Scotland, Speyside. Distillery operational. Owner: La Martiniquaise

In 1923, Glen Moray became the owner of Macdonald & Muir, which at the time owned the Glenmorangie distillery. It was in the wake of this giant that Glen Moray forged its path. A path characterized first by the blends of the company it had joined, Bailie Nicol Jarvie (BNJ), James Martin and Highland Queen, and then from the 80s by its own bottlings aged 5, 8 and 12 years old. The late 1980s saw the release of a series of vintages, including bottlings from 1960, 1963, 1964 and 1959, which formed a collection in and of themselves.

A Glen Moray 5 Year Old from the 1980s imported to Italy by Ramazzotti, Milan. Young whiskies like this Glen Moray and the Glen Grant and Glenfarclas 5 year olds from the same era were popular with Italians, who were used to grappa. Armando Giovinetti, who imported Glen Grant in the 1960s, was well aware of this. Note also that the distillery’’s name is preceded by “Glenlivet”, as was the practice for many distilleries, who used the name as a mark of quality and to indicate that the whisky came from Speyside, even before the Excise Act of 1824. Following several legal battles, Glenlivet finally got its own way and the practice gradually ceased in the 1980s.