Glentauchers distillery information
The Glentauchers distillery was founded in 1897, with the first stone laid on May 29th on a field on the land of Tauchers Farm in the Speyside region. The owners, James Buchanan & Company (creators of the Black & White blend, as well as Buchanan blends) who paired up with their Glaswegian supplier W. P. Lowrie & Co. Ltd, whisky broker and trader picked the location because of a good water supple as well as nearby roads and a railway, thus allowing for easy transportation. A railway siding built behind the distillery connected Glentauchers to this railroad. The distillery itself was designed by John Alcock, supervised by famous distillery architect Charles Doig. The first malting took place in May 1898, with the first distillation in June. Shortly after, the Pattison whisky crisis rocked the industry, but somehow the young distillery survived without noticeable issues.
By 1906, however, W.P. Lowrie ran into financial trouble, and Buchanan took full control of the distillery. By 1910, experiments were taking place at Glentauchers in an attempt to run continuous distillation, with specially designed stills. The drawings showing the design of these continuous stills are on display at the Doig Collection in the Moray district Library in Elgin. Other distilleries that tinkered with these stills were Convalmore (Dufftown, Speyside, closed) and Lochruan (Campbeltown, closed). In 1915 Buchanan merged with Dewars.
Between 1923 and 1925, extensive work was done on the distillery, including the addition of a new spirit store, and shortly after Buchanan-Dewars was absorbed by Distillery Company Limited (DCL) in 1925. In 1930, ownership of the distillery was transferred to Scottish Malt Distillers (SMD), who licensed the distillery to James Buchanan & Company. In 1955, the existing turbine was replaced with a new steam engine, followed by distillery being hooked up to the national power grid in 1958. In 1963, the stills were converted to steam heating, and between 165 and 1966, the distillery was rebuilt and enlarged, with the number of stills increased from two to six. The malting floors were closed in 1968.
In 1985, United Distillers, successors to SMD, decided to mothball Glentauchers, though four years later, in 1989 the distillery was sold on to Caledonian Malt Whisky Distilleries (a subsidiary of Allied Distillers), who reopened it and resumed production in August of that same year. In 2005, ownership was transferred to Pernod Ricard, following their acquisition of most of Allied Distillers whisky business. In 2006, some of the cast iron spirit receivers dating back to the 1930s were replaced (not including the wooden Intermediate Spirit Receiver), with the final setup seeing every pair of stills equipped with their own receivers. In 2007, the mash house is upgraded, with the installation of a new mash tun.
Glentauchers nowadays is still manuall operated now, as it is used as a training facility for Pernod Ricard staff.
Glentauchers whisky
Most of the produce from Glentauchers is used for blending. Some official bottlings have been released, as well as some semi-official expressions by Gordon & MacPhail.
- Special Distillery Bottling; 15 Years Old (released in 2000)
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Chivas Bros
Glentauchers Distillery
Keith AB55 6YL
United Kingdom
+44 (0) 1542 860272
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