MacNair’s Blended Scotch Whisky

MacNair’s is a boutique brand helmed by the celebrated team at The GlenAllachie Distillery. Established in 1857, Harvey MacNair & Company Limited was a Glasgow-based blending house created by Harvey MacNair, Victorian globetrotter, raconteur, and sometimes distiller. The brand was acquired by Pernod Ricard in 2005, but as the company focused its efforts on other well-known labels, MacNair’s eponymous blend, MacNair’s Special Reserve, was relegated to the sidelines and finally, discontinued. When Billy Walker, Graham Stevenson, and Trisha Savage purchased The GlenAllachie in 2017, they also acquired MacNair’s (along with the malt & grain blended label, White Heather).

Lum Reek, the MacNair’s lineup of heavily peated blends, has an origin story befitting Harvey MacNair’s playful legacy. The story goes: on an autumn evening after a day’s fishing, MacNair was sipping whisky in a simple stone shelter (near The GlenAllachie, no less) when a blocked chimney filled the room with smoke. MacNair was delighted with the taste the smoke imparted on his dram.

Today, GlenAllachie Master Distiller Billy Walker has blended a modern interpretation of Lum Reek, using older stocks of GlenAllachie spirit married with Islay and Speyside malt whiskies to create a rich and peat-forward blend.

“Lang may yer lum reek,” translating to, “long may your chimney smoke,” is a traditional Scottish way of wishing someone a long and healthy life.

Read more about The GlenAllachie Single Malts, the distillery’s peated single malt, Meikle Tòir, or its blended malt & grain label, White Heather.