Glenglassaugh sits at Sandend Bay on the Moray Firth coast, founded in 1875 by James Moir and silent for most of the period between 1986 and 2008. Since reopening, and particularly since BenRiach Distillery Company and then Brown-Forman took ownership, the distillery has leaned into its maritime setting. Sandend, launched in 2023 under master blender Rachel Barrie, is the expression that most deliberately bottles that location.
The recipe draws on three cask types: ex-bourbon barrels for the tropical spine Glenglassaugh is known for, ex-sherry casks for weight, and ex-Manzanilla casks from Sanlucar de Barrameda for a distinctly saline note. Manzanilla, aged under flor on the Andalusian coast, carries its own briny character, and Barrie has used it to amplify the coastal signature of the distillery itself.
At 50.5% non-chill filtered, Sandend opens with the pineapple and peach that marked the old 1970s Glenglassaughs so highly prized by collectors. Vanilla and coconut from the bourbon wood sit underneath, and then the Manzanilla asserts itself on the mid-palate with a clean, almost green-olive salinity. It is not a heavy dram. The finish drifts rather than crashes, carrying toasted almond and a persistent breath of sea air.
Sandend has been well received since release and sits as a core expression alongside 12 Year Old and Portsoy. For a distillery that spent more than two decades mothballed, it is a confident statement of identity, and a rare example of a no-age-statement whisky whose character is genuinely tied to a specific stretch of coastline.
