BenRiach acquires Glendronach

Posted on August 29, 2008
Filed Under Highlands, WhiskyBuzz |

BenRiach Distillery Company Ltd, one of the country’s leading independents, has made its first acquisition with the purchase of the Glendronach Distillery from Chivas Brothers, the Scotch whisky business of Pernod Ricard.

The acquisition of the Highland malt distillery, one of Scotland’s oldest, for an undisclosed sum, will complement the award-winning BenRiach brand as a superb high-end quality product.

The new owners said they intended to re-package and re-launch Glendronach, which they described as “a sleeping giant”, in markets worldwide.

The name “Glendronach” is Gaelic for “the valley of the brambles”. Founded at Forgue, Aberdeenshire in 1826 by James Allardice, one of the original whisky entrepreneurs, the Glendronach Distillery produces a series of single malt whiskies ranging in age from 12 to 33 years old, and currently has the capacity to produce 1.4 million litres of whisky a year.

The BenRiach Distillery, founded near Elgin in 1898, produces a wide range of Speyside single malt whiskies including the gold medal-winning BenRiach 16 years old single malt.

It was acquired in 2004, also from Chivas Brothers, by an independent partnership comprising Master Blender Billy Walker, formerly Operations Director of Burn Stewart, and South African whisky entrepreneurs Geoff Bell and Wayne Kieswetter.

With over thirty years’ experience in the industry and a Master of the Quaich, Billy rejuvenated the brand and in 2007 BenRiach won the prestigious “Distillery of the Year” award at the Malt Advocate Whisky Awards in New York, fending off competition from every other whisky-producing country in the world.

“We hope our acquisition of Glendronach will intrigue, surprise and delight whisky connoisseurs around the world,” said Mr Walker.

He explained: “BenRiach is going for growth and the purchase of Glendronach was too good an opportunity to miss. The distillery has a long and distinguished history and is an excellent fit with the existing BenRiach portfolio.

“Glendronach is a bit of a sleeping giant and was not part of Chivas’s expansion plans for the future. But we have great plans for it in our markets in the UK, Germany, USA, Belgium, Sweden, Denmark, Russia, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, France, Canada, Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong and China, amongst others.