GlenAllachie 17 Year Old Mizunara & Oloroso Sherry Cask Finish
April 2025

GlenAllachie 17 Year Old Mizunara & Oloroso Sherry Cask Finish

This 17 Year Old single malt is the ultimate cask combo of rare Mizunara Japanese oak and rich Oloroso Sherry casks – landing in Australia exclusively for Club Members.

United Kingdom

Colour Maple syrup

Nose Heather honey, dried orange peel and crystalised ginger, with notes of cocoa, roasted coffee and fresh vanilla pods

Palate Baking spices and grilled honeycomb, followed by bursts of rich cocoa, poached cinnamon apples and fig syrup, with pecans and demerara sugar on the finish

Overview

Rare Japanese oak meets rich Oloroso Sherry hogsheads and puncheons in this limited-edition GlenAllachie, an unreal cask combination that’s been 17 years in the making.

Master Distiller and renowned Scotch figure Billy Walker has spearheaded use of the most luxurious (and expensive) oak in the world to combine with his speciality cask of the past fifty years: the Oloroso Sherry cask.

But why is Mizunara so rarely seen in the whisky world? Not only are there strict limitations on logging this native Japanese tree – not to mention its 200-year age requirement – but as a highly porous oak (Mizunara literally means "water oak") with a propensity to leak and twist as it grows, this wood is rife to cause problems throughout coopers' stave-making processes.

Luckily for us whisky lovers, Mizunara has lots of vanillin compounds and very little tannin, imparting notes of sandalwood, charred oak, and sweet spices – making the brutal effort well worthwhile. Combined with those deep flavours from the Sherry influence, its flavours are further enhanced by being bottled after a long 17-year maturation at 50% ABV, without chill filtration or added colours.

This is only the second time GlenAllachie has ever released a Mizunara-matured whisky; their first sold out in Scotland immediately, and a handful of bottles are still selling on the secondary market in Australia for crazy amounts. Thanks to the Club’s incredible buying power, you coudl get your hands on this second release – with a higher age statement and heftier ABV than the first – for just $395 a bottle.

Your only chance to unlock this unreal cask combination was from April 4–6, because it was exclusively available in Australia to Club Members as an April Add In.

Not yet a part of the Club? Join Australia’s biggest whisky community today to be ready to secure our upcoming releases.

THE SPECS

Price: $395.00

Age: 17 Years Old

ABV: 50%

Maturation: Mizunara & Oloroso Sherry Cask Finish

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GlenAllachie's History

Glenallachie was constructed in 1967 on the back of the 1960s US whisky boom. MacKinley McPherson – Scottish & Newcastle Breweries’ distilling arm – who were keen to make the most of said boom, charged William Delmé-Evans (the man behind Macduff, Tullibardine and Jura) with the task of designing the new distillery. Almost fully gravity-fed, the distillery was designed with efficient energy use in mind. The first spirit flowed through the stills in February 1968, and within six months, the two still setup got an upgrade to four.

For the first 50 years of its existence, GlenAllachie was a respectable workhorse distillery, spending the majority of its production life under the stewardship of Pernod Ricard who used the spirit in world famous brands such as White Heather, 100 Pipers, Passport, and of course, Chivas Regal.

It was business as usual at Glenallachie until Invergordon Distillers’ takeover of MacKinley’s in 1985, at which point the distillery was mothballed and eventually sold to Campbell Distillers, now part of Pernod Ricard, in 1989. Thankfully, production restarted on April 24, the date marking the start of some 29 years of uninterrupted production during which time the distillery became the heart of Clan Campbell Whisky, the No. 1 premium Scotch whisky in France. 

With a thumping output capacity of 4 million litres and holding warehouses capable of more than 60,000 casks, it’s perhaps baffling why we saw so little of this Speysider released as single malt other than the odd coveted independent bottling and a 15 year old official bottling released in 2005 as part of Chivas Brothers’ Cask Edition Series, matured in sherry casks and from some of the first spirit distilled after reopening. 

This was set to change, and change in a big way. Enter the legendary Master Distiller and Blender Billy Walker, and his whopping whisky heritage. In July 2017, Chivas Brothers sold Glenallachie to The GlenAllachie Distillers Company, a new consortium consisting of Billy Walker of Benriach and GlenDronach fame, ex-Inver House Distillers MD Graham Stevenson and Trisha Savage. Just like he did with BenRiach and GlenDronach, Walker added some CamelCase to the name (i.e. Glenallachie became GlenAllachie), but that was just the beginning of the changes in store. 

GlenAllachie was soon refurbished and relaunched, with an aim to be a ‘truly independent, Scottish-owned and managed’ whisky company, producing a big, fruity malt whisky. Six single cask bottlings made an appearance in April 2018 and were soon followed by GlenAllachie’s first ever core range of single malts in June of that year.  

A lot has changed in a short period at The GlenAllachie. Two new warehouses have been added, they’ve grown from seven to 21 employees, and a visitor centre was opened in 2019. Most notable is the release of a dedicated range of core expressions along with some seriously good single cask releases and wood finishes. A position of restraint and single malt dedication now is the program at GlenAllachie – from a whiskymaking perspective, the most significant change is a lengthening of fermentation times. Distilleries from the 1960s are known for the lightness of their spirit, thanks in no small part to the shortness of the fermentation. This makes for a malty, textural spirit with delicate fruit notes. GlenAllachie of the future is set to change, as fermentation has been dramatically extended, going from around 48 up to 160 hours. This will add to the fruitiness and muscularity of the spirit, plus the team have brought in the use of peat in around 20% of the current production. 

Their wood program is as exotic as it is uncompromising, with almost an amalgamation of Billy’s previous successes in GlenDronach’s rich spirit and Benriach’s exotic cask program at play here. It might just be the perfect storm. 

GlenAllachie 17 Year Old Mizunara & Oloroso Sherry Cask Finish GlenAllachie 17 Year Old Mizunara & Oloroso Sherry Cask Finish

Distillery Facts

Region: Speyside

Origin: Glenallachie Distillery, Glenallachie, Moray, AB38 9LR, United Kingdom

Founded: 1967

Water Source: Ben Rinnes Springs

Washbacks: 6 washbacks

Stills: 4 (2 wash, 2 spirit)

Capacity: 3,900,000 litres per annum

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