Glen Grant is one of the top five bestselling Scotch single malt distilleries worldwide. The Campari Group acquired Glen Grant whisky distillery in 2006 for the princely sum of €115m from Chivas Brothers, then under Pernod Ricard ownership. Accordingly, Glen Grant is likely to be made substantially larger. At present, the Glen Grant distillery houses six stills and runs at near full capacity, which totals 5.9million litres per annum. However, with the proposed addition of a power plant nearby and a further eight stills, by 2010 the capacity could be as much as twelve million litres.
Half of Glen Grant’s impressive Scotch whisky production is used as a blending product, notably in Chivas blends. Most of the spirit is transported elsewhere for maturation in Chivas’ central warehouses, and to Glen Grant’s new 60,000 cask storage facilities, following the acquisition of eleven warehouses in Rothes. The whisky distillery was founded in 1840 by brothers John and James Grant and just over twenty years later it became Scotland’s first to boast electric lighting.
In 1872, James Grant died and the distillery was passed down to his son, Major James Grant. He then built a second distillery across the road, joined by a whisky pipe which transported the new make spirit. Glen Grant No. 2, as it was first known, was completed in 1897, but just five years later it was closed, reopening in 1965, under the name Caperdonich. As well as the official range, there have been many independent bottlings, notably from Gordon and MacPhail who bottled an extensive vintage range spanning more than twenty years of Glen Grant distillations.