James Allardice founded the Glendronach distillery in 1826 in the Deveron area of highland Scotland, however less than a decade later it was completely destroyed by a fire. Allardice was not put off by this and rebuilt from the ground up, continuing to own the distillery until his death in 1881. Put up for sale by his family, Charles Grant, son of the founder of the famous Glenfiddich distillery, bought it for £9,000.
The Grant family remained in ownership of the distillery until 1957 when Teachers and Sons, makers of the well known blended Scotch whisky, purchased the site. They tripled the number of stills from 2 to 6. Nearly 40 years later however, the distillery was shut down for over 6 years, until 2002 when the site was reopened. Pernod Richard purchased the distillery in 2005, under their Chivas Regal brand, and immediately replaced the last remaining direct coal fired stills in Scotland with indirect steam heated coils. Their ownership was short lived, and in 2008 the distillery changed hands once again when the BenRiach Distillery Company took control. Under the management of the Scotch whisky expert Billy Walker, 15 year old and 18 year old bottlings were added to the standard 12 and 33 year old first introduced under Chivas Regal.
