Glen Albyn Distillery Log Books

 

One of the most fascinating and detailed finds when researching Glen Albyn, are the log books such as above. These record any requests that required approval from the onsite Customs & Excise representative of the government. 

There are two books within the Highland Archives resources relating to Glen Albyn. These date from 1923 until 1939, before joint entries were recorded in the Glen Mhor equivalent book from about 1939 with the advent of war and the sites being mothballed. When the Excise operation in Inverness became more centralised in the late 1960s, rather than having individuals on site, the existence of these books came to an end.

The logs are held at the Highland Archives Centre in Inverness (HCA/D31/4/1/23 and HCA/D31/4/1/24) and I'm thankful for access to these incredible resources. As the pages have been relatively undisturbed for decades, this research project will go through each entry and debate its contents. This will shed new light on life at a relatively undocumented distillery and give us insight into its workings. Particularly during the 20s and 30s, which are largely undocumented times for most Scottish distilleries. Our timeline will also be updated with any entries of note. 

My thanks also go out to Alan Winchester for his insightful thoughts on these entries from a distilling perspective.

As I'm still in the process of obtaining approval for any photographic images of the entries themselves, these won't appear online, only the transcripts for now, and our thoughts. 

The exciting news is that I can confirm we will be seeing more of the wonderful Gilbert W. Peterkin and his excise entries that proved so informative during his Glen Mhor residency.

(coming in 2025)