Scotland 2017, day 4

This was the only day of the trip where I squeezed three distillery tours into one day. My intention was to visit all of the distilleries north of Inverness, assuming that I wouldn’t be back in this remote, northernmost part of Scotland any time soon. I was trying to limit myself to two per day, but the timing of the optimal ferry transit to Orkney for the weekend meant that I would have to take an extra tour today if I wanted to make it to all of the distilleries in this area.

The previous night was spent in Tain. I had arrived late in the evening and only went out for dinner and a few whiskies at establishments that were close to my lodgings. It was hard to get a sense of the town from that limited view, but it seems like a decent place with lots of tightly spaced stone construction. Most businesses seem to close quite early here though; nightlife is definitely limited.

Glenmorangie is located in Tain, a short distance from the populated section of the town. Balblair and Dalmore are both within reasonable driving distance. These distilleries have limited space on their tours (some more so than others), so I made sure to book tours in advance. The schedule of tours offered at each of the three varied and it took a little bit of calculating with drive times to figure out how I would make it to each of them. Even though Glenmorangie was very close to where I was staying, probably within walking distance, the most logical way to see them was by making an anticlockwise loop with an 11:00 at Balblair, a 1:00 at Dalmore and a 3:00 at Glenmorangie. From there I would head north to stay in Wick for the night.

Balblair has modern visitor facilities, but the distillery itself has kind of and old-school, working man’s feel to it. Function takes precedence over form here, but I don’t mean that is a bad way. After assembling in the small visitor center we moved over to a different building where the shop and tasting room were located in the old maltings. You could actually see the underside of the old barley steeping tanks as well as the valves that controlled the flow of water into them.

Unfettered photography was allowed at Balblair, much to my approval. So far on this trip that has only been the case at Edradour and Ben Nevis. We were told that the floor maltings ceased in 1976 and that the distillery uses unpeated malt currently. I had noticed a bottle of the 1969 vintage in the shop before we set out and wondered what its peat level might be. When I asked, the guide noted that even when they malted there own barley it was dried with coal rather than peat, but she speculated that if you went back far enough in time it’s like that there was a point where peat was burned in the kilns.

The distillery typically runs 24/7 with its production staff of nine, preferring to keep the production equipment and liquids hot to make the process more efficient. They were cutting back a little this year though, partly to make some repairs and partly because they had over-produced a bit in recent years. I mentioned that I had noticed Balblair being promoted much more heavily in the US in recent years and our guide mentioned that this was a worldwide phenomenon.

There are currently 18,000 to 19,000 casks on site, and they are trying to bring that number down a little. Most years they produce 1.8 million liters of spirit, this year they are shooting for 1.4 million. Of what they produce, 15% goes to single malt and 85% goes to blends.

The fermentation goes for 72 hours in the six Douglas Fir washbacks. We were told that liquid yeast is used to initiate fermentation more quickly. The two bulbous pot stills have a unique look, and it’s reflected in the rounded “B” logo they use.

 
We got to see casks being filled, which isn’t always happening, and had the opportunity to sample a few drops of spirit that the filling man allowed to drop from the nozzle onto our fingers.

All spirit used for single malt is aged on site and primarily in former bourbon barrels. A few sherry casks come into play as well. All of the bottlings are vintage dated, non-chill filtered and bottled at 46%. We tasted the 2005 vintage at the end, but were told that it’s a little atypical of their house style. Three vintages were available in the shop, as well as a cask set up from which you could fill your own bottle. That had been distilled in 2002.

They also had miniatures of the 2005 vintage and the 1990 vintage. I love miniatures, especially when they are higher-end bottlings. Our tour ran a little long and I had a schedule to keep, so I purchased my minis and got on the road.

The drive from Balblair to Dalmore is quite beautiful and a good bit of it is on single track road. Take the back way rather than the A9 if you have the choice, the routes are equidistant.

I did a little research ahead of time and learned that Dalmore has a very strict policy against photography on their tours; to the point where you are asked to leave cameras and phones in your car or in the distillery shop. My email requests to photograph the stills for journalistic purposes were ignored. Many online reviewers were quite upset by the “leave your devices behind” policy. In my mind that’s not really relevant; photography is allowed on the tour or it isn’t. My phone’s presence in my pocket is meaningless.

Tours here are quite limited; no more then 12 in a group and only three groups go out per day, except for the addition of a fourth in the busiest summer months. I get the impression that they turn away a lot of people who don’t plan ahead. In fact I saw it happen to a few people after my tour; apparently the third tour of the day was fully booked. As luck would have it though, I was the only person on the 1:00 tour.

My guide was very knowledgeable and answered my questions with great care and thought. We even spoke to the stillman briefly, as that part of their process is complex and somewhat unusual.

Current production is 4.3 liters of spirit per annum. Unpeated barley is sourced from the Black Isle (the local area of extremely fertile soil) and purchased from Bairds Maltings. The traditional floor maltings most likely ceased in the 1960’s when production was greatly expanded.

Like Balblair, Dalmore runs 24 hours a day, but they do shut down for 2 to 3 weeks when the salmon are running to ensure sufficient water levels in their source. The mash tun runs on a seven hour cycle, putting 48,000 liters of wash into each of the 60,000 liter wash backs. There are eight of those, allowing for a fermentation cycle of 50 hours. Liquid yeast is used here as well.

The still house is what makes Dalmore really different. There are eight stills, but each of them is unique in shape and size. The original two were installed in 1839. When they were delivered it was determined that the wash still was too tall to get in the building, so the top of the still was removed and a flat panel put in its place. The neck comes out of the side of the upper portion of the still. The spirit still has a copper jacket around its upper portion and in between there is a copper coil that cooling water runs through. This causes reflux during distillation, effectively increasing the height of the still. I’m not sure if this was the intended design or a modification to shorten the still so it would fit in the building but allowing it to produce the desired style of spirit.

A second set of stills was added 20 years later. They are similar in size and shape but not identical. When the distillery expanded in the 1960’s, two more pairs of stills were added. They are notably larger than the first two pairs, but of similar design. Like the older stills, the newer sets are similar to each other in size and shape, but with easily visible differences.

To make a consistent product they use what they call an unbalanced system. Low wines are combined together from all four wash stills before that liquid is used to charge the spirit stills. Then, new make from all four spirit stills is mixed together before it is filled into casks. 20 percent of production goes to single malt and 65,000 barrels are aging on-site. The tour ended back at the tasting room with a sample of the flagship 12 year old. Other drams could be purchased as well, so I had a wee bit of their King Alexander III bottling which sees time in six different types of casks.

The drive back up to Glenmorangie is only about 20 minutes, so I didn’t have to rush out after the tour. The visitor carpark at Glenmorangie is on higher ground to the left of the distillery. The older stone buildings that you see as you walk down the meandering stairway look quite splendid and don’t show any of the mechanical infrastructure that is part of any distillery. That has all been hidden out of site, along with the more industrial looking buildings that only show in the distance from a few viewpoints. It’s the same with the warehouses; the tourist are kept to the end of the grounds where the old dunnage style warehouse are, but further away and mostly out of site are more modern warehouses where barrels are stored vertically 11 high.

I was surprised to learn that photography wasn’t allowed on this tour. When I was at Ardbeg five years ago we were allowed to take pictures without any restrictions. The two distilleries have the same parent company and I had assumed that such policies were made on the corporate level.

The distillery dates to 1843, but has been expanded many times over the years. The original pagoda roof from the old maltings is still there, but the old kiln space is now occupied by the mill. 12 large stainless steel washbacks and the massive stainless steel mash tun that feeds them are located where the malting floors used to be. The building has modern steel construction inside and I believe only the outer walls are original at this point. Barley malting on site ended in 1977. The current malt, which is all sourced from Scotland, is peated to just 2 ppm. The source water is unusually hard at Glenmorangie. We have another example of liquid yeast being used, and the fermentation lasts 50 to 55 hours.

When the distillery was started in 1843 the owner purchased used gin stills, which are tall by design. That style has been followed as more stills have been added through the years, and Glenmorangie now has the tallest pot stills in Scotland. The distillery claims to have an unusually tight spirit cut.

We then made our way down to one of the oldest warehouses on site, which dated to 1843. We were told that almost all of the whisky is aged on site, with just a little extra warehousing in another part of Tain, as well as at Clynelish. Almost everything they make is aged in either first-fill or second-fill bourbon barrels, for a minimum of 10 years. Other casks types are only used for finishes or specialty bottlings. They also had four open casks for us to nose; Bourbon, Sherry, Port and Sauternes. None of the distillery’s production is currently going to blends.

We finished at the tasting room with the 10 year old. There was also a menu of drams available for purchase on an individual basis, so I tried the Tusail. This was a limited release made with floor-malted Maris Otter barley.

I spent a good amount of time wandering around photographing the buildings and grounds to let those samples pass through me before the lengthy journey to my next destination. The drive on the A9 along the coast from Tain to Wick is spectacular, especially at this time of year when the Gorse is in full bloom, lighting up the hillsides with patches of golden yellow.

Scotland 2017, day 3

When I was laying out the route for my journey I had two choices to get from Dalwhinnie to Glen Ord; continuing north on the A9 with a stop at Tomatin or a slight detour down to Fort William with a stop at Ben Nevis. I settled on the latter in part because that route would have me driving along the edge of Loch Ness. I also figured that any future trips to Speyside would have me passing reasonably close to Tomatin.

I stayed up quite late writing on the night of Day 2 and got even less sleep than the night before as I had ambitious plans for Day 3. I wanted to get in some hiking on this trip, something which was absent from my original Scotland trip five years prior. I didn’t plan such activities ahead of time because they are somewhat weather dependent, but it’s been beautiful outside since I arrived and I wanted to take advantage of that.

After a little research online and consulting the locals at the pub the night before, I settled on a hearty walk up Glen Nevis to Steall Falls. The road to the trailhead becomes more narrow and undulating as it goes up. Fields of sheep are on both sides and the mountain views are stunning. Eventually this turns to single track road as it climbs in elevation. The road finally ends at a large parking area where the trail begins. It’s steep and rocky with some precipitous drop-offs, but well constructed. Eventually the trail reached a broad, flat area where it continues with a very modest pitch. Steep mountainsides contain this area and the views are wide open.

Steall Falls can be seen in the distance and the trail eventually comes to the best viewing point of this majestic cascade which drops almost 350 feet. A spur trail includes a wire cable bridge over the nearby stream; it’s not for the faint of heart.
 

I spent about an hour and a half on the 2.25 mile trail. It took me some time to get down the lengthy road to town, and it was a little after 12:30 when I reached the distillery. Unfortunate the Ben Nevis website didn’t list specific tour times, so I got there five minutes after one started and would have to wait 40 minutes for the next. I considered skipping it, but changed my mind when I was told that photography would be allowed on the tour (and knowing that wouldn’t be the case at Glen Ord).

Ben Nevis is a bit odd in that they seem to heavily promote their similarly branded blends while almost ignoring their single malt. The source water for the distillery comes from high up on Ben Nevis (Scotland’s highest peak) and is collected in a reservoir in the hills behind the facility. Ben Nevis dates to 1825 and its founder, Long John MacDonald was a descendant of a ruler from the clan of the same name.
 

Unpeated malt is used, and 28 tons of it is delivered by truck three days a week. A two day fermentation takes place in eight washback. Six of them are stainless steel, but two are kept as Douglas Fir for the tourists to see. The distillery produced 1.5 million liters of alcohol last year from its four stills, but a new boiler should allow them to push that figure to 2 million this year.
 

The big surprise here was when the tour guide mentioned something about the methanol being boiled off. I didn’t catch everything he said and asked him to repeat it and threw in a few follow-up questions. He explained that the distillery takes a first cut from the spirit still and puts that into a separate tank. The heart of the run and the tails are then left together and filled into casks. The heads, which is primarily methanol, is then boiled off as a waste product. This seems quite unusual; all of the other distilleries that I’m familiar with cut the heads and the tails, combine them and re-distill them in the next batch that goes through the spirit still. I’ll have to investigate this further.

After the tour we were given a taste of their Nevis Dew Blue Label Blend. This is aged primarily in Sherry casks, bottled at 40% and contains whisky as young as 5 years old. All of the blends produced by the company have had their names updated from Ben Nevis to Nevis Dew to conform to new regulations that don’t allow blends to share names with single malts. I’ve certainly had worse whiskies, but it was nothing to write home about. I can’t quite figure out why they weren’t pouring their flagship 10 year single malt at the end of the tour. I had actually passed it up at the pub the night before on the assumption that I'd have it on the tour.

Time was tight, but I managed to stop for a visit at Urquhart Castle just before the drive north turned away from Lock Ness. 45 minutes was just enough for an expedited tour, but twice that would do the site better justice. The history is fascinating and the site is incredibly picturesque. If you’re there to photograph it, I’d suggest seeking off peak times to minimize tourists in your photos.
 

I made it to Glen Ord just in time for the 5:00 tour. This single malt is bottled under the Singleton brand, something Diageo for three of their single malts, each with its own market. The Glen Ord variant is sold only at the distillery and to the Asian markets.

The distillery is quite large, having gone through a major expansion about five years ago, and now produces 11 million liters of spirit per year. We walked through a mashing and fermenting room with one very large tun and 8 wooden washbacks, each holding 59,000 liters. The tour guide mentioned multiple mash tuns in a way that suggested more than one in addition to the one we saw. He also indicated that there were “many” more washbacks in other buildings. We saw the older still house with its six stills, but were told that the newer one houses an additional eight stills. However many washbacks there are, it's enough to allow the relatively long fermentation time of 72 hours.

The stills had a unique condenser configuration, but I’ll have to follow-up with more information about that. Two old pagoda style roofs indicate the former floor maltings, but now all of the distillery’s malt (unpeated) is supplied by the adjacent Glen Ord Maltings; a large commercial facility that supplies many of Diageo's distilleries.
 

The old dunnage warehouses on site hold 12,000 barrels, but all of the spirit is tankered away for cask entry. Most of it is aged in Diageo’s 3 million barrel facility to the south. The casks in the warehouses here are from a variety of distilleries to spread brand risk in case of fire. Some Glen Ord barrels were there; the guide also mentioned Talisker, and I saw one labeled Mortlach.

I was surprised to learn that only 40% of the whisky produced here goes to blends. It’s amazing that 60% of the production of such a large distillery can go just to the Asian markets. There are three bottlings in the lineup, a 12 year, a 15 year and an 18 year. I was told they are all vattings of sherry casks and bourbon barrels. The 15 is predominantly bourbon barrel aged and the other two are predominantly sherry cask aged, but the 12 year old receives a higher percentage of sherry cask liquid than the 18 year old does.

The tour ended with a taste of the 12 year. It was respectable, but not quite enticing enough to earn a spot in my suitcase. If miniatures of these three malts had been available, I would have snapped them up, probably two of each.

End of the night drams at the Royal Hotel Tain included an Aberlour 15 year at 40% (we get a 16 year instead in the U.S.), a 2006 Glenfarclas at 43% and a Provenance independent bottling of Glen Ord which was an 8 year old at 46%. Details are to follow.

Scotland 2017, day 2

I should start by mentioning that the drink driving laws (that’s what they say over here, rather than the “drunk driving” we are accustomed to in the States) have changed in Scotland since my last visit in 2012. Back then the legal limit was the same as it is at home (though they measure it with different units, which gets a little confusing), but in 2014 the Scottish government lowered the limit to slightly more than half of what it had been.

Many people here seem outright paranoid about the subject, and some are even a little misinformed. I’ve had a few people tell me that it is “zero-tolerance” and even rinsing with mouthwash can get you in trouble. More well-informed people urge reasonable caution. A man of my weight (which is pretty average) can safely have one drink and still drive. Anything beyond that without waiting some time would be a grey area. At Glenturret they had little plastic to-go containers with lids so drivers could take their two tours drams home. I drank one on site and took the other with me, which seemed to greatly worry the tour guide.

The original plan for day two was to take a morning tour of Edradour, follow that with some sort of hiking in the Pitlochry area, make my way over to Dalwhinnie for the last tour of the day and then on to my final destination of Fort William. My plan changed a little when I learned that the distillery maintains a bar that is well stocked with many of their limited bottlings where drams are offered at very reasonable prices (this is only open to visitors who have taken the tour). From the core of Pitlochry it’s about a 2.5 mile drive Edradour. There is a shorter walking route that follows paths in the woods along the Edradour Burn. Half way up that trail is a stunning waterfall called Black Spout. My new plan was to drive to the distillery, take the tour, have a dram at the bar, hike down to the waterfall and photograph it and then hike back up to the car park.

Edradour is a beautiful little distillery which employs many traditional methods in its whisky making. The tour started in the old malt barn, which stopped being used in the 1970’s. Conventional whisky tours reward you for you patience with a dram or two at the end. Edradour starts you off with them (we tasted the flagship 10 year old, as well as Ballachin, their heavily peated offering). It makes much more sense to let the body process the alcohol during the hour long tour when one considers the new drink driving regulations.

We then proceeded through a cross section of the lower portion of the kiln. We were below the mesh floor; a portion of the metal that used to direct the hot air up had been cut away. This gave a very unique perspective. Our guide was quite new and admitted that she was still learning a lot. She may not have had all of the technical details down, but she did notice my heightened sense of interest and the numbers of pictures I was taking. When she brought that up, I told her that I’d been waiting several years to get there and see the Morton’s Refrigerator, and was very excited to be able to watch it operate and photograph it.

I also mentioned that the old cast iron unit had been replaced with the current stainless steel one about eight years ago. At that point, my guide mentioned that the old one was on display on the upper floor of the old malting barn, and offered to take me up there to see it after the tour. My day couldn’t have gotten any better. Actually, it did; she also got me in for a brief chat with the distiller so I could get a little more historical information.

But the big news at Edradour was that the distillery is expanding. A new building is going up on the other side of the burn, essentially mirroring the current warehouse. I believe this will be a combination still house / warehouse, allowing the historic buildings to stay as they are. The architecture looks sympathetic to the existing structures, and they are replicating all of the equipment, including the worm tubs and Morton’s Refrigerator (the distiller mentioned that the replacement one put in eight years ago cost £60,000). The owner of Forsyths of Rothes has been commissioned to replicate the stills, and when the owner came down to inspect the originals he was able to determine that his grand father had built them by hand.

I finished with a beautiful 14 year Cask Strength, Oloroso Sherry matured offering, then made my way down to the Black Spout Waterfall as planned. I even had a bit of time for some shopping in Pitlochry before making the 45 minute drive to Dalwhinnie. I stopped at a traditional sweets shop to pick up a few items which might expand my tasting notes vocabulary (and have a new love for something called tablet). I also stopped into a liquor store called Robertson’s. It was recommended to me by a few people as it has recently switched over almost exclusively to whisky and always has several bottles open for sampling. I tried a store exclusive, which was and independently bottled Blair Athol that was quite young, I think 7 years. It was quite nice, but I noticed a similar 12 year old that was in a 200 ml bottle. I went with that to conserve suitcase space.

Dalwhinnie is another camera-shy Diageo distillery. I’ll be honest and say that the house style doesn’t suit me (I don’t dislike it, I’m more just indifferent toward it. But it is an interesting distillery and if you’re driving to the northwest part of the country you will go by it on the way; so I decided to stop in for a visit.

The distillery is the coldest and highest in Scotland, with an average annual temperature of 6° C (43° F) and an elevation of 1100 feet above sea level. I was on a tour with a large group from Italy, some of whom spoke very little English. The tour guide was covering the basics slowly for them as we stood in a room with just the mash tun. My eyes and my mind wandered, and looking up I realized that we were in an old malt kiln. It had to have been; there would be no other reason to build the style of roof that would lead up to one of the two pagodas that were visible from the outside. Just as I was about to ask, the guide started to explain what the room had originally been.

I’ve been in a couple of kilns and this one was far larger than the other’s I’d seen. I would estimate in at 30x30 feet. There must have been a second one under the other pagoda as well. Dalwhinnie would have had a large capacity even in its early days. The distillery had burned to the ground in 1934, but was rebuilt soon after, so these rooms would date to the mid 1930’s. Malting in-house ceased in 1968. It has never expanded beyond two stills, but they are quite large (17,000 liters and 16,000 liters) and the distillery’s current output is 1.5 million liters per annum.

The worm tubs are another interesting feature. They are very large, and each has 115 meters of copper tubing. They are the more traditional looking wooden vat style, but that wasn’t always the case. The original ones were rectangular cast iron tanks, but those were replaced with modern shell-and tube condensers during a refurbishment in the early 1980’s. After about seven years it was determined that the change had affected the character of the spirit too much (not necessarily making it worse, just different) and they switched back to worm tubs. Presumably they went to the more visually appealing wooden style of tanks because these pieces of equipment are a prominent feature on the front of the building and abut the visitor’s car park.

After a brief pass through a barrel warehouse we went back to the visitor’s center and tasted two samples. The flagship 15 year old and a relatively new release called Winter’s Gold. This is made from distillate produced between October and March, when the water running though the worm tubs is a little colder and their effect is enhanced (the spirit condenses faster, further reducing copper contact). This bottling is a marriage of sherry and bourbon casks. It bears no age statement, but is said to be less than 8 years old.

The visitor’s center has a nice selection of whiskies on offer for drams to purchase after (or instead of) the tour; the 15 year, the Distiller’s Edition, a distillery only bottling, the Winter’s Gold, a 25 year limited release and a bottle of cask strength (which was filled just for samples, that’s not a bottle that can be purchased anywhere. The 25 year was bottling in 2012, dating it to the period when the worm tubs were absent and making it an interesting anomaly.

I took the last tour at 4:00 and the visitor’s center closes at 4:45. The tour takes about 45 minutes, so there’s no chance for people taking the last tour to sample the above mentioned offerings (unless they had the foresight to do so beforehand). You would think they would keep the place open for 15 more minutes for those who take the last tour of the day.

My evening in Fort William did include a few interesting drams, but it’s late and I’m going to pack a lot in tomorrow, so that will have to wait for a follow-up.

Edit: I should keep tabs on what I drank at the pub each night just to keep a record, even if I follow up later with tasting notes or other details. In the case of night two, I ended up having dinner and a few drinks at a pub called Grog and Gruel, This is on High Street, Fort William’s brick-paved, pedestrian marketplace. After dinner drams included Longmorn, The Distiller’s Choice and Bunnahabhain, Ceobanach.

 

Scotland 2017, day 1

A Sunday night flight out of Boston and a short layover in Reykjavik, Iceland had me land in Glasgow mid to late morning today (Monday). There were some variables in timing after my arrival that I could not control, so I had planned tours at two distilleries that I was curious about, but would be okay if I missed one of them. These were somewhat obscure distilleries that just happened to be on my path of travel.

My plan to reach the Orkney Islands by the weekend meant that I would meander north-ward by about two hours a day. That had me staying in Pitlochry on the day of my journey. This small, quaint village showcases many old, stone buildings which are tightly spaced on narrow roads cut across the hillside that rises up above the River Tummel. Further north lay the mountains of Cairngorm National Park.

If I slept on my flights over it was for less than five minutes, leaving me a little foggy headed for the afternoon. The line to get through customs at the airport was painfully long and slow, and I could feel it eating into my distillery tour time. Once that was through and my luggage had been retrieved, I was met by a kindly rental car agent who gave me a free upgrade after I regaled him with tales of my intended journey.

Left-handed driving requires a bit of an adjustment period and on the highways around the airport isn’t exactly the best place for that to happen. The roundabouts are particularly daunting. Needless to say, I didn’t make great time as I moved north toward my first destination; the Glenturret distillery. I pulled in just after 1:30, which had been my goal, with the assumption that they gave tours regularly on the half hour. I was correct, and they let me join on to a small group a few minutes after their tour began.

This southern Highland distillery is located in Crieff, a little more than half way from Glasgow to Pitlochry. The guide was quite informative and I learned a lot from her, but I’ll follow up with most of that when I taste the 10 year old miniature which I acquired at their shop. The distillery is owned by the Edrington Group, who also owns Highland Park, Glenrothes and Macallan.

Glenturret is company’s least known and least promoted distillery, but it’s the closest to the population centers of Glasgow and Edinburgh. For that reason, it’s not surprising that the company has made it the home of their Famous Grouse blend. While 90% of the distillery’s output goes into the Famous Grouse, the tiny facillity only makes 170,000 liters per year, so it still may not be the blend’s most prominent single malt. Sadly, a company-wide policy prohibits photography inside their distilleries, so images will be lacking here.

The other interesting fact I learned was that Glenturret uses unpeated barley malt for half of the year and moderately peated (9 to 10 ppm) for the rest of the year. Glenturret single malts are only sold at the distillery, online, and in a few specialty stores. We were treated to small samples of their peated bottling as well as their Triple Wood, which is aged in Bourbon barrels, American Oak Sherry casks and European Oak Sherry casks. Both were quite tasty.

By the time I purchased a few miniatures and took a few pictures around the grounds, it was after 3:00. I pushed the little Peugeot 208 pretty hard along the narrow winding road going north, even giving the passenger side tires a hard rub on the curb when some oncoming traffic got a little too close on a tight turn.

But I did get to Blair Athol just in time to catch the last tour of the day at 4:00. This distillery is on the southeast edge of Pitlochry. Owned by Diageo and an adherent to their strict anti-photography policy, images will again be lacking here (in spite of my attempts to make arrangements in advance). Like Glenturret, this is a beautifully picturesque old distillery with a complex of interconnected buildings.

In this case though, production is much higher, at 3 million liters per annum. Only 0.3% of that is bottling as single malt which equates to 10 to12 thousand bottles per year. Most of that is sold in the distillery shop as a 12 year old.. The whisky from Blair Athol is a major contributor to the Bell’s Blend, with 26% of production going to it (and the rest going into other blends). As such, the distillery is the home to the Bell’s brand, though it’s not promoted there to the same extent that Famous Grouse is at Glenturret.

We tasted the 12 year old distillery bottling at the end of the tour. It was quite nice, but I plan to follow up with another sample and more production details in the future.

Once I’d settled into my lodgings, it was time for a much needed meal. I went to The Old Mill Inn in the heart of Pitlochry, at the suggestion of the B&B owner where I was staying. Wanting to jump right into tradition, I went with the haggis stuffed chicken. A wee little pudding (I say that sarcastically) for dessert still left a little room for whisky. The bar had a well rounded selection of about 40 single malts. Most of them were the flagship offerings of the distilleries they represented, but there was a wide array from the nearby Edradour distillery. Close to a dozen of her specialty bottlings lined the shelf.

I started off with a bottling called The Fairy Flag, which was aged for 15 years and bottled at 46%. It was nutty, malty and sherry fruit driven, as you would expect from the house style. Compared to the Flagship 10 year old, which I reviewed here, it was more full and bold, and it was drier with more of a spice driven character. The spice was fairly dominant on the middle of the finish, but very late in the finish a nutty oaky character came to the fore.

I finished with a single cask, sherry butt matured 10 year old which was bottled at 60%. This one was a beast, with big, brash sherry fruit that came crashing down in waves. Somehow, thought, it kept an even keel. I can’t wait to tour the distillery in the morning.

Scotland 2017, an introduction

Five years ago, almost to the day, I was mid-way through my inaugural visit to Scotland. On that Sunday I journeyed by car and ferry from Islay to Campbeltown, on the southern tip of the Kintyre peninsula. Now, on this Sunday, I fly from Boston to Glasgow for my long-overdue return to the heartland of Europe’s distilling industry.

Springbank’s Whisky School was the impetus for the original pilgrimage. With one week already occupied, I only had to plan out an itinerary for the other week that I added on to the trip. A stay on Islay was an obvious choice since I’d be driving right past the ferry terminal as I made my way south. Wanting to see something a little off the beaten path (in terms of whisky tourism at least), I soon decided to spend a few nights in Tobermory (with its namesake distillery), on the Isle of Mull. A few distillery tours and a night in Oban on the way there rounded out my plans and then I just had to make a schedule of tours for the days on Islay.

This time around it was a little different; I was starting with a blank slate. The only must-see distilleries for me were Edradour and Glenfarclas. With so many options available and a full two weeks to work with, I found myself in a terrible state of indecisiveness. I considered focusing almost exclusively on Speyside, but I soon realized that even though the area is dense with distilleries, many of them do not offer tours. Feeling the need for some structure to work around, I finally opted to include an island expedition. The general plan was to head north, so all the way to the Orkney Islands I would go.

After that it was just a matter of planning out a route north that would allow me to tour a few distilleries each day while not involving more than a few hours of driving between the overnight stays. Once I got back to the mainland I could camp out in Speyside for several days, then finally head south for one last night closer to the airport.

Countless hours were spent pouring over distillery web sites to find tour schedules, getting drive times from Google maps, reserving appropriate lodging, booking ferry travel and even researching some non-whisky related tourism. It got a bit overwhelming at points, but I think I’ve put together an itinerary that would make Alfred Barnard proud.

My intent is make daily posts on the blog, but not to spend too much time writing. I’m hoping to put up a brief recap of each day; where I went, what I saw and did, and most importantly what I drank, along with a few photos. In the ensuing months I’ll follow up with posts that go into much greater detail. I’ll be visiting distilleries that are very well-known as well as some that keep a much lower profile. I also have a few special tours lined up that I’m really excited about. I hope you’ll follow along.

Whiskey Road Trip, Frankfort - part 4

On the last night I would be staying in Frankfort, Kentucky, I was at Capital Cellars a little beyond their official closing time of 9:00. By the time I made my way over to Serafini it was probably getting close to 9:30, but fortunately they serve food until 10:00. Once I had settled in with dinner and a beer, the server who had originally waited on me let me know that her shift was ending and that she would be passing my care off to the closing bartender.

At some point he struck up a conversation and enquired about where I was visiting from and the nature of my journey. When I mentioned that I was a whiskey tourist he excitedly told me that I should introduce myself to a gentleman who was part of a group of people sitting behind me; he was the second biggest whiskey collector in the county. I was intrigued, but I was also in the middle of making tasting notes for the Old Forester Birthday Bourbon I was sipping on. Not only that, but the group seemed rather large and boisterous and I was feeling semi-introverted, so I decided not to mind the barman’s suggestion.

As time passed, the group dwindled down to the gentleman in question and just a few others. The bartender seemed to know him well and was quite insistent that we meet, finally taking it upon himself to facilitate an introduction. I conceded and made my way over to the high top tables in the bar area. We found common ground with our shared interest in whiskey pretty quickly.  The initial conversation was about our respective collections. My Scotch-heavy, 100-plus bottle quiver was admittedly humble compared to the nearly 1000 bottles of mostly American whiskey he had amassed. He was, however, impressed that I still had a mostly full bottle of E. H. Taylor, Warehouse C Tornado Surviving bourbon, and also seemed appreciative of the rare single malt holdings I mentioned; a 33 year Bruichladdich Legacy and an Ardbeg Airigh Nam Beist among them.

His collection had great depth and breadth, even though a very high percentage of it came from the Buffalo Trace distillery. The one that really caught my attention though was an A. H. Hirsch 16 year old (this is the famous bourbon that was distilled in 1974 at the Michter’s Distillery, near Schaefferstown, PA). The best I could do was mention the notable releases that had already come and gone from my collection; the 10, 12, 15 and 20 old Van Winkle bottlings, the Buffalo Trace Experimental Collection Rediscovered Barrels (17, 19 and 21 years old), and each of the Antique Collection expressions.

The conversation eventually meandered over to my home state. He was exited to learn that I was from Vermont, mentioning that he had visited Burlington over the summer as one of his children was looking at UVM as a prospective college. He had actually eaten dinner in the sister restaurant of the one that I work in and had stayed in the hotel it shares a building with. His trip also included a visit to a whiskey bar I’ve sat at more than once, where he and his wife polished off their bottle of Warehouse C Tornado Surviving bourbon.

It was getting late on a Thursday night, and new friend then asked what I was doing for the next couple of days, intimating that an invitation to examine his collection over the weekend was forthcoming. Sadly, I had to inform him that I was leaving for home in the morning. The clock was nearing midnight, but I needed to be patient to see where this might go. He needled me a little more about the possibility of sticking around a bit longer, but there was no way to extend my stay as I really had to show up for work on Saturday afternoon. I’m not one to try to invite myself over to someone’s house, especially someone I hardly know, but given the circumstances it didn’t seem inappropriate to suggest that I was willing to go see the collection that night, as long as that was amenable to him, and more importantly to his wife.

With spousal approval, my plans to get a good night’s sleep prior to the 15 hour drive home were blown apart. They explained that their house was quite a few miles outside of town, along some winding, narrow back roads. I agreed to follow them carefully after fetching my car from the other end of the block, and we were off. Much like Vermont’s capital city, Montpelier, you don’t have to drive very far out of Frankfort before finding yourself on a dirt road that feels like it’s in the middle of nowhere.

We eventually arrived at our destination and I was welcomed into their spacious, modern home. After a few brief pleasantries were exchanged, glassware was retrieved and a bottle of Thomas H. Handy Rye appeared seemingly from nowhere. The label showed it to be at 132.4 proof, indicating that it was from the 2012 release. We sipped on that beast of a whiskey as the conversation continued on.

At some point, the question was posed; “So, do you want to see the collection?” Of course I did! We made our way to the cellar where two tables (each roughly the size of a ping-pong table) were covered with boxes of whiskey bottles, and more were on the floor for a lack of a better place to put them. Some were packaged individually, others in cases of up to 12 bottles. There seemed to be an endless supply of Pappy Van Winkle 15 year and 20 year bottles. I believe every vintage of the Antique Collection was represented as well as every release from Buffalo Trace’s Experimental Collection and Single Oak Project; multiple bottles of many, if not all of them. Bottlings from the Frankfort-based distillery dominated the collection, but there were plenty of rare and special selections from other American distilleries too.

Then came the grand question; “So, what do you want to drink?” Two weeks earlier I had set off in search of whiskey adventure, but never could have imagined myself in this scenario. With so many splendid choices before me, that was no easy decision. It would have to be something I had never had before, and something I was unlikely to have the opportunity to taste again. I pondered briefly before coyly stating “A. H. Hirsch.” My new friend shook his head and said apologetically “I’m sorry, I can’t open that.” I smiled and told him that I had assumed that would be the answer, but I had to ask. “So, what else do you want to drink?” was the follow-up.

I started sliding bottles out of boxes to examine labels and soon gravitated to the short, 375 ml Experimental Collection bottles. I came across the Rediscovered Barrels bottlings, which I had purchased myself back in 2011. Then I pulled a few that had been made with oats and rice in their mash bills and remembered seeing some not-so-great reviews of them. Finally, something caught my eye; the 23 year old Giant French Oak Barrel bottling (at 135 gallons, this is about 2.5 times the size of a typical bourbon barrel). With my host’s approval, we went back up to the kitchen to crack it open.

We discussed how amazing it was that any American distiller was initiating such experiments back in 1989, and I noted that I had seen a recently filled (maybe 2012) barrel of the same size on the first floor of Warehouse C during my tour of Buffalo Trace earlier in the day. After sipping our way through a healthy pour of that whiskey, a mason jar of clear liquid mysteriously appeared on the kitchen counter. This was allegedly white dog from a distillery somewhere in Kentucky, and from a run that will be used for a special bottling at some point in the future. I have doubts as to the legality of such things, so I’ll only say that is was quite delicious (at least as far as un-aged spirit goes) and leave it at that.

The gentleman’s better half had retired to bed by this point, and our conversation drifted on to the Single Oak Project. He opened a cabinet that was filled with different bottlings of it, all arranged in a lattice style rack, and told me to pick one. Not knowing one of these from the next, I had no idea which one to pick. I was pretty sure the one bottle from this series I had at home carried a double digit number, so I picked #171 just to ensure I didn’t taste something I already had. Just for the record, barrel #171 is a wheat based bourbon which was entered into the barrel at 125 proof and aged in a warehouse with wooden floors. The barrel was charred to #4 and its staves were from the top of the tree, course grained and seasoned for 12 months.

Around 2:00 in the morning the cell phone call came from upstairs; it was time for my generous host to go to bed. All too aware that I may have overstayed my welcome, I apologized (the call had somehow gotten onto speaker-phone), thanked her for their kind hospitality and promised to be out the door in the few short minutes that it would take to finish the whiskey in my glass.

The ever-polite man of the house saw me out, and while we were on the front porch he presented the Experimental Collection bottle we had opened earlier, telling me to take the rest of it. Not wanting to take advantage of the kindness of someone who was at least moderately intoxicated, I politely refused. He insisted and I refused again. By the third offer he was pushing it into the open pocket of my jacket and I finally caved. He did have more than one bottle of almost everything in his collection, so at least knowing that made me feel a little better about accepting it. And, of course, I can now make proper tasting notes to go along with this post.

The nose has lots of shoe polish and saddle leather, subtle vanilla and a delicate hint of fragrant spice.
There’s a maple syrup like sweetness up front, which is soon joined by, and eventually surpassed by round, complex spice notes which are warming but not fiery. Teaberry, vanilla and a touch of nuttiness join the fray as well. The oak becomes more prominent late in the finish, but not to the point of being overwhelming.
The spice notes seem to be primarily from the French oak, but with a minor influence from rye grain as well. This is really good and interesting without getting too exotic.

Interestingly, this bottle is labeled as “whiskey” rather than bourbon, even though it is made with one of Buffalo Trace’s bourbon mash bills. The French oak does not disqualify it from that designation, but the barrel entry proof of 130 does.
 

Thank goodness for modern technology; I only had to touch the saved location of the hotel I was staying at in my GPS and the Garmin’s little purple line guided me safely out of the wilderness.

My departure the next morning was only slightly delayed, but I did have to take a brief detour through the Buffalo Trace Distillery Shop to pick up a bottle of Peychaud’s barrel-aged bitters for a friend. This was a distillery exclusive offering that had been aged in former Sazerac Rye barrels for 140 days and was selling for $17 for a 5 oz bottle.

There was a nice unintended consequence to that little task. If I had left for home from the hotel, the GPS would have put me on I-64 as the quickest route over to I-75. But since I was starting from the north side of town, I was instead led east on US-460, which goes right by the old National Distillers plant at the Forks of Elkhorn. The former home of Old Grand Dad, that facility is now the site of Jim Beam’s bottling operation and finished goods storage, as well as a small number of aging warehouses. It was great to get a little more historical perspective on the way out of town.

Four Roses, 2016 Limited Edition Single Barrel

stats: Kentucky Straight Bourbon, 14 years old, 59.7%, $125

Yesterday was my birthday and I got into some good whiskey, as one would expect. While I still have one more post left to complete the tale of my adventures in Kentucky last year, I’m going to take a brief diversion and talk about what I drank last night. Rather than fretting over what to open from my collection I decided to step out to the local pub, where I knew there was something special on the shelf. This way I wouldn’t have to cook dinner either.

That something special was a bottle of Four Roses 2016 Limited Edition Single Barrel, also known as Elliott’s Select. In a previous post I detailed information about the Four Roses Limited Edition bottlings (both Single Barrel and Small Batch) from their inception through the 2013 vintage. Initially these were releases of about 2000 bottles. They grew as the years rolled on, with the LE Small Batch getting up over 12,000 bottles in 2013 and the LE Single Barrel reaching 4000 bottles that year, before creeping up to 5000 bottles in 2014.

Then came the news that no one wanted to hear in 2015; the annual Limited Edition Single Barrel releases were being suspended. Four Roses had grown in popularity to the point that there just wasn’t enough extra aged stock on hand to support the Limited Edition bottlings in the volume that had become necessary. The company decided to sacrifice the LE Single Barrel offering to ensure the future of the of the LE Small Batch releases. They did, however, announce that going forward there was the possibility of the Limited Edition Single Barrel product occasionally returning for special commemorative bottlings.

And that was exactly what happened in 2016. After Jim Rutledge retired from his position as the Four Roses Master Distiller (which he had held for more than 20 years) in 2015, he was succeeded by the distillery’s Operations Director, Brent Elliot. The company wanted to introduce their new Master Distiller with a special bottling, and chose to revive the Limited Edition Single Barrel for 2016 in his honor.

Many consumers mistakenly assumed that the LE Single Barrel was back for annual releases after a one year hiatus, but Elliot has reaffirmed that it will not be offered every year going forward. There definitely won’t be a 2017 LE Single Barrel; if there was we certainly would have heard about it by now. Also, the duty of commemorative bottling will fall to the LE Small Batch this year; it will honor Al Young’s 50th anniversary with the company. He has served in many roles during his career at Four Roses, but has been the Brand Ambassador for the last 10 years.

The inaugural Limited Edition Single Barrel was actually introduced in 2007 as a tribute to Jim Rutledge, having reached 40 years of service in the Bourbon industry. That release was of just 1442 bottles, while the 2016 version dedicated to Brent Elliot consisted of 10,224 bottles. Coming from roughly 51 individual barrels, it’s no surprise that the proof ranged from about 100 to 120. All of the bottles carry a 14 year age statement and come from the OESK recipe, which uses the 20% rye mashbill and the spicy yeast. This yeast produces a whiskey which is full bodied, slow aging and with a particular spicy quality distinct from that of rye grain. The particular bottle that I’m sampling is on the high end of the proof range, at 119.4 (59.7%).

The nose is full of dense aromas, but without being sharp or volatile. Notes of vanilla, leather, old books and subtle berry fruit are all layered beautifully together.
On the palate there’s a fruitiness up front that’s quickly overshadowed by a wave of complex spice notes. Traditional rye-based spice character combines with spice that is more floral and minty in nature, while balancing oak notes linger in the background.
The spice notes evolve to become more warming and fiery on the lengthy finish.
It’s big and bold, but surprisingly well-composed and approachable for the given proof.