Review #92: Glenallechie 10 Cask Strength

Airports are ideal places for whiskey tasting if you’re tasting miniatures. You can sail through security with a few of these bad boys, and the newly upgraded Terminal 2 in SFO has ample light where you can taste at leisure and take notes. We tried a few mini samples we’d acquired from GlenAllechie, an independent distillery in the heart of Speyside near Arberlour. To match the miniatures, we brought along mini-glencairns.

To be honest, we didn’t know too much about GlenAllachie before writing this article. Most of its whisky goes into blends, although it has started releasing its own whiskies in 2018 (around the same time that I had picked these miniatures up from Big Market, a spirits shop in Germany). Their malts are lightly peated.

Important side note: Although airports are ideal places to whisky taste, airplanes are not. We didn’t complete this tasting in the airport and decided to complete the full tasting in the air with the mini glencairn. Out of nowhere, an elderly stewardess swooped in and picked up the GlenAllachie. “What is this,” she demanded. “Um… apple juice,” said Michael. She looked suspiciously at the bottle and tried to smell it. “Are you sure it’s juice?” she asked. “Yep.” “Okay as long as it’s not alcohol,” she said and returned it, giving us the side-eye. We quickly gulped down our “juice” in our “juice vessel” of the mini-glencairn.

Quick overview of our scoring system

Additional Information

• ABV: 54.8%
• Matured in American Oak, PX Sherry, Oloroso Sherry, and virgin oak casks

About GlenAllechie

• Located in Aberlour, the distillery was established in 1967 and started production in 1968.
• The distllery was mothballed in 1985, before being reopened in 1989 under Pernod Ricard.
• GlenAllechie introduced their single malt line in 2005, including a 15 year old sherry whisky.
• The distillery was acquired by Billy Walker, Trisha Savage, and Graham Stevenson in 2017, and Billy took over as master distiller. It’s now independent.
• Their core range includes 10, 12, 18, and 25 year expressions, all bottled at 46% ABV and above.