TL; DR: Day two of the whisky school, filling and rolling casks all morning, watching the mashtun being filled, then more cask-rolling into the dunnage and racked warehouses after lunch. Reward came with a Cadenhead’s Warehouse Tasting of eight drams, standouts being a Palo Cortado Benrinnes 11y and old Laphroaig and Bowmore. 

(missed Part 2/Part 1?)

The second day of the school started like the first one: alarm at 6am, breakfast at 7am. That morning we got scrambled eggs and smoked salmon, a favourite of ours! Well fed, we walked to the distillery for the 8am start. It had rained during the night, so everything was wet, however the sun was shining when we arrived. That was pretty much the weather during the whole week, showers here and there, but generally sunny and not too cold…“breezy”, if you want.

Anyway, the first activity of the day was not a heavy one, just watching the steep tank being filled with water while chatting to the staff in the malting floor.

After that, it was time to get serious: our next job was rolling casks! (To note, when the Whisky School is on, the filling day is Tuesday instead of the usual Friday.) A number of casks were already aligned in the courtyard, just outside the filling room: our job was to roll them in, pass them on to “wee Andrew” (“wee” because he’s in his 20s, he’s taller than most of us) who would fill them, and once filled, closing them with a bung. Meanwhile, Gavin was keeping the records on the weight and volume of newmake spirit that went in.

Once closed, we rolled the casks back to the courtyard and wrote down the cask number on the cask end with stencil and white paint. That day the casks were filled with Hazelburn, mostly ex-bourbon barrels, but also some sherry hogsheads.

It was a hard job, especially to get the casks positioned in the right way (with the writings up), but it took us occupied and time went quickly while rotating tasks between the five of us. We took a break for coffee at 10am, and at 11am we went to production to watch the mashtun getting filled. There, Daniel showed us how they regulate the flow of grist and hot water going into the mashtun, in order to maintain the temperature as close as possible to 63.5°C. The stream is regulated with a mechanism manoeuvred by a chain, and a slight movement can make the balance change quite quickly – not an easy job. At noon we went back to the guesthouse for lunch, this time through a shortcut in the backyard, through a scrapyard: almost romantic. A hearty soup (delicious) and sandwiches were waiting for us.

After lunch and a much needed coffee, it was time to roll casks again: this time from the courtyard to the warehouse where the Kilkerran Warehouse tasting is held nowadays (and where the Cadenhead’s Warehouse tasting used to be held). The staff showed us how to put the casks in the right way, so when you roll them on the staves they end up with the stencils facing up. The warehouse was a two-floor dunnage, and the casks we rolled in were destined to the upper floor, so a winch was needed. Upstairs, we helped put the casks on the manual lift used to position the casks on one of the three levels. We’ll spare you the intricacies of getting the right orientation of the bung depending on the spot assigned to the cask – that was tough!

Then, we moved to the racked warehouse next door, where we rolled casks on to a forklift, which the staff used to put the casks at rest in the free spots, sometimes quite high up. 

Again, manoeuvring full casks is no easy task, and it was a good workout, but in this case being short people helped: Robert and Graham, much taller than us, had definitely a harder time!

Fortunately, this effort was well rewarded with the first tasting of the week: the Cadenhead’s Warehouse Tasting. The brand ambassador Andrew (Graham’s brother-in-law but also well known to us from festivals and tastings) took us to the new warehouse space where the tasting is held, near the Cadenhead’s tasting room.

The lineup was similar to the one we had in December, but with a few key differences. We started off with two known drams, an English single malt – the Spirit of Yorkshire/Filey Bay, fully matured in Madeira, at a low abv of 47% (the cask was almost empty at that point), and a 14y Glen Garioch finished in a rum cask (55%), tropical juiciness. The third dram was a Glenfarclas 15y (56%), that started maturing in a refill ex-bourbon barrel but was then re-racked into a Ruby Port hogshead in 2019 – more a double maturation rather than a finish. This was the first time we tried a Glenfarclas that was not in a sherry or bourbon cask, and it didn’t disappoint. Then, one of the best drams of the lineup for us, a Benrinnes 11y, first matured in refill bourbon and then in a Palo Cortado sherry hogshead for 3 years (54%). We bought a bottle, and strangely the last time we were in Campbeltown we also got a bottle of Benrinnes (but from Watt Whisky). Two is a coincidence, three is a trend…Let’s see next time. The fifth dram was a Tullibardine 11y, re-racked for the last 4 years in a fresh (aka 1^st fill) oloroso hogshead (52.1%). The sixth dram was, as per custom, a peated one, a delicious 11y Caol Ila (58.2%) from a bourbon barrel – the same we’d tried in December, but we’re very happy to go over it again, as it was delicious. We also had two extra drams, a 23y old Laphroaig from a bourbon hogshead – a stunner, one of Gianluigi’s favourite drams of the whole week – and a 28y Bowmore also from a bourbon cask, again a stunner, delicate and tropical. What a tasting!

After that Graham left, and the four of us went back to the guesthouse for dinner. That night the menu was a tasty steak pie, followed by a delicious Eton mess: Sandra really knocked it out of the park! Tired from all the rolling and dramming, we soon went to bed for a well-deserved rest.

Coming next week, more shovelling! Until then, slàinte!

---

Springbank Whisky School

Link: https://www.springbank.scot/whisky-school/

---