THE GLENGOYNE WAY

Six guiding principles keep us true to our past, true to our taste. To change just one element would be to alter the bold, complex flavours of Glengoyne.

UNPEATED

WE ALWAYS DRY OUR BARLEY BY AIR

Our founders established this tradition through necessity: there is no peat in the soil around Dumgoyne. This means there is no smokiness in our whisky – and nowhere for coarse flavours or average casks to hide.

That is why we take such care to craft our spirit, coaxing it through the slowest stills in Scotland then maturing in fine sherry casks. We stay true to the taste of Glengoyne creating bold fruits and rich sweetness.

PATIENCE

THE SLOWEST STILLS IN SCOTLAND

Glengoyne’s bold flavours are the result of an equally bold pledge: to coax our spirit through the slowest whisky stills in Scotland.

Our flavours build ounce-by-ounce, hour by hour into the smooth, hugely complex spirit we’re famous for creating.

Extravagant? Perhaps. But we’re not about to change our ways.

OAK CASKS

OUR SHERRY CASKS ARE RARE AND EXPENSIVE

However, they weren’t always so hard to source. In the 1870s the sherry business was booming in London, and we took the ready supply of empty casks for our spirit. The sherry soaked wood transformed the maturation taking the flavour of Glengoyne to new heights, and the colour to rich new depths.

Then the supply dwindled, and the price of each cask soared. We had a choice: switch to more plentiful alternatives or stay true to the flavour of Glengoyne.

We chose the flavour, and went to the source. We took direct charge of the entire six-year journey our sherry casks take from oak forest to Highland Distillery. We’re involved at every stage from selection to drying and seasoning.

tradition

OUR PROGRESS IS MEASURED NOT IN YEARS OR DECADES BUT IN CENTURIES

We stay true to our founding principles set out in 1833 and carefully passed from one generation of craftsmen to the next.

Every skill, every intricate step, evolves through hard work and long practice. It’s why we still dry our barley by air. It’s why we distil more slowly than anyone else in Scotland. It is also why we moved predominantly to sherry cask maturation in the 1870s latterly securing our own private supply of this venerable wood.