Half a century of Billy Walker
Past, Present and Future are the names of three editions of unique whiskeys announced by The GlenAllachie Distillers Company Ltd., and which are intended as a tribute to Glenallachie's master distiller, Billy Walker. The opportunity to do so is a good one, as this year marks Billy Walker's fiftieth anniversary in the Scottish distilling industry.
Billy Walker is best known for buying the closed Benriach distillery in 2003, along with two South African businessmen, founding The BenRiach Distilling Company, and helping to bring out the potential of this relatively small distillery, building on it to create one of the more recognized Scotch whisky brands today. BenRiach was soon joined by GlenDronach and Glenglassaugh, and all three - thanks to the new owners and Billy Walker personally - entered a new chapter. The BenRiach Distilling company changed hands in 2016, when a generous offer was made by the American giant, Brown-Forman, owner of m.in. jack Daniel's brands.
In 2017, Billy Walker founded The GlenAllachie Distillers, mentioned in the introduction, which bought from Chivas Brothers an almost completely unknown distillery in the Speyside region, located two steps from Aberlour, Macallan and Craigellachie. GlenAllachie - because the spelling of the distillery's name henceforth includes a capital A in the middle - has until now been involved in making a distillate used to put together blends and has been bottled as single malt extremely rarely. Its current marketing position is the result of Billy Walker's efforts, and quite an achievement when you consider how quickly this promotion has happened.
Before Billy Walker took on BenRiach, GlenDronach, Glenglassaugh and GlenAllachie, he was associated with a whole host of distilleries and brands in the whisky industry, including Ballantine's, Deanston and Tobermory.
The first of three whiskies to celebrate Billy Walker's 50th anniversary is the The GlenAllachie Billy Walker 50th Anniversary Past Edition. This whisky was distilled in 2005, and spent its entire maturation period, a full 16 years, in Spanish sherry butt casks. Nine such barrels were selected, with enough contents to fill a total of 4,000 bottles. The whisky was bottled without cold filtration, without caramel coloring and without dilution. The latter in this case means a liquor strength of 57.1% vol. The whisky will be available any day now through specialty aging liquor stores, and buying each will mean spending £255.
As mentioned, in addition to the Past Edition in question, the trilogy will also consist of two other whiskeys, Present Edition and Future Edition. However, we don't know anything about them yet, including the expected date of their release.
There is no better way to trace the career of this unremarkable figure in the Scottish distilling industry than to read through the various editions of whiskies from the distilleries he runs. In the current offer of the House of Whisky Online you can find a wide selection of GlenAllachie, BenRiach, GlenDronach i Glenglassaugh. We invite you to visit.
[23.05.2022 / photo: GlenAllachie]