TL;DR: Second distillery visit during the Spirit of Speyside: another workhorse, owned by Diageo this time, Dailuaine! Contrary to Tamnavulin, we know their malt mostly thanks to independent bottlers, as most of the production goes into blends. The tour was great, although it felt like visiting a distillery after a zombie apocalypse.

(missed Part 1?)

After the visit at Tamnavulin, we had only 45 minutes before our second visit of the day at another distillery usually closed to public: Dailuaine. Fortunately, the drive was only 25-ish minutes, and because we knew we were tight with time, in the morning we had prepared sandwiches, so we could have a quick lunch. Everything went fine, we drove from Tamnavulin to Ballindalloch, and before Aberlour we turned left, with the distillery being mid-way between the main road and the village of Carron. We had run through this village during the Dramathon, admiring the recently built Dalmunach distillery (on the site where Imperial used to be), but despite being the n-th time in Speyside, we had never driven there, so we didn’t quite know what to expect. As we drove downhill form the A95, we found Dailuaine distillery on the left, spotting their big warehouses, almost terraced to cope with the slope. 

In the courtyard, we noted how massive is the site: the warehouses on the left, a small house (will turn out to be offices) on the right, and behind it the huge production building. As soon as we parked, a guy asked us if we were there for the tour, and because it was starting to rain, he told us to go inside and wait for him. He turned out to be Archie, the distillery manager, quite a character who made our visit unique! In the office, all visitors could sit around a table, and as we started, Archie poured some filter coffee and gave us some brownie squares – a very nice touch. He told us about his career before landing on this job, a few years before, and explained the history of the distillery. It was founded in 1852, and in 1925 it was acquired by Distillery Company Limited (or DCL, one of Diageo previous incarnations). He showed old pictures of the distillery, which testified how the staff numbers decreased over time, to the current handful of operators (2.5). Sad but understandable. He also told us that the warehouses on site are empty, quite a surprise to us given their size. 

Soon after we went back outside and started the tour. On site, there is still a dark grain plant, which until 2018, when it was closed, used to process draff and pot ale (leftovers from mashing and distilling) to make cattle feed. As we moved inside the production building, we couldn’t help but notice how big the spaces are, and how empty they look too! As technology advanced, less and less space was required for the production. Also, part of it moved away, in particular malting and cask filling, as currently all the newmake spirit is put in tankers and shipped to Diageo’s sites in the central belt. As a matter of fact, one of the most surprising parts was the huge malting floor, so big you could use it for a sizeable concert! They used to have Saladin boxes, a short-lived mid-20^th century innovation replacing the need of hand-shovel the barley while malting, which was soon replaced by maltings drums. These big empty spaces gave us almost an eerie feeling, maybe we were influenced by The Last of Us TV series, but this really looked like a distillery in the post zombie apocalypse era. Decadent, but fascinating. 

Empty spaces apart, the production is very modern and all controlled by computers (although they still carry out manual checks). They have a closed mash-tun, 8 wooden and 2 steel washbacks (the latter outside the building), and 3 pair of pot stills (with copper shell-and-tube condensers). The distillery produces over 3 million litres of alcohol per year, placing it among the medium-big ones.

As we visited the fermentation room, Archie made us find three samples of wash for us to smell (not to drink!!), collected at different times: 1, 15 and 45 hours after fermentation started (overall fermentation is about 46 hours for a nutty style). Very nerdy and interesting. There, he was helped by Kyle, a distillery operator from Knockando distillery, deployed at Dailuaine as Knockando is currently closed. He also explained us how the system works in the stills room, answering all our (many) questions. We finally visited the “filling store”, basically a tank with newmake spirit waiting for tanker truck to take it away. 

After the tour, it was time for the tasting! One of the offices was set up as a tasting room with a pop-up shop too (which turned out to be common to all Diageo distilleries we visited during the festival). As we got in, we were offered a cocktail: a variation of the Old-fashioned, made with Dailuaine 16 (of course) and orange bitters (instead of Angostura): very tasty! The drams at the tasting were three (four including the cocktail), a bit stingy for an 80-quid tour. We started with the Dailuaine 16 (43%), the Flora and Fauna bottle with the badger on the label. Second dram, another Dailuaine, a cask sample vintage 2010 usually offered in tastings at Cardhu distillery: a truly delicious dram, one of the best we tried during the festival. Finally, for some reason there was a Benrinnes 15, again from the Flora and Fauna range. 

As we came out from the distillery we drove to another, Dalmunach, just to take a couple of pictures: we already knew from the glimpse while running the Dramathon, but that is a stunning one! After paying a visit to the GlenAllachie shop (we didn’t have any event booked there, so….), we found a spot for the night, a small parking lot near a church. The weather was a bit crappy, so we cooked something in the campervan and caught up with the drivers drams collected during the day: both the Tamnavulin and Dailuaine cask samples were quite great. 

Dailuaine distillery really impressed us, it was like experiencing tradition and progress at the same time, and Archie was truly a great host! Throughout the festival, we also noted that, there is something different about distilleries normally closed to the public compared to the others: they are not “sweetened” to look like tourist attractions. The ultimate whisky nerd paradise!

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Dailuaine Tour (Spirit of Speyside)

Price: £80.00 pp (April 2023)

Duration: 2hr

Tasting:  a cocktail and 3 drams, Dailuaine 16 (43%), cask sample and Benrinnes 15 (43%)

Target: whisky enthusiasts

Value for money: too pricey

Highlights: Archie was a great host!

Recommended: if you are really really keen to visit

Link: https://www.spiritofspeyside.com/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dailuaine_distillery

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