Glendronach 18 Year Old Allardice 2020 Release

Glendronach was built in 1826 by James Allardice, and rebuilt following a fire in 1852 by an individual named Walter Scott (although not the one you might be thinking of). It eventually passed into the hands of perhaps Scotland's greatest distilling dynasty, the Grants of Glenfiddich. Charles, the youngest son of William Grant procured the then-silent distillery from the government in 1920, and it remained in the family until they sold it to Wm. Teacher 40 years later. The Grants and Teachers were early champions of the single malt category, and distillery bottlings of Glendronach were produced for most of the 20th century until it was mothballed by Allied Distillers in 1996. The distillery was revived in 2002, and has since become one of the strongest single malt brands in the world.

Introduced in 2009, Allardice is a typical heavily-sherried expression from Glendronach, matured in Oloroso casks.

Due to its brief closure in 1996, versions of 18 year old expression bottled between 2013 and 2019 necessarily contained much older whisky than that. Pre-1996 distilled Glendronach like this also has a gentle peat influence due to its use in the first few hours in the malt kiln when the distillery still did its own in-house malting. This is no longer the case.

This 2020 release will contain whisky matured for around 23 years.