Glen Turner Company

Grain and malt whisky distiller and blender owned by French group La Martiniquaise.

Although France’s La Martiniquaise group was founded in 1934, it didn’t start working with Scotch until 1969 when it launched the Label 5 blended whisky brand. It established the Glen Turner Blending Company in 1981 to manage Label 5 and later the Glen Turner ‘pure malt’ brand. The company changed its name in 2001 to the Glen Turner Distillery Ltd, which began a period of rapid expansion for the French company in Scotch. The group established the First Blending Company in 2004 as a subsidiary to build and operate a huge 28-hectare maturation, blending and bottling facility in Bathgate, Edinburgh. In 2008 Glen Turner purchased the Glen Moray distillery from the Glenmorangie Company, which has been a core component of its Label 5 blend. By then, work had already begun building a grain distillery at the Bathgate site – Scotland’s first for 40 years. Starlaw distillery opened in 2010 and its whisky is now being used as a filling for Label 5 and Sir Edward’s. The opening of Starlaw prompted another name change for the group to the Glen Turner Company.