#27.5 Speycation

The one when we made it to 70 distilleries

TL;DR: And finally, we got to 70 distilleries! The lucky one was the Cairn, a new and very modern distillery in the Cairngorms, right outside Grantown on Spey. We went back to Edinburgh the day after, but only after a visit to Dunphail distillery, at the time still a building site.

(missed Part 4/Part 3/Part 2/Part 1?)

Sunday was a long day, we started with Glendronach, followed by a Chivas Regal tasting at Strathisla. In the last post we left you off on the bus, as we were leaving Keith. The last (and final) activity of the day, was a visit to a new distillery (spoiler: it won’t be the newest in this post): the Cairn. It is located in a very beautiful flat spot in the Cairngorms Park, and the building concept is to “mix” with the landscape. It is owned by Gordon & MacPhail (remember the first tasting of the holiday?), and because it’s inside a national park, there are no warehouses on site, they are at Benromach distillery, in Forres (also owned by G&M).

We arrived there 20-30 minutes late on the schedule, it was almost dark outside, but the team were very kindly waiting for us (they will be rewarded, at the end…wink, wink). The building is very modern, almost futuristic, substantially departing from what you’d expect from a typical Speyside distillery. Here the group split in two: some only had drams at the bar, while others (including us) toured the distillery.

By wondering around it, we could see how everything is computerised, so they can run the production with minimal effort. The tour guide, John, was very nice: he took this job recently after a past in the ski industry. Gianluigi (who used to enjoy skiing before rugby took his ACL away…twice) chatted with him a bit about Dolomites ski locations – there are some truly memorable tracks over there!
The touristy part of the distillery, including the video, was a bit cheesy (do they really need a clock to mark how long are we away from a 10-year Cairn whisky?), but thankfully not as much as others we visited in the past.

After the tour we had two drams, both from the range of CRN 57 (57 being the latitude) blended malts, the 12y and 18y. They are bottled at 43%, which at our arrival discouraged us, but we have to admit they are both quite good, in particular the 18y. As a matter of fact, we brought back a bottle of it to share with Gianluigi’s family at Christmas: velvety and easy drinking, chocolate and dried fruit notes, the perfect dram for such an occasion (full disclosure: in Teresa’s family almost no one drinks alcohol, hence no bottle). The range is only available at the distillery, and it is completed by a 25y (43%) and a 30y (51.1%). They were (and hopefully still are) all very well priced, and in fact almost everyone bought a bottle, and quite a few 30y were sold (proving that the distilleries who didn’t reply to our visit requests definitely missed out!).

The Cairn is the 70^th distillery we visited (well, 71^st for Teresa, ahah): hooray! To celebrate we had bought a bottle the day before, a very rare independently bottled Tamnavulin from the Connoisseurs Choice range (by G&M), which we shared with the gang on the bus. We chose it because it ticked all the boxes: cask strength, not chill-filtered, not artificially coloured, 14y of age, full maturation in a refill bourbon barrel, which makes the distillery character emerge (unlike the many Tamnavulin offerings in supermarkets). Creamy, light fruit, vanilla: a great clean and crisp dram! This confirmed our theory, that most scotch single malt distilleries can produce great whisky, and if things go wrong it is usually at bottling…
Back to the hotel, because it was late, we all had dinner at the Fayre Brewer, next door from the hotel. One of our pals, Mark, was disgusted by Gianluigi’s choice to have mashed potatoes instead of chips with his battered fish. That brought lot of laughs, and we even found a name: THE FISHY MASHY! Oh well, that might resemble what we feel as Italians when they put weird toppings ion the pizza!!!

Well, that’s all for our Speycation…oh no, wait! Justine the maverick didn’t leave anything untried, so we had an activity for the Monday morning, on the way back to Edinburgh: the visit to the Dunphail distillery! This is located in, you guess where, Dunphail, just a few miles south of Forres. It is owned by the same company owning the very successful London boutique distillery Bimber. At the time, it was being built: we visited a construction site or “the embryo” of a distillery, if we want to be poetic. We were greeted by Dariusz, who started showing us around. The buildings, which used to be an old farm, were renovated already, and about to be completed (well, structurally speaking): the main distillery building, the malting floor (more about this later) and the shop/visitor centre. A warehouse was there already, where at the time they were keeping their equipment.

There are many reasons to be excited about this project. First, they will have their own malting floor. Considering the current malt shortage (in particular peated malt) this is a very smart move, and they plan to produce both peated and unpeated malt. In the main distillery building, the equipment was about to be fitted inside. They aim for long fermentation (hurray!), and there are going to be three stills: two wash stills (first distillation) and a directly fired spirit still. The reason for the two wash stills is that a single one was too big to fit inside the farmhouse building. At the time, however, the equipment was laying around so we could take a sneak peek at it. We really can’t wait to visit the distillery and try their new-make spirit!

After this, we all said “goodbye” to each other and everyone left towards Edinburgh. It was a very different experience compared to visiting distilleries on our own. While on the one hand we didn’t have much time to explore the area as we usually do, the tours and tastings with such a good bunch of people were definitely much more fun and (because the knowledge of the crowd is always bigger than the individuals’ one) more interesting. We are really looking forward to the next Edinburgh Whisky Group trip.

Until next time, slainte!

The Cairn Explorer Experience

Price: £25.00 pp (October 2022)

Duration: 1hr 30min

Tasting: 2 drams, CRN57 blended malt 12y (43%) and 18y (43%)

Target: Anyone, but whisky geeks might appreciate it more

Value for money: Good

Highlights: the distillery setting

Distillery Exclusives: all the CRN57 blended malt range, 12y (43%), 18y (43%), 25y (43%), 30y (51.9%)

Recommended: only if curious to visit a modern and totally automated distillery

Link: https://www.thecairndistillery.com/

Dunphail Distillery*

Link: https://www.dunphaildistillery.com/

*No summary because it is not open yet!

#27.4 Speycation

Out of Speyside and back:
Elgin-Huntly-Keith

TL;DR: Sunday was a busy day: we started off with a trip to Huntly, to check out Glendronach distillery. After the tour and a very nice (but stingy) tasting, we jumped on the bus again to go to Strathisla, a beautiful distillery where we tried some cask strength Chivas Regal.

(missed Part 3/Part 2/Part 1?)

Sunday was a big day: not one, not two, but three distilleries! Not all of them were in Speyside though. Because of the planning issues we wrote about last week, we had to go outside, but just: Glendronach, in Huntly. This distillery is very popular although some of the recent choices they made, plus a price increase in the releases, are making them being less on geeks’ radars (at least the ones we follow). Nevertheless, their stuff can be really superb – for example, when we visited the distillery in 2021, we tried some great expressions. Similar to Glenallachie, at the time it wasn’t possible to do a tour of the production because of Covid, so the possibility to visit their production this time was definitely a bonus for us.

When we arrived, the weather was still very nice and sunny. They split us up in two groups, one starting off with the tasting, the other with the tour: we were in the latter. Our guide was Vicky, a very funny and knowledgeable lady who had also hosted the sherry masterclass tasting we did in August 2021. The tour started in front of a very old building in the corner on the right with respect to the road coming in. In our understanding, it is one of the first buildings on the site, with a very nice internal courtyard. There, we took a quick look at the milling room with its old malt mill. We moved to the rest of production, which is mostly located in the big windowed building right in front of the parking lot, characterised by a more modern (and not particularly nice) architecture, with the bonus that the stills can be seen from the outside. At the moment they have six stills, with the last four installed in the 60s. However, there are currently plans to have more to increase the production capacity. They have six warehouses on site – we visited one of the three dunnage, just next to the visitor centre.

After the tour, the tasting was waiting for us: five drams, at Justine’s request without any of their regular core range (so NOT the 12, 15, 18 and 21). We started with the Portwood (46%) and the cask strength batch 10 (58.6%). Moving on, we tried one of the distillery bottlings (or fill your own) at the time: a vintage 2012, 10y, matured in an ex-oloroso puncheon (61%, £105). The fourth dram was a 1989 vintage (29y, bottled in 2019), from an ex-PX puncheon (49.9%), while the final was the second distillery bottling: a 1993 vintage (again 29y) from an ex-oloroso puncheon (54.9%, costing an eyewatering £550). The drams were all delicious, however while decanting an extra set that was poured by mistake (to gift the bus driver) we realised that they were only 10ml measures…a bit stingy for the £50 we had paid. At the bar, most of us took another dram: we got one finished in virgin oak (definitely one of the strangest drams we had) and a 12y (vintage 2007) matured in ex-PX cask which was delicious.

Back on the bus, we only had time to grab a meal deal at a big Tesco on the way to our next destination, Strathisla! As we arrived, we remembered how beautiful it was, one of the prettiest distilleries in our opinion. This time we didn’t do a tour (which we had already done it in 2019, together with a blending experience), but a tasting of Chivas Regal, in the warehouse number 3.

The guide gave us a brief introduction about the distillery and its role in being at the core of this very popular blended whisky. Chivas 12 is very popular indeed, in Italy is omnipresent at grannies/aunties houses, and it was during our trips back home that we realised that, compared to its peers (ie ”value blended whiskies”), it is actually not a bad offering. After the introduction, we moved to a caged part of the warehouse, where 5 casks were laid out. We knew these already: as part of our tour in 2019, we could choose two of them to try. These were cask strength expressions of the main Chivas Regal bottlings: the 12y, the Extra (13y), the 18y, the 25y, and the Ultis, which is a blended malt (so without a grain component). However, because of the pandemic, these casks lasted much longer, so we’ve been told by the guide that we needed to add 5 years to each of them…quite a great deal!

The drams were all very good, the 18y (actually a 23y) very chocolatey, reminding us how blended whisky can be great. Unfortunately, none of these were on sale…at the shop the offering was a bit pricey (as in most Pernod Ricard owned distilleries), and because we couldn’t try any, we just gave it a pass. We were surprised that some bottles of 12y single grain from Strathclyde we bought after our visit in 2019 were still there: a sign of how grain whisky is underrated sometimes.

You wouldn’t say we just had 5 cask-strength whiskies…

Back to the bus, we finally headed to the last working distillery visit of the holiday. More about this in our next post, just a tiny clue: the distillery is in Grantown on Spey. Until next week, slainte!

Glendronach Distillery*: https://www.glendronachdistillery.com/
Strathisla Distillery – Home of Chivas*: https://www.maltwhiskydistilleries.com/strathisla/

* No summaries because there experiences were bespoke

#27.3 Speycation

From Glenallachie to the
blend of Doom

TL;DR: Saturday morning we visited a distillery that is special to us, Glenallachie. After an amazing tour and a few drams, we spent the rest of the day walking around Dufftown, enjoying the sun. We finished the day with a sip of the infamous Blend of Doom and a pizza at the Craigellachie Lodge.

(missed Part 2/Part 1?)

That Saturday morning was a very nice one, warm and shiny…We’re told that’s unusual for Speyside in October, but it’s not the first time we got one. After breakfast, we jumped on the bus towards Aberlour (the village, not the distillery again) to reach our next destination: GlenAllachie distillery!

Such a beautiful day for a distillery visit!

We were super excited about that. When we visited it in August 2021, on a much colder and wet day (so much that we couldn’t light up our BBQ in the evening!), it wasn’t possible to tour the facility because of Covid, so we only had a tasting while the guide played us an interesting video. It wasn’t one of those ‘let’s celebrate Scotland’ videos with deer, waterfalls, glens, mist, etc…, but literally a worker filming and explaining production with their phone, so much more interesting in our opinion. This time, we could finally visit production. And mostly, we really like their stuff. We know some whisky geeks are put off by the big use of secondary maturation and finishes, but we love their bottlings anyway and we regard the whisky as top notch, so far it never disappointed.

That morning the distillery was (almost) all for us. Sue, Brenda and Karen warmly welcomed us with a dram, a special one to start with, one we hadn’t tried before: a 15y GlenAllachie finished in Virgin Scottish Oak wood (48%, non-chill filtered, NCF, and not artificially coloured NC). Then, they split us into two groups, to have a bit more space while wondering around: our group started with the tour. We had a look at the usual Porteus Mill, and the huge stainless steel closed mashtun.

The washbacks are made of steel as well, and there are 6 of them. Currently the distillery is running way below capacity, a bit less than a half in our understanding. This started when Billy Walker bought the distillery in 2017, to improve the produced spirit. In particular, fermentation is now about a week long, and they don’t work during weekends. In the still room, two wash stills and two spirit stills were off for the weekend…so we could take a sneak peek inside (just another occasion for a silly photo). Finally, we went to the warehouse to admire the maturing stock and the huge variety of casks (wine, various size of sherry and bourbon, etc.); they laid out not a typical dunnage warehouse, but a racked one.

Back at the visitor centre, we had another two delicious drams in the tasting room: the 16y Present Edition (48%, NCF, NC, Mizunara and Virgin oak) released in celebration of Billy Walker 50 years in the business, and the Glenallachie 21y Batch 2 (51.1%, NCF, NC). Well, it looked like that was it. Instead, we moved upstairs to join the other group, to have two last drams all together. Such a nice touch! The two drams were the bottle-your-own (or distillery casks) on sale at the shop at the time: an 11y ex-oloroso puncheon (60.5%, NCF, NC) and a 16y finished in refill ex-bourbon barrel which held peated whisky before (59.5%, NCF, NC), both amazing (and of course, we came back home with one)!

Overall, this was one of our best distillery tours ever: Sue, Brenda and Karen were all very funny and knowledgeable, and we could see how they love their job. Karen even told us that she followed Billy Walker after he acquired the distillery, after Glenglassaugh was sold to Brown Foreman (together with GlenDronach and Benriach).

Here, we have to make a little digression. Speyside is by far the biggest whisky region, not by size but by number of distilleries and production quantity. Therefore, in the planning phase of the trip, at first it looked like we had a plethora of possibilities that we wouldn’t know where to start, like for a kid going to Disneyworld or Legoland. Unfortunately, it didn’t go down like that, and according to Justine filling the schedule was much harder than prevented. In some cases, she was told that there was personnel shortage. Others still have to come back to her (6 months after…ahahah). This felt really weird and very much in contrast with our first EWG trip to Campbeltown – the smallest whisky region, and by far the smallest production (according to the 2023 Malt Whisky Yearbook the 3 distilleries combined don’t get to 2.5 million litres per annum of alcohol), so with a limited number of available activities. Still, despite this and Covid restrictions at the time, we managed to have a very full schedule fairly quickly (Cadenhead’s warehouse tasting, Springbank, Glengyle, and tastings with Mark Watt from Watt Whisky, Ian McAllister from Glen Scotia and Kyntire gin).

Things you see if you take a walk in Dufftown.

We discussed a few times about this ‘Speyside struggle’ in the group, and probably the main cause was the lack of personnel indeed (thanks Brexit, “the gift that keeps giving”…), but we suspect that some of them just couldn’t be arsed to organise an open day for 22 thirsty whisky enthusiasts. A bit unexpected, but in the end we managed to have a great holiday anyway, as Justine came up with some great surprises for us.

Anyway, all this to say that, as a matter of fact, the Saturday afternoon was free from whisky activities, and we decided to spend it in Dufftown. After a brief lunch in a café near the clock tower (characterised by some quite rude staff), the day was still so nice that a group of us decided to walk around, and we basically repeated Michelle’s walking tour we did in 2019: from the clock tower to Dufftown distillery, then Mortlach, Glendullan and we finished off at Glenfiddich. This time, however, we checked out Balvenie’s castle, which unfortunately was still closed (together with a worrying number of Historic Scotland sites, we later found out). Here our pal Joe opened a Glen Scotia Double Cask rum finish, a novelty of that period, and shared it with us.

Back to the bus, we moved to Craigellachie, and as we had some time to kill before dinner at the Craigellachie Lodge, we went down to the Spey’s bridge where Justine had something “very special” ready for us: THE BLEND OF DOOM!!!

This is a bottle she filled throughout the years with all the whisky samples she tried but didn’t (or couldn’t) finish. It was very funny to see people faces – to Gianluigi it tasted like old bathroom cleaning products, but most people went directly to “piss”. It was truly dire, and almost felt like an initiation ceremony for the Edinburgh Whisky Group. Fortunately, the pizza together with a pint and a dram, bingo and music set things right again in our mouth, so we could go to bed happy again.

GlenAllachie Connoisseurs Tour*
*ours was a bespoke tour, but from the description and price it looks very similar to this one

Price: £50.00 (Oct 2022, now £60)

Duration: 2h

Tasting: 5 drams, 15y Scottish Oak (48%), 16y Mizunara Billy Walker 50^th year anniversary (48%), 21y Batch Two (51.1%), Vintage 2011 11y distillery cask ex-oloroso puncheon (60.5%), Vintage 2006 16y distillery cask ex-peated bourbon barrel (59.5%)

Value for money: very good

Highlights: the guide team was superb, knowledgeable and very funny!

Target: whisky enthusiasts and geeks

Distillery exclusives: there are always two distillery cask bottle-your-own available

Recommended: absolutely!

Link: https://theglenallachie.com/

#27.2 Speycation

Single casks tasting vs. warehouse tasting

TL;DR: Second day of the Edinburgh Whisky Group Speycation! In the morning, we headed to Aberlour distillery where we split into two groups for a single casks tasting. In the afternoon, we went to the (dismissed) Coleburn distillery for a warehouse tasting with Murray & McDavid. We ended the evening at the Windswept brewery, in Lossiemouth, enjoying pints, music, and good company.

(missed Part 1?)

We woke up quite rested on the Friday morning. The day looked very interesting: a tasting at an already known distillery, followed by a warehouse tasting (as we said a few times, always our favourite) and a visit to a brewery…Not bad, eh?

We had a quick breakfast in the room with some food bought the day before. The alternative was a heavy breakfast at the near Brewers Fayre, but we left it for another day, considering we wouldn’t workout nor run for four days, as we are used to. For this and the next couple of days Justine had arranged a bus: Speyside is a big area to cover, and of course if we used our vehicles, at least 5 of us couldn’t have enjoyed the drams along with the others, defeating the purpose of the trip. There weren’t many others options, as public transport in the area is…ehm…(euphemism alert) not the best? And with cabs it would have been way more expensive. The company sent us a young driver, Lyndsay, which was super nice and it turned out she was a whisky fan too (must have been a torture to watch over 20 people getting pished for three days and not being able to have a sip!).

The first visit of the morning was at a distillery we already knew, Aberlour, but that we have overlooked since our visit in 2019, except for a bottle of A’Bunadh which for a while was our “Teresa’s mother house dram”. Reasons being, their other core releases are a bit dull in our opinion, and there are not many independently bottled. The distillery, however, offers many single cask bottlings (the Distillery Collection). This is a feature of all distilleries owned by Chivas Brothers/Pernod Ricard (Glenlivet, Scapa and Strathisla): they have many bottlings from the distillery and sometimes from the others. Only down side: they are 50cl bottles priced like 70cl ones. We personally have nothing against smaller bottles – we like exploring, so smaller bottles allows us to get more variety, in theory a win-win. However, in some cases (included this) we feel like they are just an excuse to sell less at a higher price.

The group had to split in two because they couldn’t accommodate us all at the same time, and we happened to be in the second, so as usual when we are in Aberlour, we had a coffee and a snack at the Gather’n café. Back at the distillery, we were welcomed in a very nice tasting room overlooking the distillery, some of us on chairs, some of us on comfy sofas.

The four drams were in front of us, as well as a small gift: a set of three branded black glasses, very useful for blind tastings. Gianluigi was super happy, Teresa not so much (you have to know that Teresa thinks we have too many whisky glasses in the house and she’s not too keen on more, but no worries Aberlour, you made at least one of us super happy!). The tasting was hosted by Shirley (that’s her name, if memory serves us well!), initially a bit shy, but ultimately very funny and knowledgeable (also, with a family heritage in the whisky industry). The first dram was a 10y from a first fill ex-sherry butt. It was cask strength (CS, 58.3%), of course not-chill filtered (NCF) and not artificially coloured (NCF), like all the drams. It was followed by a delicious 18y from a 2^nd fill (probably ex-bourbon) hogshead (51.6%), a 17y from a first fill ex-sherry butt (58.5%), and finally a quite nice 21y from a 2^nd fill ex-sherry butt (58.9%). A good reminder about how delicious Aberlour can be.

We came out from the distillery quite satisfied, had lunch at a nice café nearby, and after a bit the bus picked us up in the village. The next stop was the now not operational distillery of Coleburn, on the road between Rothes and Elgin. The former distillery’s warehouse is now used by the good folks at Murray McDavid (independent bottler) to store some of their casks. So of course, we were going to do a warehouse tasting, hurray! This is the same type of experience they offer during the Spirit of Speyside festival (by the way, if you look at the picture on the festival webpage, that’s us in the photo in the orange vests!).

So, we spent the following hour and a half wondering around the warehouse, stopping in front of certain casks where Dan and Steve would get some whisky and fill our glasses with a mighty valinch, and happily drinking the drams. First off, a young Caol Ila (about 5y), followed by an old Allt’A-Bhaine, 22y, finished in an octave from Koval distillery. They have a great relationship with this producer from Chicago, and we could see many of their octave casks lying around. After another bit of wandering, we had the third dram, a magnificent Glentauchers from a wine cask (continuing the series of “no” answer to the question “have you ever had a bad Glentauchers?”). Finally, a Glenburgie from a sherry cask (oloroso? We don’t remember exactly), another tasty dram, albeit the winner for both of us was the third one.

Unfortunately, they had no shop on site, so we returned the vests and jumped back on the bus, this time heading to the Windswept Brewery in Lossiemouth. The day was nice, so instead of going straight inside, a small group of us decided to walk to the nearby beach. It was a very nice and relaxed stroll, and at the beach we could see the anti-landing concrete blocks from WWII.

Back at the brewery, we had a couple of nice pints and a not-so-good meal from a local burger joint (won’t name names here, but someone told us they have closed). Spending the evening chit-chatting inside, we realised too late that there was a band playing outside…ouch! Overall, it was a nice close to a very nice day, and we went back to the hotel in Elgin very happy!

Aberlour Single Casks Explored tasting

Price: £40.00 pp (October 2022)

Duration: 1hr

Tasting: 4 drams, all CS, NCF and NC: 10y from a first fill ex-sherry butt (58.3%), 18y from a 2^nd fill (probably ex-bourbon) hogshead (51.6%), 17y from a first fill ex-sherry butt (58.5%), and 21y from a 2^nd fill ex-sherry butt (58.9%), plus three black copitas

Target: Whisky enthusiasts

Value for money: Good

Distillery Exclusive: Most single casks Aberlour bottlings

Recommended: if curious to try non-standard Aberlour’s

Link: https://www.maltwhiskydistilleries.com/aberlour/

Murray McDavid warehouse tasting

Link: https://murray-mcdavid.com/

(No summary because this was a bespoke experience)

#27.1 Speycation

Dramming in Elgin

TL;DR: After the fun of the Edinburgh Whisky Group trip to Campbeltown in 2021, a year later we replicated with another one, but to Speyside! Plenty of whisky activities and fun, starting from Elgin, where we attended a bespoke tasting at G&M and we visited Glen Moray distillery, both great experiences.

During the pandemic, one of the things that helped keep us sane was the very nice people we met after joining the Edinburgh Whisky Group, on Facebook. While the group grew almost exponentially in numbers, during the lockdown a small part of it, mostly spread all over the Lothians (with some exceptions in London and…Norway!), started having regular Zoom whisky tastings. When the restrictions slowly phased out, we started meeting in person for drams, which was very nice and at times surprising (on Zoom we hadn’t figured out that John and Joe were that tall!). And in October 2021, we even went all together to Campbeltown. Storming the Wee Toon was very fun and therefore a big success, so we obviously replicated the experience in 2022. This time, however, the idea came from our brilliant friend Cath (part of the group, of course), to do a Speycation! So, Speyside it shall be!

Left Edinburgh very early, and we still managed to be late!

The plan Justine organised was easy: staying in Elgin (most of us booked a room at the Premier Inn, a good solution to keep us all together although a bit pricier than expected and not that close to the centre), spending the first day there, and then travelling around the region with a rented bus that could fit the entire group of 22 people. The appointment was at 11am for the first activity of the holiday, a tasting at Gordon & MacPhail old shop in Elgin in South St (now undergoing renovation, in our understanding). The travel from Edinburgh or elsewhere was done by car or car sharing. We travelled with Justine and because of a wee late start, a break a wee too long, and a freaking huge and slow truck on the road, we got there late, fortunately just a few minutes.

The tasting was a bespoke one Justine had agreed with them: 5 20ml drams for 50 quid. The drams came from their Connoisseur Choice range, except for the last one, and of course, were all non-chill filtered (NCF), not artificially coloured (NC) and cask strength (CS). We kicked the day off with a delicious 13y Strathmill from a refill ex-bourbon barrel, distilled in 2008 (57.3% abv). This is one of those Diageo’s workhorse distilleries whose product mostly goes into blends (there is a big J&B sign on the road leading to Strathmill distillery in Keith), but we are starting to appreciate it more and more thanks to the Scotch Malt Whisky Society and other independent bottlers. The following dram was again a 13y, distilled in 2008 and from a refill barrel, but was a lightly peated Ardmore (whooping 62.5%), another distillery with little core range these days, but fortunately very prevalent with indy bottlers. The third dram was the best for both of us, a Tormore distilled in 2000, matured for 21y in a first fill ex-bourbon barrel and bottled in 2022 at 58.6%. Tormore is another of those distilleries we’d love to visit. It changed owner recently, from Chivas Brothers (Pernod Ricard) to Elixir Distillers, so we are hoping they’ll open to the public at some point.

The fourth dram was from a demolished distillery in Dufftown: Pittyvaich, distilled in 1993, matured in a refill American hogshead for 29y and bottled in 2022 at 48.6%. Finally, a sherried dram, a Speymalt from Macallan distillery, 20y and 55.9%. A nice one, but it didn’t blow our socks off as we were expecting. Overall it was great tasting, with a good overview of the whisky produced in the area (Ardmore is just outside Speyside), and we particularly appreciated the ex-bourbon casks heavy line-up, which gave us a better idea of the distilleries character.

Lunch was “free”, so we walked towards Elgin main square, where many diners and cafes looked full. We had a very average lunch in a quite anonymous one on the square (we chose a half-empty to be quick…probably it was half-empty for a reason), and we soon walked towards the next destination: Glen Moray distillery.

Glen Moray is one of those we initially underestimated due to their cheap expressions in supermarkets, but that now we are big fan of! And actually, we like them more because of their ability to provide cheap but still decent quality drams, as well as more serious stuff for the whisky nerds, like their Warehouse 1 series, featuring the amazing 8y peated whisky from an ex-PX cask we bought a couple of years ago: a treat! We’d been at the distillery in 2019, only for a (not so) quick tasting though, so visiting the production was a real novelty for us.

We had booked the Intermediate Tour, which included an in-depth visit of the production, followed by a tasting of three of their bottle-your-own casks (all NCF, NC and CS). Emma took us around the distillery, which combines old and new elements, as it underwent recent renovations, including the addition of new shiny mash-tuns. The courtyard is dominated by a huge black silo used as malt storage, which can be spotted from far away, including from the near highway.

A peculiarity is that the wash stills in the old stillhouse, the one right in front of the entrance, have all been converted into spirit stills. The tour ended in the warehouse, where a number of empty (d’oh!) casks were aligned. They used to contain various types of sherry, Sauternes, Bordeaux, Rioja, bourbon, and many others. We nosed all of them, it was definitely interesting to understand how different they can be!

In the café, the three drams were waiting for us: first, a controversial (some people loved it, some definitely didn’t, including us) vintage 2014 (bottled 2022, so 7 or 8y) unpeated whisky from an ex-cognac cask (60.2%). It was followed by a vintage 2006 (so 15 or 16y) in an ex-oloroso sherry cask, definitely a sherry bomb (60.9%). Finally, a 2012 (so 9 or 10y) peated matured in an ex-Rioja red wine cask, another delicious one (58.4%). As a bonus dram, we got another peated, but matured in an ex-Sauternes cask (vintage 2013, 58.9%), of which they still had a few bottles.

After walking back to the centre, we finished the day with a nice meal at the Drouthy Cobbler, a cute restaurant hidden in a small lane near the main square. We finally got to Premier Inn after a quick cab ride, where we had a restful night looking forward to the following days!

Gordon & MacPhail

Link: https://www.gordonandmacphail.com/#

(No summary because this was a bespoke experience)

Glen Moray Intermediate Tour

Price: £35.00 pp (October 2022)

Duration: 1h 30min

Tasting: 3 drams from the current bottle-your-own range, for us Glen Moray Vintage 2014 (7-8y) ex-cognac cask (60.2%), Vintage 2006 (15-16y) ex-oloroso sherry cask(60.9%), Vintage 2012 (9-10y) peated ex-Rioja red wine cask (58.4%)

Target: Whisky enthusiasts and geeks

Value for money: Very good

Highlights: Smelling the empty casks in the warehouse

Distillery Exclusives: Three bottle-your-own casks (see above), and the travel retail range (Elgin Classic, 12y and 15y but bottled at 48%, NCF and NC, and one litre bottles)

Recommended: Yes!

Link: https://www.glenmoray.com/