Glenlossie Single Malt Whisky

Glenlossie whisky distillery is located in the village of Thomshill, south of Elgin. It was originally founded in 1876 by John Duff (previous manager of Glendronach distillery), H. Mackay and three other business partners. H Mackay subsequently took full ownership of the distillery in 1896 before selling to Distillers Company Limited in 1919. Ownership of Glenlossie transferred to Scottish Malt Distillers (now Diageo) in 1930.

Glenlossie has remained stable since then, but it has always been something of an obscure brand outside of the whisky community. This is largely due to the fact that almost all of the spirit produced with its 2.1 million litre capacity is used for blends rather than single malts. Most commonly it has been used for the popular Haig blends, and it is highly prized by master blenders.

An unusual fact about Glenlossie is that there is a second distillery functioning in the same grounds. Mannochmore distillery was constructed in 1971, directly behind Glenlossie, and continues to operate separately from the main building. Interestingly, Mannochmore has a much larger production capacity than Glenlossie and produces its own single malts more frequently than the ‘main distiller’ on site. 

There are a handful of Glenlossie single malts which have been given official bottlings, including a 10 year old expression released as part of the Flora & Fauna series and a 12 year old Manager’s Dram. The rarity of official Glenlossie whisky is somewhat unusual given that there are ten warehouses on-site, capable of holding 200,000 casks, which are often used to store casks from other Diageo distilleries.