Scotland, Speyside: Single malt whisky through the producing distilleries: history, making, production and tasting notes

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Speyside:

Glen Albyn

Description of the whisky

The distillery

Telford Street
Inverness
Inverness-shire IV3 5LD

Owner: United Distillers & Vintners (Diageo)
The distillery was property of DCL and disappeared before DCL became UDV.

Creation date 1844 Demolished en 1986

The Glen Albyn distillery has been founded in 1844 by the Mayor of Inverness, James Sutherland. A fire destroyed the distillery 3 years after its creation. The distillery was rebuild in 1884 ad bought in 1920 by the blenders group Mackinley and Birnie. Later it became property of DCL (Distillers Company Limited) which closed it definitively in 1983 and demolished it in 1986.
Currently, a supermarket is settled on the site.
The distillery has been requisitioned by the US army during World War II to become a mine factory.

The whisky

List of the bottles

Description of the distillery

	Glen Albyn
	whisky
O.B.	Rare Malts 26 years	18
Signatory	Signatory Vintage 1978	17 1/3

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Glen Albyn Rare Malts 26 y.o 1975-2002
Age	26 years
Alcohol percentage	54,8%
Bottler	Official
Price/litre

A floral nose with hints of vanilla, some honey behind quite a peppery impression. A smell of musty wood completes the whole. In the palate, nice acid bitterness, an explosion of complex tastes, complex even if remaining in the woody register and a nice acidity (nice for those who appreciate acidity in a whisky). The mouth presents quite a contrast with the nose.. The finish is long, marked by woody bitterness and coffee notes.

Pleasant fruity complex nose with both vanilla and mint hints. Very fresh and both smooth and spicy.
The mouth is cast in the same mould. Fruity notes mixed to pleasant chocolate notes give it a nice complexity.
Nice finish too. Mix of cocoa smoothness and beautiful citrus fruit touches.

Glen Albyn Vintage 1978
Age	25 years
Alcohol percentage	43%
Bottler	Signatory
Price/litre

The very first nosing makes obvious this is a Speyside whisky, with some peat hints mixed with ripe fruit notes, on a peppered malty background. In the palate, the spicy character is slightly dominant, but lets the other rather complex tastes develop. The finish is rather pleasant, however a bit short. One more reason to regret the disappearance of the Inverness distilleries.

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The rather discrete nose, marked by ripe fruits (pear) is quite fresh and pleasant. In the palate, a pleasant spicy impression, on a slightly acid background precedes a finish of medium length with hints of malt and spices.

Quite a pleasant but rather discrete nose with nice floral hints and a touch of hay even if the dominant smell is a persistent malted barley hint.
The palate is marked by vanilla and some hints of ripe peach with cereals on the background, Pleasant but rather simple on quite a monotonous palette.
The finish perfectly prolongs the mouth, pleasant and without any flaw but without any daring touch nor depth neither.

Speyside

The Speyside area is situated at the North of the Cairngorm mountain and goes to the Moray firth. It is delimited by two rivers: the Findhorn at the West side and the Deveron on the East side.
The area is named after the river Spey. Most of the distilleries take their water in one of its affluents; the Fiddich, the Livet or the Avon.
About sixty distilleries from Speyside are described on this site.

Click on the map for a list of the distilleries of the area, on the title for further information
about the Speyside area, and if you want to make an "alphabetical journey" through the area, please
click on one of the pagode roofs, according to the direction you want to follow

Last update: Saturday, 19-Dec-2009 16:22:47 CET
Tue 16 03 2010, 18:35 - 93 visiteurs au cours de la dernière heure et 5 visiteurs sur le site en ce moment.
Copyright:Jean-Marie Putz (2003-2007)

Whisky is an alcoholic drink. Let's prefer quality to quantity as the abuse of alcohol beverages can damage the health. Consuming alcoholic drinks during pregnancy, even in small quantities, can seriously affect the health of the child. Consumption of alcohol impairs your ability to drive a car or operate machinery, and may cause health problems.