Glen Keith 30 Year Old 1985 Single Cask #12299-12302 Speyside Single Malt Scotch Whisky (2015) 70cl

Glen Keith 30 Year Old 1985 Single Casked #12299-12302 Speyside Single Malt Scotch Whisky (2015) 70cl

1 of 389 bottles charged from two cask

Distilled: 03/05/1985 and Bottled: 01/04/2015

Matured in Casks #12299-12302

Bottle Number: 289 / 389

41.9% ABV / 70cl

Built by Seagram in the late 1950s, Glen Keith provided malt whisky for the Chivas, Passport and 100 Pipers blends until it was eventually mothballed in 1999. By 2001, the company was acquired by French conglomerate Pernod-Ricard, who refurbished the distillery and pressed it back into service in 2013.

In addition to providing blending stock, the distillery is home to the Chivas Brothers lab, who’s experiments have included the production of a heavily peated spirit known as Glenisla. Official releases from Glen Keith are extremely thin on the ground, so the best plan for those keen to sample the seldom seen single malt is to hunt down some of the excellent indie releases.

"Whinnie the Pooh would love this, all runny honey sweetness" – Whisky Magazine #133 Scored 8.8/10

Lombard Tasting Notes - Superb honey, fruity sweet nose. Compact marzipan, almondy and pine. Spice explosion with lovely orange liqueur and dried ginger on the palate. The finish is fab with its brilliant fruity tannins. Love it …

About Glen Keith

Experimental from the start, the distillery produces a gentle, fruity whisky.

Although Glen Keith's stills are slender with long, upward-angled lyne arms indicating this is a light site, it has produced a wide variety of different makes thanks to its role as the pilot plant for many of Seagram/Chivas Brothers’ distilling trials. Today its character is light and fruity.

With sales of Chivas Regal rising throughout the 1950s, Sam Bronfman felt that he needed another distillery to supply juice for his blends – not just Chivas but Passport and 100 Pipers. He picked the site of a former meal mill in Keith, directly behind his existing Strathisla plant. As well as providing fillings for blends, Glen Keith became the Seagram’s experimental plant and still houses the Chivas Brothers lab.

It ran triple-distilled malt from the word go and alternated it with double distilled until the 1980s, ran trials with a wheat mash, was the first distillery to use gas-fired direct heating (all its stills are now steam-driven) and in its time also produced heavy peated variants [Glenisla] one made with peat smoke being passed through water which was then concentrated and the other in the normal manner. There were also trials with different yeast types. The fact that the stills were different shapes and sizes helped in these innovative trials.

It was mothballed in 1999, only reopening (under new owner Pernod Ricard) in 2013 after a complete refit which saw a new mash tun and washbacks being installed.

While there was a 10-year-old bottling it was never a front-line malt. There are occasional sightings of it (and Glen Isla) from independent bottlers.

41.9%