hyphenated malts...

[mannyCA]

whats the deal? are they neither fish nor fowl? i bought a glen grant- glenlivet 16yo this weekend. why? i don't really know. i guess because it was distilled in 1980, a year i would always remeber, i was 4.
is this a vatting? why does it say single malt on the bottle. any info is highly appreciated.
TIA, Manny.

[Drrich1965]

whats the deal? are they neither fish nor fowl? i bought a glen grant- glenlivet 16yo this weekend. why? i don't really know. i guess because it was distilled in 1980, a year i would always remeber, i was 4.
is this a vatting? why does it say single malt on the bottle. any info is highly appreciated.
TIA, Manny.

I am 90% certain the Glenlivet implies location, and is 100% Gleng Grant. Longmorn and many others had this as well going back a fewyears.

[Deactivated Member]

Glenlivet used to be regarded as a sort of appellation. The Glenlivet was one of the first and most successful distilleries--it really has quite a distinguished history (check it out at http://www.theglenlivet.com). Later distilleries wanted to trade on the name, so they used it in the way you have observed. I've forgotten what all the precise results of ensuing legal actions were, but for some reason it's still possible to find this phrasing. What you have is a Glen Grant.

[kallaskander]

Hi there,

that most certainly means that you bought a bottle from an independent bottler.
IBs costumaryly use the old name of distilleries. As many Speyside distilleries used the term "Glenlivet" to emphazise the quality real or assumed and to profit from the standing the original Glenlivet Distillery had.
Mr Smith fought a court battle to be able to be the only one to use Glenlivet. The ruling was that other distilleries can add -Glenlivet to their name. That was when the Livet was considered to be the longest river in Scotland
You can even find "Macallan-Glenlivet" bottlings and many other name that stand proudly on their own today.
Some malts you will only find under their old names with IBs like St. Magdalene is Linlithgow, Glen Ord often is Ordie.

Greetings
kallaskander

[Deactivated Member]

Glenlivet was indeed the longest glen in Scotland. It used to stretch as far as Edradour-Glenlivet.

[D`Sypher]

This is most certanly a Glen Grant Single Malt Original bottling!!
Glen livet only states from which area the whisky originates from because glenlivet is the old name for Speyside.
Therfore all this label says is that this is a Glen Grant from Speyside and that it is an OB.

[kallaskander]

Hi there,

I am not sure that Glenlivet was one time the name of what we now know as the Speyside region, especially as there is no real agreement of how far "Speyside" reaches as far as whisky is concerned. Is or was "Speyside" or "Glenlivet" a political term as a name for a county or district at any time?

Anyway, in 1980 Glenlivet was out of use on the distillery side even for those who had used the term behind their name.
Braes of Glenlivet, the latest distillery to use that was a mistake. Named Breaval today it was never meant to be sold as a single malt under its own name. An independent bottler (Signatory?) bottled a Braes of Glenlivet and the management of Pernod Ricard decided to rename to Breaval to avoid confusuion with Glenlivet which they do own themselfes also.

So a look at the bottle should tell us who bottled it and solve the mystery if there is any mystery at all.

Greetings
kallaskander

[Deactivated Member]

I'll guess it's a G&M.

[D`Sypher]

The glen of the Livet is also the home of two other malt distilleries, the unconnected Tamnavulin and Braes of Glenlivet, which is owned by Seagram. In the adjoining Avon valley the Tomintoul distillery is also generally regarded as belonging ot the Livet district . It is, indeed in the parish of Glenlivet. All of these distilleries use the sub-title Glenlivet on their labels as an appellation of district. So, stretching a point do about a dozen from other parts of Speyside. This practice, now in decline dates from the glen's pioneering position in commercial whisky production. Merchants in the cities wanted whisky "from Glenlivet" because that was the first specific producing district that they knew by name.

Cut from this article: http://www.dcs.ed.ac.uk/home/jhb/whisky/smws/2.html

[The Fachan]

D'Sypher,

Be careful where you source your info from, the article you were looking at is 8 years old. Seagrams no longer exists as of 2001 when bought bt Pernod Ricard and Diageo. Braes of Glenlivet has never been bottled by the owners as a single malt, the suffix Glenlivet was only added to IB bottling. the distillery has been known as Braeval for a number of year. Tomintoul doesn't carry the Glenlivet suffix on official bottlings, again only on independents.
Hope that maybe makes the picture a little clearer

[D`Sypher]

The age of this article does NOT matter as I only stated that Glen livet is the old name for Speyside.
I have this information from Charles Meclean originally, and if you want to hear him say so in person, go to Singlemalt.tv and watch "the glenlivet legacy"!
And the ruling is that Smith`s Glen livet is the only distillery that can use the name THE Glen livet but every distillery can use glenlivet to distinguish the location of the distillery.
And by the way I NEVER even mentined Braes of glenlivet who changed their name to Braeval to avoid confution with the whisky from their sister distillery THE Glenlivet.
AND the discussion was about Glen Grant NOT Braeval!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And the discussion was about a whisky distilled in 1980 which is FAR more than 8 years ago!
And finally if it was an IB the bottle would have stated so!

[The Fachan]

D'Sypher,

Very well,but the post above mine makes no mention of Glen Grant. We will differ on this but again its one of the beauties of a forum.

Best wishes

[Deactivated Member]

Sometimes it can be quite hard to tell that a bottle is an IB - G&M, in particular, often make their bottlings look official. And some OBs are also ambiguous - for example the Glen Rothes bottles that say they are bottled exclusively by Berry Bros and Rudd. Worth going to Whisky Exchange and looking at some of the ambiguous labels - especially the ones from the 1960s and 1970s.

[D`Sypher]

Then you should read the first post in the thread, which was the post i was answering.
So, as you can see the only point of this posting was to clearify that glenlivet is also an area and not just the distillery THE glenlivet.
So, I am sorry to say all that you pointed out as flaws in the article I used as source is irrelevant to this discussion.
Other than that I totally agree with everything you have pointed out.


Best Wishes

[Deactivated Member]

Take a chill pill, D'Sypher. You did indeed offer outdated info re Seagram's, and did mention Braes of Glenlivet--read your own post. The discussion was about the use of the word Glenlivet as an appellation, whether for Glen Grant or anything else. The Fachan was merely offering clarification, not questioning your integrity. No need to be snippy.

[Deactivated Member]

Had to research this to make sure I got the story straight--this from The Glenlivet website.

King George IV made an offficial visit to Scotland in 1822, at least in part as a gesture of reconciliation--the wounds of Culloden were still fresh, more than seventy years later. He caused a sensation by wearing Highland dress, and a minor scandal by asking for a Glenlivet--it was still an illicit product. Thus it gained considerable cachet, which nearby distillers, who could rightly claim also to be situated in the Glen of the Livet, sought to cash in on. They attached the name to their own, and that's how the practice started.

[Ann-Helen]

Well , well so mr tattieHeid didn`t you read the hole post on the bottom it says cut from and a link to the page it was cut from and the point being
that Glen livet was a "area" (appellation) which is what many others have said here too(including you)
Sometimes D`sypher comes of a bit agressive but he`s not I know because I`m married to him!
I don`t think it fare of you saying that he needs to chill when you didn`t bother to read all the information , hmm next time read it all

[Deactivated Member]

Sorry, A-H--any husband of yours is okay with me. His post read rather aggressive to me, and unfairly so toward The Fachan--let's chalk it up to language differences. (Too much Primus, maybe! ) Clean slate, everybody?

[Ann-Helen]

I knew you had a sense of humor!
Maybe it`s to much primus.(not according to him)

[Muskrat Portage]

D`Sypher
You are a very lucky man, having Ann-Helen for a partner. She drinks SM with you and now we know, the rest of us are just plain jealous. Joy tolerates my drinking any SM around her (EXCEPT smokey peaty ones), yet will never dram with me.
Or... is A-H lucky to have you for a partner....hmmm
Muskrat

[mannyCA]

the bottling is
Glen Grant-Glenlivet 16yo Feb1980/Dec1996 (52.6% Cadenheads Authentic; Matured in Oak)

so if i'm getting this correctly, the Glenlivet tag is just an appellation designation, like cognac or champagne.
fascinating.
anyone know if any other appellations have been used.
sort of like an untrademarked regional name that 30-40 years ago was 'public domain' so to speak.

[Deactivated Member]

There are regional designations like Islay or Campbeltown, of course, but I think this is the only thing of this sort that has cropped up, for the reasons I outlined in the tale about George IV above.

[kallaskander]

Hi there,

if it is a Cadenhead bottling it is named with the old -Glenlivet add on in the name because Cadenhead`s name the distilleries they bottle malts from in this well sort of achaic way.
Far away distilleries like Longmorn Aberlour Glenfarclas and even Macallan used the -Glenlivet but never as a regional disclaimer but as a mark of quality and to profit from that big name.
Glenlivet is not a regional designation as only three distilleries have any claim to state a connection with the Glen of the Livet. Glenlivet itself, Tamnavulin and Tomintoul which lies in the Glenlivet District. I doubt that any distillery would be welcome to use the -Glenlivet anymore to distinguish the location especially when it has no connection to the actual area. In fact none does, it is only the IBs who do. The SWA would probably not like it.
The Glenlivet legacy might mean the fact that the -Glenlivet was once a kind of appelation which it no longer is.

Greetings
kallaskander

[Mustardhead]

I used to buy Dufftown Glenlivet 8 year old malt in the mid-1980s. As far as I know that was a distillery bottling. It had a hideous read and black label with the same size lettering for the words Dufftown and Glenlivet. Not sure whether this is in any way relevant

[vitara7]

it was all just done in the old days as a way of piggy backing on the "the glenlivet" whisky. in the hope that folk would get mixed up.

[kallaskander]

Hi there,

I emailed Mr MacLean with the question when Speyside was generally know as Glenlivet. Here his answer.

Dear Gunther,

...

I have been ransacking my library to find out when the term 'Speyside' came into popular usage, but have been able to find a definitive answer. All I can tell you is that the word is absent from the indexes of whisky books published before about 1970 - although Proefessor RJS McDowell ['The Whiskies of Scotland', 1967] supplies a map (p.16) entitled 'Detail of the Speyside Distilleries' in his chapter 'The Glenlivets and Their Likes'.

A few points.
1. 'The Real Glenlivet' (i.e. George Smith) was being sold in Edinburgh
in the 1820s
2. Smith's Glenlivet was the first branded whisky (as 'Usher's Old
Vatted Glenlivet' - 1857)
3. Such was the reputation of the make that 23 other distillers used
the name, from as far distant as
Tomatin and Aultmore. On the petition of John G. Smith in 1880, they
were constrained by law to use the word as a
suffix only (Glenburgie-Glenlivet, Macallan-Glenlivet, etc)
4. By 1968, when McDowell was writing 'the DCL distilleries have given
up the name Glenlivet'. This has continued,
so now nobody uses it as a brand name, although it may remain as a
company name.

I hope this is helpful!

Charles MacLean

As always he is a fountain of knowledge. The question wether Speyside was known as Glenlivet is not answered clearly but as I take it Glenlivet was taken as a regional description of Speyside malts "and their likes". If we drew a map with the locations of all the 23 distilleries that used the -Glenlivet we would have an area much larger than todays Speyside. Anyway, Speyside plays a role in the whisky world mostly today and even in that usage it has no clear boundaries.

Greetings
kallaskander