How GlenAllachie makes whisky

As we take a deeper look into GlenAllachie Distillery and the story behind its rise, it’s necessary to look past the headlines and into the way the distillery actually makes whisky.

The single malt Scotch whisky distillery never lacked potential, but the shift in direction since 2017 has changed almost every part of production.

This article pulls apart the process to show exactly how GlenAllachie makes whisky today, why it tastes the way it does and how a once low-profile Speyside distillery built an enormous modern footprint.

Water, malting, mashing

GlenAllachie can produce four million litres of alcohol per year, but after famous master distiller Billy Walker took over in 2017, the team chose to reduce output to one million litres. This deliberate shift unlocked longer fermentations, slower runs and a different distillery character.

The aim is to make a clean spirit full of sparkling fruits, vanilla, butterscotch and biscuity notes. The new make also needs to be bold and rich enough to stand up to bold cask types.

The distillery draws water from damheads northeast of Ben Rinnes. Blackstank Dam provides cooling water for the condensers. Heanshead Dam supplies process water for mashing. The water runs over granite and peat, and the team treats it as a crucial raw material rather than a technical footnote.

The malted barley arrives unpeated from local producers on the Moray Firth coast, most likely Portgordon Maltings. GlenAllachie still relies on its original 1967 Porteus Mill, which produces 9.4 tonnes of grist for every mash. The team mixes the grist with hot water in a 9.4 tonne semi lauter mash tun to extract the fermentable sugars.

GlenAllachie uses a four water cycle instead of the common three to maximise extraction while using the same volume of water per kilogram of grist.

Long fermentation, different distillation, cool casks

Eight stainless steel washbacks handle fermentation. GlenAllachie runs long fermentations of around 160 hours. This slow approach gives the yeast time to create esters and other flavour compounds that help define the final character of the whisky.

The wash then moves to the stillhouse for a traditional double distillation. GlenAllachie diverges from convention by giving each pair of wash and spirit stills a dedicated low wines and feints receiver. Most distilleries feed all stills into a single receiver, but GlenAllachie isolates each pair. This setup keeps the strength and volume of distillate more consistent between runs and removes variation that would creep in if everything were fed into one vessel.

There are 16 warehouses on site, each holding around 50,000 casks. You drive past them to reach the distillery, and they seem to stretch forever. As do the casks on racks upon racks. The picture below gives you an idea, but you really need to see it for yourself. The team racks everything traditionally and keeps full oversight of stock so they can re-rack when the spirit needs a new direction. There needs to be a balance between wood influence and distillery character.

The annual wood budget exceeds £2 million. GlenAllachie uses that financial freedom to experiment with casks in a way most distilleries cannot. Relationships with producers across the world help fill the warehouses with virgin oak, sherry, wine, bourbon, Marsala, Mizunara, Hungarian oak, Mongolian oak, and dozens of other cask types. Some I’ve never seen before but can’t yet reveal. GlenAllachie’s independence means the team can act quickly when a rare parcel of casks becomes available, and that freedom shapes the flavour of the modern releases.

Other features and sustainability

GlenAllachie opened its visitor centre on the first day of the Spirit of Speyside Whisky Festival in 2019. The team upgraded the space in June 2023 with a whisky bar, tasting lounge, outdoor seating with views of Ben Rinnes and a full range of tours.

Advocacy, education and whisky tourism form a crucial part of the modern GlenAllachie identity, so the distillery invests in spaces that reflect that.

The team also invests heavily in sustainability. At the beginning of 2024, GlenAllachie revealed a refreshed aesthetic for the entire single malt range along with significant energy upgrades. A grant from the Scottish Industrial Energy Transformation Fund allowed the distillery to install Mechanical Vapour Recompression technology. This system improved energy efficiency by 50%. To power it, the team installed 134 solar panels in a neighbouring field, allowing the distillery to move from natural gas to a mix of electricity and greener alternatives like biogas.

GlenAllachie whisky

The main event remains the whisky itself, and for a brand that has only been releasing a consistent range of single malts for eight years, GlenAllachie sure has a lot of it. 

GlenAllachie 8 Year Old

Introduced in 2022, this expression ages in Pedro Ximénez and oloroso sherry puncheons, virgin oak casks and red wine barriques. The team created a super fruity, rich sipper with bright energy.

GlenAllachie 12 Year Old Whisky

The flagship whisky combines Pedro Ximénez, oloroso and virgin oak casks. Expect fruit, oak and vanilla in a balanced, confident style.

GlenAllachie 15 Year Old Whisky

Added in 2019, the 15-year-old finishes in sherry puncheons and hogsheads that previously held Pedro Ximénez and oloroso. Many drinkers consider this the highlight of the range for good reason.

GlenAllachie 18 Year Old Whisky

The team selects casks from the 16 warehouses, including older stock from the 1970s. The resulting whisky offers nutty toffee, robust malt and honeyed fruit.

The GlenAllachie series and limited editions

GlenAllachie supplements the core range with several ongoing and limited ranges.

The 10 Year Old Cask Strength releases appear in batches, most recently Batch 12 at 59.7% ABV from Pedro Ximénez, oloroso, red wine, and new oak casks. The annual 21 Year Old Cask Strength releases also land in small quantities and sell out quickly.

The Virgin Oak Series arrived in 2022 with Scottish, Spanish and Hungarian Oak finishes. The Sherry Series followed in 2024 with Oloroso, Fino, and Amontillado finishes. The Wine Series expands the palette with Marsala, Sauternes, Douro Valley and Grattamacco finishes.

GlenAllachie also released Cuvée whiskies inspired by the wine style. The team blended multiple wine finishes into single expressions, with 9 and 10-year-old bottlings so far.

To celebrate Walker’s 50 years in the industry, the distillery launched the Past, Present and Future Series. The trilogy included a 16-year-old 100% sherry matured whisky, a 16-year-old Mizunara Virgin Oak finish (a first for the distillery) and a 4-year-old peated single malt created under Walker’s new production regime. The distillery recently added another Mizunara finish and released its oldest whisky yet, the GlenAllachie 35 Year Old.

Meikle Tòir

In September 2023, GlenAllachie expanded its world with Meikle Tòir, a peated brand that translates to “big pursuit” in Scots Gaelic. The initial releases included The Original, The Chinquapin One, The Sherry One, and The Turbo. The core whiskies use mainland St Fergus peat at 35ppm, a sweeter peat style than coastal varieties. All Meikle Tòir whiskies use post-2017 spirit, so early signs offer a preview of GlenAllachie’s long-term direction.

MacNair’s and White Heather

When Walker bought GlenAllachie, he also acquired blended Scotch brands MacNair’s and White Heather. The team revived White Heather in 2021 with blends built from Highland, Islay and Speyside malts, including some vintage GlenAllachie. MacNair’s relaunched a year after the GlenAllachie acquisition with a range of age statements and cask combinations, all bottled without chill filtration or artificial colour.

The MacNair’s Boutique House of Spirits also now includes rum. Walker selects each rum and bottles them in Scotland without added colour or chill filtration. The series so far includes Panama rum and spirit from Jamaica’s Clarendon Distillery.

Why GlenAllachie’s production matters

The modern GlenAllachie is a tale of reshaping the production process to focus on what really matters. The result is a whisky catalogue that grows broader every year without losing its identity. If you want the bigger picture of how GlenAllachie surged into the spotlight, the full story of why it became the whisky to watch in 2025 sits here.

You can buy GlenAllachie whisky, White Heather whisky, MacNair rum, and more from Master of Malt.