Buy rare and selected Lochside Highland Single Malt Scotch Whisky online

The Lochside distillery has an unusual history, as it did not start out as a distillery. The location in Montrose, a coastal town in the Eastern Highlands of Scotland, was originally home of a large brewery (Deuchars Brewery) with a history dating back to the 19th century. In 1957, the disused brewery was bought by Joseph Hobbs (Macnab Distilleries Ltd.) and converted into a distillery. He initially installed a Coffey still over 20 meters high, a plant for the cost-effective production of grain whisky, which was the distillery s only product for the first few years. Subsequently, two wash stills and two spirit stills were purchased, which enabled the production of malt whisky. This enabled the distillery to produce what is known as single blend, i.e. blended malt whisky, in which the malt content and the grain content come from the same distillery. The water required came from a groundwater spring.
Under McNab, the distillery operated extremely well and even had its own bottling plant, which was rather unusual at the time. The distillery was initially managed by the legendary Joseph W. Hobbs, the owner of the Ben Nevis distillery and an extremely well-known and experienced distiller. After Hobbs death in 1964, his son Joe took over control of Lochside. He looked after the site until production was stopped in 1971 and the distillery was put up for sale. In 1973, the distillery was taken over by the Spanish company Destilerias y Crianza del Whisky and a small part of the production was used for their Spanish blended whisky. The production of grain whisky was discontinued. The distillery was closed in 1992 and sold to Allied Domecq in 1994. The distillery ultimately belonged to the French group Ricard Pernod through the various interrelationships between the large corporations. The latter wanted to sell Lochside in 1991 because the distillery was in urgent need of renovation. However, as no buyer was found, the business was closed. In 1997, the warehouses were demolished and the stills dismantled. In 2005, a fire partially destroyed the remaining buildings of the distillery and through the merger of Allied Domecq, the Chivas Brothers became the new owners of the distillery, who had the remaining buildings completely demolished in the same year. Today, a housing estate stands on the former site.
The whiskies from the Lochside distillery were predominantly matured in ex-bourbon casks and are considered by connoisseurs to be quite fruity, elegant and yet dry with a sometimes slightly tart or firm character with the classic Highland style and a certain finesse.
Most of the Lochside single malts available today come from independent bottlers (Gordon and MacPhail, Signatory Vintage, Cadenhead, Douglas Laing and others) and the bottlings are becoming increasingly rare due to the closure and demolition of the distillery and are correspondingly sought-after and often expensive.