Glenlossie Distillery

One of the many Speyside distilleries in the Diageo stable, Glenlossie was founded in 1876near the town of Elgin by local publican John Duff. This wasn’t a lone man’s venture however, he formed a consortium with Alexander Grigor Allen, George Thompson, Charles Shirres and H. M. S. Mackay to help him build it under John Duff & Co.

Towards the end of the 19th century Duff’s focus began to shift away from Glenlossie. He first tried to establish a distillery in South Africa, taking his family with him. That venture ended in failure and by 1892 Duff was back in Scotland having lost the bulk of his money.

Afterwards Duff began shifting his personal focus to Longmorn Distillery, which he founded in 1894. As he did this his partners at Glenlossie stepped forward, with Mackay taking over management of the distillery in 1896. By this time the company was going by the name of Glenlossie-Glenlivet Distillery Company.

In 1919 the company was added to the growing stable of distilleries owned by Distillers Company Limited. It wouldn’t change hands again after this point, staying under the same owners until they became Diageo.

However the licence to run the distillery itself was passed between different subsidiaries under the ownership of DCL. The distillery was ravaged by a fire in 1929, leading DCL to hand management over to Scottish Malt Distillers in 1930. The licence would later be passed to Haig in 1962, who increased the number of stills in operation from four to six. In 1972 Scottish Malt Distillers built the Mannochmore distillery on the same site as Glenlossie, where it continues to operate.

The distillery has the capacity to produce 3.7 million litres of spirits a year, while running every day of the week. It is equipped with an 8 ton mash tun; 10 washbacks, eight of larch and two of stainless steel, and six stills. The stills are all equipped with purifiers between the lyne arm and the condensers. Heavier alcohol vapours are caught and returned before reaching the condensers and returned to the body of the still, adding an oily quality to the spirit produced.

The grounds at Glenlossie are also home to 14 warehouses which hold over a quarter of a million casks. These are not just from Glenlossie, but also from multiple neighbouring Diageo distilleries.

There’s only one official distillery bottling available from Glenlossie and that is the 10 year old single malt in the Diageo Flora & Fauna Range. This is a well balanced whisky, light and sweet with aromas of malt and a slight fruitiness. The palate is sweeter with lots of fruit, barley sugar, and just a hint of wood ending in a long finish. However, if someone were looking for something older than this, there are a few independent bottlings available from companies such as Signatory and Connoisseurs Choice.