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History
The GlenAllachie Distillery was commissioned in 1967 by Scottish Newcastle Breweries through their subsidiary, Mackinlay, Macpherson & Company, which the brewery had acquired in 1961, in order to supply fillings for that company’s many blends.
The architect was William Delmé-Evans, the leading distillery designer of the day who had previously completed Tullibardine (1949), Macduff (1960) and Jura (1963) Distilleries. A Welshman by birth, with French antecedents, Delmé-Evans spent many holidays in Scotland during the 1930s and became fascinated by whisky distilling. He suffered from tuberculosis, so was unfit for war service, and it was during a period of convalescence that he made a thorough study of the distilling process.
From the 1940s his goal was to design “an up-to-date, gravity-fed distillery” which would be more efficient than traditional sites, and in 1947 bought an old brewery at Blackford in Perthshire where he began to apply his design theory. On completion, he managed the distillery, named Tullibardine, then sold it to Brodie Hepburn, whisky brokers in 1953. They would go on to establish Deanston Distillery in 1963.
