Chivas Brothers has toasted The Glenlivet master distiller Alan Winchester as he retires after an “illustrious” 48-year career.
The company also announced the appointment of a new team of The Glenlivet makers, comprising distillers and a cask expert who will continue Mr Winchester's legacy.
Mr Winchester moved into an ambassadorial role for its single malt brand in 2018, and his retirement brings the role to an end.
He was also recently honoured with The Spirit of Speyside Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition for his work in the whisky industry.
The Glenlivet’s new distillery manager, Lisa Glen, will be spearheading the new makers team alongside lead distiller, Kevin Reid and Chivas Brothers cask expert, Kevin Balmforth.
Ms Glen began her career as an engineer in the Merchant Navy before becoming a distillery operations technician and later team leader at The Glenlivet, where she oversaw the operations and processes of the plant for eight years.
Mr Winchester entered the industry in 1975 as a distillery guide at the Glenfarclas Distillery and over the following decades held positions at Strathisla, Glen Keith, Aberlour and many more distilleries. In 2002, he was promoted to distilling manager at Chivas Brothers.
Throughout his career, he has represented Chivas Brothers in various industry bodies, in which his roles have included; president at the Management Committee of Malt Distillers Association of Scotland, chairman of the Institute of Brewing and Distilling Scottish Section, and director of Combination of Rothes Distillers.
In 2009, he took on the highly esteemed position of Master Distiller of The Glenlivet.
Mr Winchester said: “Taking on the role of master distiller of The Glenlivet was truly an honour.
“Representing such a revered, quintessential Single Malt has been nothing short of a privilege. It has been a real joy to promote Scotch around the world especially to a new generation of drinkers who have enabled us to broaden the boundaries of what Scotch whisky can be.
“Our audience is constantly evolving their ideas and attitudes which in turn pushes the industry to diversify and innovate the craft in new and interesting ways. The future of Scotch is very bright and I look forward to watching what happens next - with a dram in hand of course.”
Holiday park lodge expected to fetch 'record price' for Scotland
AN up-for sale, lochside holiday park lodge is expected to fetch more than £500,000, which park operator Cove UK believes would be a “record price” for Scotland.
The lodge, which is described as having a “state-of-the-art” kitchen and floor-to-ceiling glass walls, looks out over Loch Lomond.
Gavin Mochan: Labour market figures show UK entering a period of increasing stagnation
UNEMPLOYMENT in Scotland fell to a three-year low in the three months ending March.
According to official data from the Office for National Statistics, published yesterday, unemployment in Scotland has dropped to 3.2 per cent. This is a marked improvement of 0.9 percentage points on the final three months of 2021.
Sign up: You can get the briefing sent direct to your email inbox twice-daily, and Business Week for the weekly round-up on Sunday 👇
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here