Glen Moray, one of Scotland’s fastest growing whisky brands, continues to go from strength to strength. The distillery has had a long-established presence in Australia, dating back to the early “Chardonnay-mellowed” releases of the late 1990’s. The range continues to expand and to offer single malt Scotch drinkers a diverse range of styles and flavours, all from under the one roof. And, more recently, it seems Glen Moray has added golf to its persona. It’s a (w)hole lot in one!
For those needing a refresher, Glen Moray was established in 1897. Located in Elgin, right at the top of Speyside, Glen Moray was owned by Glenmorangie from 1920 until 2008 when new owners, La Martiniquaise, acquired the distillery and the stocks. La Martiniquaise has invested heavily in the distillery, significantly increasing its production capacity, establishing a visitor centre, and expanding not just the amount of whisky produced, but also the styles of whisky produced. Production capacity at the distillery was two million litres a year in 2008; today that figure sits at 8.4M, making it the 10th largest distillery in Scotland. In 2010, it joined the small handful of mainland distilleries to make a peated malt. However, where such ventures were experiments or “once-offs” for some of the mainland distilleries, peated malt production is an annual undertaking at Glen Moray, and there are peated whiskies in the brand’s core-range.
(For those curious about such things, Glen Moray’s peated production runs for just 10 days each year, typically before the March shutdown, and it makes up about 3% of the year’s total production. The malt is peated to 50ppm, equating to around 20ppm in the spirit, and roughly 14ppm by the time it’s in the bottle. If you need to make sense of those numbers, you might like to read our explainer article about peat and ppm here).
Generally speaking, it would be fair to say that the whisky industry is struggling in the midst of a drastic downturn just now, and no doubt several distilleries and brands are cutting their marketing spend to help the P&L statement. Against that backdrop, it’s all the more impressive that Glen Moray’s global brand ambassador, Iain Allan, made a welcome return to Australia – his third visit since COVID, in fact. Here to remind Aussie drinkers how good Glen Moray’s whiskies are, his visit is also part of Glen Moray’s recent partnerships in golfing circles.
Glen Moray’s association with golf was first established internationally in 2024 through a three-year partnership with The Senior Open Championship. Since then, it has also embarked on a series of on- and off-course activations through several different golfing formats in the UK and US. And it’s now Australia’s turn! Glen Moray is presenting ‘Dream Team Season 2’, the second edition of Golf Space’s flagship indoor golf competition, running for 20 weeks from February to June this year. Golf Space is an incredible indoor facility in Sydney, offering cutting-edge facilities for golfers of all abilities. The venue combines advanced simulators, expert coaching, and custom club fitting with sleek lifestyle amenities – creating a space that is as social as it is performance-driven. The bar and entertaining area upstairs is as good as any 19th hole!
This was all beautifully demonstrated last week with Iain Allan – recently chalking up 21 years with Glen Moray – presenting an entertaining and information-packed tasting that featured a great line-up of Glen Moray whiskies, all while attendees enjoyed a few holes of golf on the simulators at Scotland’s St Andrew’s course. From the core range, Iain led the room through the Classic, the Sherry Cask, the Peated, and the 12 Year old. This was followed by two limited releases, namely the ‘Rum to Cognac Cask’ from the Private Cask range, and the ‘Peated Tequila’ release from the Warehouse 1 range.
On a personal note, what I’ve long enjoyed and appreciated about Glen Moray is that it’s a genuine, honest, well-priced whisky. Packaging is modest; there’s no stupid hype or outlandish statements on their labels or marketing; the names of the whiskies are simple and tell you all you need to know; the price tags won’t blow the bank, and – perhaps most importantly of all – the whisky is tasty. There’s something for everyone: The classic Speyside style of whisky is well delivered; there are wine-cask finishes and variants (e.g port and sherry; even a shiraz cask!); there are peated releases; and there are cask-strength expressions. Yep, it’s a (w)hole in one!
You’ll find a large range of Glen Moray expressions at Dan Murphy’s in Australia, and if you’re in Sydney and keen to check out an incredible golfing facility, be sure to drop into Golf Space. (And for the carnivores amongst us, Golf Space is right next to the famous Alexandria Meat Emporium. Grab yourself some T-bones for the barbie for when you get home – they’ll pair perfectly with Glen Moray’s Classic Port Cask Finish.)
Cheers,
AD
PS…you might also enjoy reading some previous articles and pieces we’ve written about Glen Moray…
Glen Moray new releases (May, 2024)
Glen Moray – The emerald of Elgin (May, 2023)
Glen Moray Mastery (August, 2017)
The Top Six things to do in Speyside (April, 2024)
The Speyside Whisky Trail (September, 2022)
Dan Murphy’s can take the credit for introducing me to the idea that single malts can be affordable, about 30 years ago via Glen Moray. I retain a fondness for the distillery, although seldom tempted to invest in a bottle these days.