50 % interest in the company.

There have been further changes of ownership over the years but the distillery is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Suntory of Japan. They did shut the distillery in 1995 but after restructuring (it became part of Morrison Bowmore, which in its turn is now part of Suntory) it reopened in 1997. Those dates presented a watershed in the production there but more of that shortly.

The Distillery

The Glen Garioch (actually pronounced Geery) distillery has a visitors centre (in common with many others) and offers daily tours. There is also a gift shop and disabled access. The distillery is considerd to be a Highland malt whisky distillery.

The Whiskies

OK that is the “dry” history lesson over, let me tell you a little about the whiskies available, and particularly about some of the more interesting products.

The distillery has over the years supplied several different producers of blended whisky and this is still true today but there are also some very special whiskies that are released from time to time. These are from individual casks and according to their own publicity they are the pick of the storage. These become small batch bottlings and therefore in limited supply.

It is beyond the scope of this article to go into all the factors that create individual whiskies but you will find plenty of information online if you want to know more

One particular batch has just been announced and promises to be something a little different and rare. If you remember I said above that the distillery closed in 1995, well it was actually mothballed during that time and reopened in 1997. The original Oldmeldrum maltings was closed and, like many other distilleries nowadays, malt is bought in from outside.

This does mean however that all casks produced before and including 1995 were filled with a product that will never appear again, the malt from the old maltings. It means that any bottles from casks pre 1995 will be quite a rarity as the years go by.

The latest of these limited releases, the Glen Garioch Vintage 1995, was announced just a few days before I started this article and is eagerly awaited by whisky fans the world over, particularly since production is limited to just 1000 cases worldwide. it is so new that I have only been able to find a photograph of its predecessor the 1994 vintage.

This raises another question. What makes a whisky more valuable? But again that is beyond the scope of this article.

If you do manage to get your hands on a bottle of the Glen Garioch Vintage 1995 then you know who to contact to help you drink it!