Glen Albyn

Glen Albyn is a now-demolished distillery that sat at the Caledonian Canal which runs through Loch Ness. The distillery lay between the Highlands and the Northern Highlands. There was a neighbouring distillery, Glen Mhor, which shared the same fate.  

Glen Albyn had quite possibly the most impressive water source of all Single Malt distilleries: Loch Ness.  

Glen Albyn was a relatively small distillery, with only one wash still and one spirit still. Unfortunately, the production capacity of the distillery is unknown.

Glen Albyn used a Saladin Box to malt its barley from the late 1800s until 1980, at which point the distillery started sourcing its malt from an industrial site to reduce costs. The peat used in the process was sourced from Dava Moor. 

James Sutherland, who was Mayor of the city of Inverness at the time, founded Glen Albyn in 1844. When production launched two years later the forecast looked good for the new distillery. The location of the distillery was ideal at the very eastern locks of the Caledonian Canal. The surrounding area supplied most of the malted barley used in the Highland and Island distilleries, so Glen Albyn had easy access to plenty of raw materials. About a decade later Sutherland ran into financial difficulties and the site was converted into a flourmill for a few years, after which it was bought and rebuilt as a distillery by Gregory and Co in 1884.  The distillery fell silent again between 1917 and 1919, when it was used as a US Naval base for the production of sea mines and submarine nets.  In 1920 the distillery was purchased by the Mackinlays & Birnie Company, who continued to run the distillery until it was purchased by Distillers Company Limited in 1972. A decade later, in 1983, DCL decided to close the doors of the distillery, in an attempt to minimize the losses being felt as a result of the Whisky crisis. 

Today, the place is used by a newly built shopping mall and a big parking lot.