A Profile of The Whiskies of The Glen Moray Distillery

 A Profile of the Whiskies of The Glen Moray Distillery

Introduction

The distillery of Glen Moray (pronounced Glen “Murr-Ray”), sits on the northern outskirts of Elgin officially part of the Speyside Whisky region. Originally a brewery, founded in 1828, the site was converted into a distillery in 1897. At that time, it sat alone, outside the boundaries of the town of Elgin, but now, oddly for a medium sized distillery, it finds itself in the middle of a housing estate. It produces about 8.4 million litres of alcohol per year, yet has the feel of small distillery. Its water is sourced from the River Lossie.

Glen Moray Distillery Official Video

This is a more in-depth official video

Glen Moray means “valley of the Moray”, named after the area of Moray region. When talking whisky, I’ve heard people use Moray and Speyside interchangeably but they aren’t exactly the same thing. The Speyside region is one of the five (or unofficially six) whisky regions in Scotland, namely: The Lowlands, Islay, Other Islands (unofficial), Campbeltown, Highlands, and inside the Highlands, the Speyside region, where the vast majority of distilleries within the Highlands resides, all clustered around the river Spey.

The Moray Region

The geographical region of Moray sits in the heart of the Speyside region, stretching from Grantown-on-Spey to the south, Forray to the west and Fochabers to the east. Lying at the northern tip of the region is its capital, Elgin. So, I think it’s true to say that all distilleries within the Moray region (including Glen Moray), fall within the definition of Speyside distilleries.

Warehouse No.1

Until 2008, Glen Moray was known as Glenmorangie’s poorer sister, both owned by LVMH. Even when it was taken over by French owned “La Martiniquaise” Spirits Company that year, its “budget whisky” reputation remained. Many people mistakenly believe that La Martiniquaise own another Scotch Malt Distillery called Glen Turner. However, Glen Turner doesn’t actually exist. Or does it?

La Martiniquaise’s Other Distillery

Besides Glen Moray, La Martiniquaise do own another distillery in Scotland, but it's a Grain distillery, officially called “Starlaw”, in Bathgate in West Lothian, which produces grain alcohol for their Label 5, Sir Edward’s and the famous and historic Cutty Sark Blended Scotch brands.

As well as its massive column stills pumping out over 25 million litres of pure alcohol per year, the plant also houses the company’s 29 warehouses (which also store many Glen Moray Single Malt casks), as well as its vatting and bottling facilities (where Glen Moray is bottled).

I say “officially” called Starlaw, because the distillery is colloquially known as “Glen Turner” distillery. That’s because in 2010, when La Martiniquaise built the Grain Whisky plant, the French parent company was better known in Scotland by its UK registered name -  “The Glen Turner Scotch Whisky Company”, set up in 1981 to manage La Martiniquaise’s Scotch whisky brands. This includes their independent bottling range of Single Malt Whiskies, also called "Glen Turner" Single Malt, marketed all over the world. (Are you following all this?)

Immensely popular in many countries, Glen Turner Single Malt Whisky often wins the No.1 spot for the annual bestselling Scotch Single Malt in France, which is why you can forgive the millions who think that Glen Turner is an actual distillery in Scotland.

Moreover, Glen Turner still use the same packaging and label design from the 1980s. Based loosely on the Glenfiddich branding as was, Glen Turner looks rather dated today, in my opinion. The label includes a drawing of a picturesque and quaint looking distillery, which only fortifies the myth even further that this is an actual distillery in Scotland.

Now, where do you think that the Glen Turner Scotch Whisky Company sources its Single Malt from to produce their Glen Turner Single Malt brand? You guessed it! Glen Moray distillery. That’s why it was a no brainer for La Martiniquaise to purchase Glen Moray from LVMH when it came up for sale.

So, even though Glen Moray Single Malt is sold in France, it’s also sold under its La Martiniquaise “Glen Turner” branding where it’s actually more popular. That’s why La Martiniquaise decided not to retire this brand even after the acquisition of the distillery in 2008.

And that’s how we got to the situation today whereby Glen Moray Single Malt is being sold in the same markets under two different brand names.

La Martiniquaise also own several wineries both in France, Spain and Portugal. Having access to all these exotic cask types, it’s not surprising that Glen Moray became one of the first distilleries to experiment with Wine Cask maturation of Scotch Malt whisky. Indeed, much of Glen Turner Single Malt expressions have been finished in Wine Casks.

The Glen Moray Range

Everyone seems to associate Glen Moray as a brand, with cheap supermarket Single Malts and for good reason. Their core-range “Elgin Heritage” with the marketing catch phrase “Smooth and Balanced”, consists of: The Elgin Classic and Classic Peated and the 12-Year-Old, all matured in American Oak, all heavily chill-filtered with Caramel spirit added and all bottled at legal minimum 40% abv.

It is often the first single malt anyone tries. They see it on special offer on the supermarket shelf or in Travel Retail (“Duty Free” as was), often with the price brought down so that it’s only slightly above the cost of most of the popular Blended Scotch whiskies. They will try it and instantly love it. After all, what's not to like about its light, fruity, sweet malty taste?

They might then buy a few bottles again, happily drink it and thoroughly enjoy it at the beginning of their whisky journey and then more often than not, rarely buy it again (unless it’s for a simcha), passing it over for other bigger and perceived better brands. It is what I term, one of the few excellent Gateway /Entry Level Single Malts.

I myself started my Single Malt Whisky journey back in 1988 with a bottle of Glen Moray 12.

The Glen Moray House Flavour

For a full review of the Glen Moray Classic - their cheapest Single Malt, versus the original 12-Year-Old that has been around since the 1980s, please click on the link.

However, I can summarise the house flavour here. Of all the budget friendly "Speysider" Single Malts like The Glenlivet, Tamnavulin, Tomintoul, Glenfiddich, Knockando, Glen Grant, Cardhu etc, Glen Moray is in my opinion, the most typical, almost cliché Speysider of them all!

A Speyside Single Malt is light with clean honey and caster sugar sweetness, floral notes like honeysuckle and rose buds, yellow and green fruity flavours and with a base of malt digestive biscuits and Scottish Shortcake. Some are lighter than others. Some are more floral, more honied, some more green fruity and others more yellow fruity, and still others more malt biscuit-y or more shocrtcake-y. But, Glen Moray liquid has it all in a perfect balance, plus some gentle oak spices on the finish.

Glen Moray Single Malt whisky is medium light, lashings of honey, garden floral, yellow fruits like melon and apples and a wonderful malty biscuit and walnut finish. That's why it remains one of the most successful Single Malts to win over those people who have only ever drunk Blends their whole lives.

For purely nostalgic reasons, I recently purchased a second-hand bottle still in its original gift tin from the 1980s, just to display it on my shelf as a talking point. I'm sure you can tell by now that Glen Moray still holds a little place in my heart as this was the Single Malt that got me all started. For that I have tremendous HaKoros HaTov for all the makers of this fine dram. (Notice that that unique bottle shape hasn't changed much in over 40 years).

In fact, when I return to my rented cottage in Scotland at the end of a long day touring distilleries, after dinner, I more often than not, will pour myself a simple Glen Moray Classic to relax and ponder over the events of that day.

Is there life for Glen Moray past the Supermarket shelf?

The Explorer Collection

A few might be aware of their Double Cask Sherry Cask Finish with the marketing catch phrase “Complex and Smooth” and their Elgin Heritage 15-Year-Old that is a vatting of Ex-Bourbon and Ex-Sherry casks, also bottled at 40% abv with the catch phrase "Rich and Sweet".

To spice things up, Glen Moray also releases a range of dumbed down (40% abv) NAS bottlings called the “Explorer Collection”, with various wine finishes. Then there are the occasional releases with fancy names, like their “Twisted Vine”, matured in French Cognac Casks with the catch phrase "Deep and Fruity", or their “Phoenix Rising”, matured in Virgin Charred Oak with the catch phrase "Smooth and Spicy".

Premium Heritage Collection

Even fewer will know about the only “almost” Integrity qualified “Premium” bottlings in their core-range, namely the 18-Year-Old Elgin Heritage. This is bottled at 47.2% abv, matured in First-Fill Ex-Bourbon barrels, Non-Chill-Filtered but unfortunately, has E150a colour added. (It makes no sense to me why they would do this).

There’s also the 21-Year-Old Portwood Finish, bottled at 46.3% abv. These are sold in the specialist whisky shops and online stores and if truth be told, are pretty much ignored by most whisky enthusiasts. Baruch Hashem, at least the marketing department has spared us with the “Smooth and Something” catch phrases for these expressions, which might be a reason to purchase one?

Besides their Travel Retail releases called their “Signature” collection, that’s about it from Glen Moray.

Or is it?

The Curiosity Collection

It seems that recently, someone at La Martiniquaise has woken up and has been paying attention to the growing “Whisky Enthusiast” Integrity bottling market. They decided to dip their toes into the "Integrity bottling" water with a range called their “Curiosity Collection”. First released in 2018, they consisted of a very limited amount of small batch bottlings finished in various exotic casks but more importantly, all bottled at a respectable 46.3% abv, Non-Chill-Filtered and Natural Colour - truly earning the title of Integrity bottlings.

I actually reviewed their Rhum Agricole “Cask Finish Project” Small Batch UK Exclusive from their Curiosity Collection, back in 2020.

If you look on their official website, the Curiosity Collection seems to have now disappeared and it looks as if it’s been replaced with their new “Warehouse 1 Collection”.

The “Warehouse 1 Collection”

Since 2020 (their first edition being a Sauternes Wine Cask Finish), Glen Moray has been quietly producing a series of experimental releases called their “Warehouse 1 Collection”.

The series is named after Warehouse No.1 with the dark blue painted doors at Glen Moray, where they keep all their exotic casks. The warehouse is of traditional “Dunnage” style, that is, brick walled with casks racked three high, separated by planks of wood.

These are all UK Exclusives, bottled at Cask Strength, all small Batch releases of only a few casks, all Non-Chill-Filtered and Natural Colour.

So proud of their integrity pedigree that the marketing department at La Martiniquaise have decided to plaster “Natural Colour / Cask Strength / Non-Chill-Filtered” at the front and back of the box as well as on the bottle label, just in case we missed it the first time!

Obviously, almost all of the releases of the Warehouse 1 Collection are unsuitable for the strictly kosher consumer as they consist of various types of wine cask finishes. However, I did come across two separate expressions being sold, bottled in 2024, both finished in delicious Mexican Tequila Casks.

They are the:

“Warehouse 1” Tequila Cask Finish 2014, 10-Year-Old, 55.2% abv

“Warehouse 1” Peated Tequila Cask Finish 2014, 10-Year-Old , 58.5% abv

These two wonderfully similar but fascinatingly contrasting bottles will hopefully, Be’ezras Hashem be the subjects of my next review.