Glenglassaugh sits on the Banffshire coast at Sandend Bay, midway between Portsoy and Cullen, a location that places it in a stylistic borderland between Speyside and the Highlands. Founded in 1875 by Colonel James Moir, it spent much of the twentieth century as a workhorse for blends, was mothballed in 1907, briefly revived in the 1930s, and then closed again by Highland Distillers in 1986. For twenty-two years the buildings stood silent.
In 2008 a private investor group bought the distillery and resumed production. The 25 Year Old released in the years afterwards is therefore a peculiar document: spirit distilled before the closure, slumbering through the long silence, and finally bottled by a new owner. It is whisky from a vanished operation, presented under the same name.
The distillery character that emerged from these old stocks surprised many — a tropical fruit profile reminiscent of certain old Tomatins or 1970s Bowmores, the kind of mango and pineapple note that contemporary distilling rarely produces. Whether the cause was yeast, fermentation length, the original cut points, or simply slow oxidation in cool coastal warehouses, the result is distinctive enough that Glenglassaugh's old stock has become quietly collectible.
Bottled at 43% rather than the standard 40%, the 25 keeps enough texture to do its inheritance justice. It is not a bargain, but as a bottled record of a closed distillery's surviving spirit, it earns its asking price.
