SCOTCH whisky veteran Billy Walker’s Speyside distilling company has turned over more than £20 million for the first time amid continuing strong growth in international markets.

Mr Walker, who celebrated 50 years in the industry in 2022, hailed the dynamism of the single malt whisky market in the Far East as The GlenAllachie Distillers Company reported turnover of £20.7 million in the year ended December 31, up from £14.8m the year before.

The leap in turnover helped profits rise to £7.7 million from £4.3m, new accounts show.

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Mr Walker, who acquired GlenAllachie in 2017 after he and his partners sold the BenRiach Distillery Company to Brown-Forman for £285m in 2016, declared that “awareness and demand for the [GlenAllachie] brand has increased fantastically” when asked by The Herald to expand on the reasons behind the distiller’s growth.

He pinpointed the expansion of GlenAllachie in the Far East, highlighting “booming” sales in markets such as South Korea, Taiwan, China, Singapore, and Hong Kong, while also highlighting his “big hopes” for the brand in Vietnam. He also noted the brand’s strength in Australia.

“There is a huge dynamic in Asia, not just for GlenAllachie but for the [single malt] category,” Mr Walker said. “GlenAllachie is doing very well within the category. It helps that the whisky on offer goes as high as 30-year-old (the GlenAllachie range also includes 25, 21, 18 and 15-year-old single malts). There is a good spread of vintage whisky in the offer, which also attracts significantly interesting value.”

Mr Walker’s journey in the whisky trade began after he gained a degree in chemistry at the University of Glasgow, and included spells with major names such as Ballantine’s, Inver House, and Burn Stewart before he went his own way with the purchase of the BenRiach Distillery in Speyside in 2002.

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Between then and the eventual sale of the BenRiach Distillery Company in 2016, he had acquired two further distilleries, GlenDronach in the Highlands in 2008, and Glenglassaugh of Speyside in 2013. BenRiach had 165 employees, was turning over £40m and was selling to around 25 global markets when Brown-Forman came calling.

Asked today whether GlenAllachie, which he acquired from Chivas Brothers with Trisha Savage and Graham Stevenson in 2017, was seeing any impact from high interest rates and the cost-of-living crisis, he said: “We don’t see any short-term evidence of that.

"There are so many diverse economies that we are supplying into, where people are not obsessed with property ownership. Perhaps they are less affected by some of the impact of higher interest rates.

“Surprisingly, the UK is doing extremely well for us. We thought maybe that market would have been impacted in the short term, but it is not the case at the moment.”

Mr Walker underlined the importance of the distillery’s visitor centre to the Speyside operation, where the GlenAllachie footprint includes 16 on-site warehouses holding more than 50,000 casks.

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Opened in 2019, the visitor centre draws whisky lovers from all over the world, with many people travelling to the distillery after taking in shows at The Fringe in Edinburgh each August. The distillery is particularly popular with visitors from Japan and the US.

The visitor centre, which was recently refurbished and offers tours and tastings, currently turns over £1m and Mr Walker expressed confidence of lifting that to £2m.

He said: “It is going great. It is a wonderful opportunity to showcase the range. It also gets people familiar with the brand name and indeed the culture of the company.

“Speyside, almost throughout the year, has visitors coming from all over the world. Not having the visitor centre was surely a disadvantage to us in the early part of the business. But it is very popular now. We have worked hard on the visitor centre to make it an interesting and attractive, magnetic experience.”

Meanwhile, Mr Walker said the distiller was planning to release its first peated-style whisky at some stage in the next 10 to 12 weeks. It will be sold under a different brand name while communicating the fact it is distilled by GlenAllachie.

Plans are also afoot to refresh the GlenAllachie brand in early 2024. Mr Walker said: “We have had the brand for about six years. The reach of the brand is excellent, but we just think we could take it on to a new level.”

GlenAllachie also owns the MacNair's and White Heather Scotch whisky brands.