#33.1 The Welsh Whisky Trail (not TM)

Distilling in the park: Penderyn Brecon Beacons

TL; DR: Our first time in Wales, we started the trip with a nice, easy hike through waterfalls in the Brecon Beacons National Park. Right after, we rewarded ourselves for the effort with a visit to the original Penderyn distillery, the first opened among their current three production sites.

A sunny Monday morning, in a parking spot near a country road. This is how we woke up on our first day in Wales. The night before, after our stop in the Cotswolds, we had entered Wales from the east side, driving straight towards one of the main national parks, Bannau Brycheiniog (or Brecon Beacons). We were very excited! For Gianluigi it was the first time, in spite of his long-standing interest in rugby, a sport that in Wales was more popular than football until very recently (might still be?). For Teresa it was technically the second time, the first being a work trip to Newport, but it was so short that basically this one was the first time for her too.

In recent years, Wales was not spared by the whisky frenzy happening throughout the world, and distilleries started popping up there too. As we’ll find out later in the trip, distilling had already happened much earlier, but unlike Scotland or Ireland, it didn’t pick up. The trailblazers of the current Welsh whisky scene are definitely Penderyn, which started in the year 2000 and now have three production sites in different areas of the country. Because of the liberalization of craft distillation in the mid-2010s, more distilleries opened since, mostly on a very small scale. We were very excited to know better this scene, but let’s go in order.

Sgwd Yr Eira, beautiful waterfall.

The first activity we did was not visiting a distillery (shocking, isn’t it?), rather the Four Waterfalls Walk in the Brecon Beacons. Before that, we stopped by a cafè in Brecon for some warm breakfast, and we soon left to drive in the spectacular park (characterised by a very “Scottish” landscape), until the Cwm Porth parking lot (the first of many pricey car parks…hard to disagree with them though). The trail was not very difficult, mostly flat (except for a detour to reach the first waterfalls), in a very beautiful wood. The waterfalls were impressive, in particular Sgwd Yr Eira, and in total we hiked for about 12k. Gianluigi’s comment: “we should have done this running” was not very well received by Teresa. Back in the car, we drove on a very panoramic road, where the Devil’s Elbow is, before going towards the first distillery: Penderyn Brecon Beacons indeed! We found out at the distillery that they don’t have a cafè, only a tasting bar, and there is none at walking distance. But here is where the campervan comes handy: we prepared our own coffee inside! Cracking!

First distillery visit in Wales, yay!

Here, we did the regular tour because the masterclass is only available at weekends. The distillery is quite compact, all painted black externally, so quite easy to spot. Because of the relatively small size of the site, casks are stored elsewhere, 20 minutes down the road.

A wee visitor centre and distillery at Penderyn Brecon Beacons.

Unfortunately, we couldn’t make any photo inside production, but we have to say that the initial stages are similar to other distilleries: milling, three-water mashing, and a 72-hour fermentation. As many of you might know already, their main feature is to use a Faraday still, quite unique in whisky production. This is a hybrid between a pot and a column still, commissioned to the descendent of the famous Faraday himself! The distillation is in batches but only one is needed: with the copper plates in the stills (one plate is equivalent to one distillation), the resulting spirit is about 90%abv!

Faraday still. Well, picture of a picture of it.

Because of this peculiarity, the distillery caught the eye of the late Dr. Jim Swan, a consultant who was pivotal in driving the resurgence of whisky in several countries during the 2000s and 2010s (he also worked for other distilleries such as Kilchoman, Lindores Abbey, Annandale, Kavalan, Cotswolds). He helped Penderyn develop their style of whisky, rich and sweet. After lot of trials, they selected as flagship an expression matured in ex-bourbon casks (mostly from Buffalo Trace), then finished in ex-Madeira wine casks. This is a solid whisky, which fortunately is quite widespread (you can find it regularly at Tesco, Sainsbury and other supermarkets). They have similar expressions, but finished in ex-Laphroaig quarter casks, STR (shaved, toasted, re-charred, called Rich Oak), Sherry wood, and ex-Port wine casks: all non-chill filtered, natural colour and bottled at 46%abv. For three of these they have a lighter version, bottled at 41%abv, and sold mostly in supermarkets, a requested from their French importer. Apparently they were not too keen to bottle at lower abv, until they were told how many bottles the French wanted to buy…It’s a business after all!

Some of the drams available to taste, all new to us!

Other than the Faraday stills (two), they also have a pair of pot stills, a wash and a spirit one, similar to many Scottish distilleries, installed in 2014. They use these mostly for special editions, single casks, and for some expressions in their Icons of Wales range. After the tour, we went to the bar for the tasting, where every one could choose two expressions from any of the available ones. This is a great policy, because it allows the visitor to shape their tasting according to their taste and experience. Of course, we tried (Gianluigi right away, Teresa later in the evening) two from the Icons of Wales series, the #8 Hiraeth (46%, a mix of spirit distilled with the Faraday and with the pot stills and matured in ex-bourbon casks) and the #9 Headliner (46%, matured in ex-Jamaican rum and ex-Port casks), and a small batch bottling from ex-Rye casks, and a Distillery Cask ex-Fino sherry. They were all delicious, and a great example of what this distillery can make! At the shop they also had other single casks/small batches bottlings, as well as their spirit range (cream whisky liqueur, vodka and gin) and some “friend” distilleries’ whiskies, in particular from Brittany distillers Armorik (France).

No pictures allowed in the production area, so more pictures of us.

We left the distillery driving towards Cardiff. The landscape is very particular, with small villages scattered along the hills – we guessed these must have been miners’ settlements. As we arrived at our camping in Cardiff, we realised how close we were to the city centre, barely 20 minutes walking from the Cardiff Castle and the Principality (formerly Millenium) Stadium. That night, however, we didn’t go to the city: we took advantage of our portable grill for a little (well, not so little) barbecue, cooking food for the evening but also for the following ones, because well organised ‘campervanners’ (is this a word?) are happy campervanners. Slainte!

Penderyn Brecon Beacons Tour

Price: £13.50 pp (July 2023)

Duration: 1hr

Tasting: 2 drams of choice

Target: everyone

Value for money: very good

Highlights: the Faraday still

Distillery exclusive: ex-Rye cask Small Batch (2050 bottles, 50%abv, natural colour and non-chill filtered, also available online, £85.00); Distillery Cask ex-Fino Sherry cask #972 (45.3%, natural colour and non-chill filtered, £70.00); Rich Madeira (Penderyn Club Exclusive, 50%, £95); Amontillado Sherry single cask (59.7%, £130)

Recommended: yes

Link: https://www.penderyn.wales/tours-breconbeacons/

#32.2 Driving through Englandshire

A non-hiking tour in the Cotswolds

TL;DR: The second English distillery we hit on our way to Wales is a popular one, the Cotswolds. Producing also gin (and soon rum), their main whisky expression has been on the supermarkets’ shelves for a few years now. Their visitor centre and the experiences offered make it obvious that they mainly target tourists.

(missed Part 1?)

We woke up in cloudy England, but because the camping was behind some fields the view was quite nice anyway. After a shower and a quick breakfast, we packed up our stuff and drove towards Stratford-upon-Avon: as we were so close, we felt like paying a visit to Willian Shakespeare birthplace (“shake spear” or “shakes pear”? The spear on the emblem suggests the former, but we want to believe!). The village is clearly a big tourist-trap, nonetheless, it’s a nice one, and we enjoyed a couple of hours walking around and checking out the market, although finding a pub open before noon was quite challenging (also because we avoid Wetherspoon like the plague).

Waking up gently…

…Before checking out Shakespear’s birthplace.

The Cotswolds distillery is only half hour away from the village, so the drive was quite quick. As we entered the gate to the parking lot, we realised how beautiful the setting is. Part of it is an old farm building (B-listed), where they have offices, the shop, a small restaurant and the tasting room. We were early, but it was calculated: we had a lunch there (well, Teresa, Gianluigi the second part of his, since it started with a slow-cooked pork sandwich at the market in Stratford…as he smelled it, he couldn’t say no). The food was quite tasty, in particular Gianluigi’s bacon and rocket focaccia.

B-listed buildings at Cotswolds Distillery.

We finished lunch just before starting the tour. Our guide was Charlotte, a nice Canadian lady who did a good job, just a tiny too theatrical for our taste (a result of the tour being geared towards tourists, we guess). The tour started with a video about the history of the distillery, funded by Dan Szor, an American from New York who used to work in investment banking. Motivated by the beauty of this part of England and by his love for whisky, he decided to build a distillery, which was completed in 2014. As many other new distilleries, in particular in England, they also produce gin, which ensured cash in during the first years. The gin production is located in a former barn attached to the visitor centre, where there are two columns stills for gin rectification (Lorelai and Dolly, the first for the experimental small batch products…yeah, as many others they like to name things), as they buy the neutral grain spirit. Some of their main botanicals are juniper (of course), coriander, bay leave and angelica.

Lorelei or Dolly? Can’t remember.

There is also the “old” single malt whisky equipment (mashtun, fermenters and two pot stills). At the time of our visit they were using it to produce rum (for which they bought molasses from the Caribbean), and the room was full of a funky tropical smell. After describing the distillery equipment, Charlotte left us some time to take pictures before moving to the new distillery. In fact, since January 2023 they increased production, and because the old distillery buildings are listed, they had to build a new one from scratch. It is just a few meters away, and it is brand new, very compact.

Huge stills in the new distillery!

Huge stills – take 2.

Here Charlotte explained the distillation process (remember it was a basic tour), before taking a walk on the catwalk around production and trying their newmake (very scotchy). The fermentation time is 96 hours generally, and their stills (Rosie the wash still and Fanny the spirit still) are quite big and dumpy, built on site by Forsyths. They are equipped with a steam coil at the bottom, and with tube-and-shell condensers (some of which are horizontal, we asked but it went unexplained). They take a cut at around 67.3% on average, and the cask filling strength is the industry standard of 63.5%. Interestingly, they made sure that the production was as similar as possible to the old plant with a combination of sensory and lab testing.

The other two buildings on site are the bottling plant, and the warehouse, where they stock a variety of casks (not a huge building, as most of them are not kept on site).

A wee warehouse on site…Not just single malts.

Then, time for the tasting, back at the visitor centre, inside a quite cozy tasting room. For non-drivers (Teresa today) the tasting consisted in small measures of a variety of expressions, including their main product, the Signature Single malt, an expression made with ex-bourbon and shaved-toasted-recharred casks (STR, for the record we also heard “stripped-toasted-recharred”), bottled at 46%, presented naturally (not-chill filtered nor artificially coloured). We had a bottle of this a couple of years ago, it is very good stuff, in particular considering the price (usually £30-40), and on the label they also provide interesting information like the batch size (our was 5,000 bottles) and the barley strain, Odyssey. The second drink was their main gin, but after that, everyone could go at the bar and ask to taste whatever (in small measures).

A wee taste of whisky and gin.

They have an interesting range of cask strength expressions, made in smaller batches (900-2,000-ish bottles) and all matured in the same type of cask. These are: ex-bourbon sherry, peated (ex-Laphroaig quarter casks) and the Founder’s choice (all STR casks), all priced between £60 and £70. They also have another expression called Reserve (bottled at 50%abv,), an annual release (Harvest Series, 52.5%, £100), a Banylus single-cask matured (55.1%, £95) and the bottle-your-own. At the time of visit it was a 4y single malt, ex-Port cask (62.8%abv) – £100/bottle, with no possibility to try it…probably someone went to Diageo’s school).

Overall, it was a pleasant visit. A bit touristy maybe, of course tailored to a broad audience, given the vicinity to the park and other tourist attractions like Stratford. If we have to point to something missing, it would be an experience tailored to whisky drinkers to showcase their tasty malts without busting the bank. The only other available were the Whisky Blending Masterclass (£100, available a couple of times a month) and the Founder’s Tour (£60, but it looked like it wasn’t available at the time). However, the rather basic experience didn’t prevent us from enjoying some tasty whisky.

End-of-the-day rewards, driver’s drams!

Away from the distillery, we visited a little medieval village called Burford, and we then started driving to the real destination of our holiday: Wales! If you’re curious, stay tuned on the blog, as the Wales Whisky Trail will be here soon! Until then, slainte!

The Cotswolds Distillery Tour

Price: £25.00 pp (July 2023)

Duration: 2hr

Tasting: 2 drinks (Cotswolds single malt and Cotswolds Gin) and a taste of the newmake, plus tastes on request from their range

Target: casual whisky drinkers and tourists

Value for money: good

Highlights: the range of malts

Distillery exclusive: bottle-your-own Cotswold Single Malt Port matured (62.8%, 4y, £99.95)

Recommended: if you’re not in the area, why not?

Link: https://www.cotswoldsdistillery.com/

#32.1 Driving through Englandshire

A peek into White Peak Distillery

TL;DR: On the road to Wales for our summer holidays, we drove through England, and we got to two distilleries: first of the two, White Peak. We had heard great things about their whisky, but had never tried. Our visit confirmed their good reputation, and we probably had the best distillery tour outside Scotland.

The decision on where to go for our summer holidays was quite easy. First, we wanted to use the campervan for the first time for over a long weekend, but because of some mileage limitation on our insurance we couldn’t go too far, so here Ireland and Cornwall were not an option. Also, after our 2022 North of Scotland and Orkney trip, we definitely wanted to avoid midgies, so we excluded the West Coast of Scotland and Outer Hebrides too. Finally, we wanted to see something new: at this point, excluding the overpriced Lakes District, there was almost only one destination left: Wales! But to get to Wales, we’d need to cross a good chunk of the country south of the border, otherwise known as Englandshire.

Not too bad honestly, the recent world-wide whisky revamp touched England as well, and there are now over 40 distilleries on the English Whisky Map. Many of them are very young, and some were born as gin distilleries and only afterwards they switched to whisky. Others, however, are now quite established, with well-matured and tasty products. We already visited two, the Lakes Distillery, in Cumbria, and Copper Rivet, in Kent.

First distillery visit of the trip, yay!

Anyway, we left Edinburgh and, after a first stop in Leeds (to meet friends who recently became parents and their new-born kiddo), we drove straight to the first distillery we wanted to visit: White Peak. The distillery is in Derbyshire, near the Peaks District National Park, in Ambergate. It was funded by the Vaughn family, Max and Claire, in 2016, and their first single malt was released in February 2022. The chosen name for the whisky is Wireworks, because the distillery is located in a very beautiful former industrial estate on the river Derwent, a former wirework indeed! The industry complex dating back to 1876, closed in 1996: a lovely industrial revolution style building.

A charming industrial location (for those who like the genre).

We were very curious to visit this distillery. We had heard good things but we hadn’t had the chance to try this malt before, so here we go! Once there, we quickly checked in, but being early, we had time for a coffee and a stroll outside: a few meters away from the entrance they set up a nice summer garden, with lots of old industrial bits and bobs.

White Peak summer garden, such a lovely spot.

Back to the bar, we started our Warehouse Tour with Dave. He works there as a distillery manager and distiller, which was great as he gave us lots of insights! So, first off, he told us that although they make gin and rum too, the 90% of their business is the production of single malt. In contrast with the industrial revolution style budling, the equipment is very modern, and bar the stills, it looks like a modern brewery. They buy their malted barley from Crisp, and they then process it in a very modern brewing-style mill. This only applies to the unpeated malt however: the peated one, which constitutes 10% of their mash, is pre-milled. A thing in common with many distilleries is the use of three waters, from which they obtain a clear wort for a fruity character. The long fermentation, 6 days, is done with two types of yeast, dry distiller and brewer’s. The latter is live yeast from the Thornbridge brewery, in particular the one used to make the Jaipur IPA. This is both to provide a twist to their flavour, and to honour the Derbyshire brewing history.

Distillation is made in two small Scottish-style copper pot stills, and the usual cut points for the heart (ie what is kept from the second distillation) are 78% and 67%, quite wide indeed! They produce more or less 10 casks per week, mostly into ex-bourbon barrels from Heaven Hill or ex-wine shaved-toasted-recharred (STR) casks. They produce about 60,000 litres of alcohol per annum, putting them in the top 5 of English malt distilleries. After trying the newmake spirit, we moved to the warehouse, just next-door. Technically not a dunnage warehouse (the industrial building original floor is concrete), although the barrels are stored horizontally in a typical dunnage way. Their “angel share” (the percentage lost to evaporation) is about 10% over 3-4 years. David explained us their barrels policy, as we said, mostly ex-bourbon and STR, but with many exceptions: red-wine, Port, rum, virgin oak, etc, typical of young distilleries wanting to experiment. We also saw the casks for their next release, the Necessary Evil, in collaboration (again) with Thornbridge brewery. This year they used ex-PX casks which previously held stour beer.

An almost dunnage warehouse.

Still in the warehouse, a table with empty glasses and benches was prepared for us, for the tasting! The first dram was the Caduro, released a few days before our visit, a marriage of ex-bourbon (33%) and STR casks (67%), bottled at 46.8%. It’s a lightly peated malt, quite fruity, sweet and very tasty. The other two samples were both from the cask, a 4yr-ish ex bourbon cask filled at around 72%, and a slightly older ex American oak cask (but with French oak ends) filled at 64.5%. We have to say that they were both delicious – a shame they weren’t on sale.

All is ready for the tasting…

Back to the shop, as the buying queue disappeared, we asked Dave if we could try their other release: the Alter Ego (51.5%). For this, the cask make-up is similar to Caduro, but inverted (33% STR and 67% ex-bourbon barrels), and with different cut points too. It was tasty as well, but we felt that the Caduro was a bit more balanced.

The day finished with us driving towards Stratford-upon-Avon to get to the camping, to rest and get ready for another day and another distillery visit. Overall, the visit to White Peak was a great experience, probably one of the best we had recently, and for a very reasonable price. Of course, Dave was excellent, and as we said many times, doing the tour with a person involved in production is often more engaging.

Until next time, slainte!

White Peak Distillery Warehouse Tour

Price: £40.00 pp (July 2023)

Duration: 1hr 30min

Tasting: 3 drams, single cask ex-bourbon cask (4yr, filling strength 72%), single cask STR American oak cask with French oak ends (around 4.5yr, filling strength 63.5%), Caduro (46.8%abv), all not chill filtered and natural colour, and a complimentary glencairn

Target: whisky enthusiasts

Value for money: good

Highlights: the industrial site and the nerdy tour

Recommended: yes

Link: https://www.whitepeakdistillery.co.uk/

#31.8 Spirit of Speyside 2023

The amber swan: Linkwood

TL;DR: Finally, the last day of the Spirit of Speyside came. After a relaxing morning, we visited another Diageo’s workhorse: Linkwood! Very beautiful distillery, tasty whisky, but the tour with the enthusiastic staff it’s what really gave value to this visit!

(missed Part 7 /Part 6/Part 5/Part 4/Part 3/Part 2/Part 1?)

The last morning of the long weekend was a slow one. We woke up in a rainy and gloomy Dufftown, waiting for one of the coffee shops in town to open. After some coffee and cake, we had some free time, so we finally managed to go to the Whisky & Heritage Centre. It is a little place managed by volunteers where whisky memorabilia are on display, plus old pictures and documents that can be checked out. We had a lovely chat with the lady taking care of it, finding out they have plans to increase the size of the centre, and we got a couple of second-hand whisky books for a small donation.

Black Bottle on tap.

We went to the Dufftown Whisky Shop, as they had scheduled a Benriach pop-up tasting. We tried a couple of their new range (which we are not too familiar with, since we visited the distillery before the core range revamp) and had a chat about it and other Brown-Foreman products with the brand ambassador. He told us that some news was in sight about Glenglassaugh, so we hoped for a reopening of the visitor centre. A few weeks later they revamped the line-up (with a 12y bottled at 45% and two NAS at higher abv), but as we are writing their website has disappeared, so…still hoping!

Left the shop, and Dufftown, we drove to Aberlour to…another shop, this time the Speyside Whisky Shop, for another chat with Matteo and a dram (at the time some saught-after bottles were open so people could purchase by the dram). This was followed by a quick lunch at the usual Gather’n Cafè nearby (we should have taken a punch card long ago!). It was soon time to leave though, direction Elgin, for the next and last distillery visit of the holiday: Linkwood! The road wasn’t very trafficked and the drive was smooth, so we arrived there a few minutes early.

Once again, we were not ready for the picture.

There, we met our friend John from the Edinburgh Whisky Group, and we were welcomed by Paul, the distillery manager. The welcome cocktail was the usual Old-Fashioned, of course made with their own flagship whisky. Hovwere, it feels odd talking about a flagship, since Linkwood 12, part of the Flora and Fauna range, is the only bottling from this distillery (similar to many other Diageo’s distilleries).

The original Linkwood distillery was founded in 1821 by the Brown family, and started production a few years later. It was sold in the 1930s to Scottish Malt Distillers, which in turn were acquired by United Distillers (a precursor of Diageo). In 1970-71 a new distillery was built, and in spite of that, the old one continued production until the site was mothballed. The old distillery was demolished only in 2012, with all the equipment moved to the new one, which was expanded.

The old buildings.

Our knowledge of Linkwood dates back a few years, to our first (and only) bottle of Johnnie Walker Green Label 15y, as this is one of the malts featuring in this blended malt, together with Caol Ila, Talisker and the fellow Speysider Cragganmore. Since then, we tried a few different Linkwood expressions thanks to independent bottlers, mostly the Scotch Malt Whisky Society. Recently, we had a great one, finished in Tokaj wine cask, from the new independent bottler Fragrant Drops: a sweet dram with a hint of grassiness, which is the main character the distillery aims to get.

The tour was conducted by Barry and Eilidh, both distillery operators. Near the entrance of the production building, they showed us a small cask that was used back in the day by distillery workers to get their daily dram (or drams, in the past we’ve been told by some guide that usually they were 3 a day). As many other distilleries, they have a Porteus Mill, painted in dark red, but unlike many the proportion of husk/grit/flour is 10/80/10, and they use Lauriet barley. Here the tour became very interesting: they only do two waters during mashing (they call it “continuous sparging”), and we were shown a cylinder they use to check the wort cloudiness. This is one of the nerdy things we discovered fairly recently, depending on the desired newmake character, when mashing the wort could be more or less filtered. The less filtered mashes (thus, cloudy) give a nuttier character to the newmake. On the contrary, a clearer wort results in more fruity and grassy notes, like Linkwood indeed.

The fermentation in their 5 wooden washbacks from the 70s (and also other 6 installed in 2013) lasts 75 hours. Finally, we went to the still room, where three pairs of very large stills (with straight-ish lyne arms) operate independently. The shell-and-tube condensers are equipped with “turbulators”, to slow down the water. After the still room, we had a stroll outside around the famous lake, where we saw the swans that inspired the famous label. The water is mainly there as a reserve, used in case of emergency. From there, we could check out the old malting floor (and the pagoda roof), now a warehouse. Unfortunately, no tour inside there.

Overview of the still room…

…and an interesting detail.

Back to the office, Paul and Scott, another distillery operator, were ready to host the 3-dram tasting: Linkwood 12 (43%abv, one of the best drams from the Flora and Fauna range, in our opinion), Johnnie Walker Green Label 15 (43%), nice to revisit it after some time, and finally a Linkwood cask-sample (similarly to the one at Dailuaine, not on sale and only served at Cardhu distillery in one of their fancy tours). Really a great dram, for sure in our top 5 of the festival. A shame these cask sample bottles were not available for purchase, although knowing Diageo’s pricing policies they would have probably been out of reach.

The tasting.

On the tour there was a group not very happy about that, so they started rudely complaining with the staff about the missing opportunity to buy the cask-sample bottles, showing their cluelessness on how a big multinational company like Diageo works (not that we know much better, but enough to understand that some decisions are not down to the distillery staff). Oh well.

Happy for the great festival experience!

Anyway, one of the things we liked the most of this first time at the Spirit of Speyside was to get to know and talk to people working in distilleries, in particular the ones not usually open to public: the staff friendliness, but more importantly their eagerness to show us around and make us understand their work were amazing. Seeing how passionate they are was really refreshing, in spite of all the cynicism of their mother companies, and in the whisky world in general nowadays. Of course, we don’t want to play down any of the people we met in distilleries usually open to public, however in our many trips sometimes we experienced too edulcorated, almost scripted tours, and a couple of times we were even treated with complacency. And this is fine (well, except for the last…), it would be silly to expect that every tour is mind-blowing, and that every tour guide is a whisky nerd: at the end of the day, it’s a job as any other. But we cannot help but noticing a certain difference when the tour is done by an operator, like in many cases during this trip. And just for it, we were grateful.

Until next time, slainte!

The Linkwood Distillery Tour

Price: £80.00 pp (May 2023)

Duration: 2hr

Tasting: welcome cocktail and 3 drams – Linkwood 10 (43%), Johnnie Walker 15 Green Label (43%), Linkwood cask sample from ex-bourbon (53.4%)

Target: whisky enthusiasts

Value for money: not great

Highlights: the enthusiastic distillery staff

Recommended: not at this price

Link: https://www.spiritofspeyside.com/

#31.7 Spirit of Speyside 2023

Speyburn uncovered!

TL;DR: Another visit to a (then…) closed-to-public distillery: Speyburn. In 125 years it was open for the first time during the 2023 Spirit of Speyside. A great visit, their own old drum maltings were a highlight, a jump back in time!

(missed Part 6/Part 5/Part 4/Part 3/Part 2/Part 1?)

From Dufftown to Rothes it’s barely a 15-minute drive, so we could take it easy and stop for a coffee and a soup, to warm up in the cold and rainy day. We then soon arrived at the Speyburn parking lot: in spite of being hidden from the main road, we knew exactly where to go, as during one of the many trips to Speyside we drove on the road just in front, from where the distillery could be admired in all its beauty.

Speyburn is not among the most well-known single malts, although it can now count on the presence on some supermarket shelves (the Bradan Orach and the 10y). They are owned by Inver House (which is in turn owned by Thai Bev, guess where they’re from…) together with other four single malt distilleries, two in the Northern Highlands (Pultney and Balblair), another in Speyside (Balmenach) and Knockdhu (producing the AnCnoc whisky) in the Eastern Highlands. We previously only had one bottle of Speyburn, from the Scotch Malt Whisky Society: a 9y old from a refill bourbon. We got it by chance when buying a pack of three bottles during the pandemic, with the Speyburn being the one we were less excited about: it ended up being the best of the trio! Spicy at first, with time in an opened bottle the oxidation played its part, and the whisky mellowed down and became a fruity deliciousness. At this point, it goes without saying we were very curious to know more about Speyburn!

Beautiful despite the clouds.

As we parked, we were warmly welcomed by the distillery manager Euan and the global ambassador Stuart (who we knew from some Aqvavitae’s vPubs), who walked us to the visitor centre to check in. Compared to the other “usually closed to public” distilleries, they seemed to be way more prepared: there was a proper shop (not just a pop-up like at Dailuaine and Mortlach), with bottles and merchandising displayed on the shelves, and also a brand-new bar with big tables, where the tasting would have taken place after the visit inside the production. We’ll come back on this point.

The tour started with some history in the courtyard: the distillery was founded in 1897, and the architect was the famous Charles Doig, who brought the pagoda roofs into the game. This became one of the iconic features of Scotch whisky distilleries, to the extent that distillers in other countries started copying it. It is also on the road signs in Speyside and elsewhere: if you see a white pagoda on a brown background, there must be a distillery close by! The original function was the kiln’s ventilator, as at the time most distilleries were malting their own barley, Speyburn included. A crucial difference, however, early on they installed one of the few on-site drum maltings. They haven’t been used in almost 60 years (after a sudden stop in 1967 following the stop of the near railway the year before), but they are still preserved for nerdy visitors to admire. And in fact, the first part of the tour was dedicated to this unique feature of the distillery.

Time travelling part 1: the malting floor.

Time travelling part 2: the steeping tanks.

Time travelling part 3: the drum maltings.

Euan and Stuart explained us that the place has been made accessible only recently, as testified by the new woodwork to allow people inside: it was like taking a walk in the past. The malting was working on different floors, the top one was where the barley was laid out, steeping tanks at the middle one, while the drums (think of huge tumble driers…kind of) on the ground floor. One thing we found interesting was the completely different story compared to the usual one: smaller on-site drum maltings, and similarly Saladin boxes, were intermediate stages between the two extremes that are usually talked about during distillery visits (and on blogs, etc.), the (highly romanticised) labour intensive and not so efficient malting floor, and the modern highly efficient industrial-scale maltings. So fascinating to see what was in between!

We jumped back to the present, moving to the mill room, and from there through the usual layout of the modern plant: the closed stainless-steel mashtun, and the wooden washbacks, where we could sip a bit of their semi-cloudy 72hr-fermented wash (always an experience). One interesting feature is the combination of both shell-and-tube, of which one is horizontal, and two wormtubs condensers (132m in total). The former condenses liquid from the wash still, while the latter two from the spirit-stills, from which they take a cut between 72 and 64% abv. With only 3 stills they manage to produce about four millions of litres of alcohol per year: they get this incredible volume by working 24/7. There is a catwalk on the wormtubs, which are located outside, where we spent a couple of minutes….we wonder if in Speyside the weather gets warm enough to tempt some people to jump in them.

The still and us, the classic picture.

We soon checked out the warehouse, where a surprise was waiting for us: nope, unfortunately we didn’t sample some casks (we were hopeful, considering the hefty 80 quid tickets), but it was almost as good: we had a sample of their 125^th Anniversary release, a single cask bottling from a 2^nd fill ex-bourbon barrel vintage 2007, similar in style to the one we had but much more balanced, tropical and creamy. A truly delicious dram, probably the best one we tried during the festival.

The warehouse.

The last part of the experience was the tasting of their core range, back at the bar. We had four generous drams of their non-age statement (NAS, but they told us it should be about 7-8y) expression Bradan Orach (40%abv, refill ex-bourbon), the 10y (again kind of introductory, 40%, 90% ex-bourbon and 10% ex-sherry casks, mostly second fill), but finally the two gems: the 15y (ex-bourbon before a 2-3y finish in ex-sherry Miguel Martinez casks) and the 18y (14y in ex-bourbon casks, then 4y in second fill oloroso casks), both 46%, natural colour and not chill-filtered. They were both super tasty: Gianluigi preferred the former, Teresa (as most people on the tour) the latter.

You can’t really tell from this picture how nice the bar is…

At this point you’ll be wondering: wait a minute, if they are only open occasionally, how come they have a bar for tastings and a nice shop? Well, as a matter of fact, before the festival we’ve been told by a birdie that Speyburn might have been preparing to open to visitors permanently. At the Spirit of Speyside 2023 they won the award as “best new experience” and this might have given the company the nudge to open permanently (although, more realistically it was already planned and not depending on the award…). Bottom line is that, good news: starting August 2023 (coincidentally the time of writing), you can visit them and go check their very fascinating old drum maltings for the very reasonable price of £20 (see the link below).

So, overall, it was a great visit (one we’d do again), and as we said earlier, a true deep-dive into the history of whisky production in Speyside. A bit pricey maybe, but at least the tasting was generous (5 healthy drams and a taste of the newmake), unlike some other we visited for the same price.

Guess who was the designated driver…

For the evening we drove first to Aberlour for a chit-chat with Matteo at the Speyside Whisky Shop (from which he just moved on as we are writing), and then to Dufftown where we spent the night. We parked near the Mortlach Hall, which was super quiet. We had dinner at the Commercial Hotel, which has moved the restaurant to the former function hall, together with some tasty Three Ships South-African malts (produced at the James Sedgwick Distillery), very rare to find in Scotland. Not that we were bored of Speyside malts, but it was good to try something different! Slainte!

The Speybirn Distillery Tour (Spirit of Speyside)

Price: £80.00 pp (April 2023, but now – August 2023 – they’re open to the public and it’s £20.00)

Duration: 2hr

Tasting: 5 drams, Speyburn 125^th Anniversary (vintage 2007, 15y, refill ex-bourbon barrel, 62.6%, NC, NCF), Bradan Orach (40%), 10y (40%), 15y (46%, NC, NCF) and 18y (46%, NC, NCF)

Target: whisky enthusiasts

Value for money: not great

Highlights: the old drum malting equipment

Recommended: better than others, but still hard to justify at this price

Links: https://www.speyburn.com/, https://www.spiritofspeyside.com/

#31.6 Spirit of Speyside 2023

The beast of Dufftown: Mortlach

TL;DR: our fourth day at the festival started with a classic, a distillery particularly known for their complex distillation process: Mortlach. The visit was very interesting indeed, and the distillery manager Kirstie didn’t shy away from nerdy details.

(missed Part 5/Part 4/Part 3/Part 2/Part 1?)

On Sunday morning the sky was still overcast, it would start raining later in the day eventually. Oh well. After breakfast we wrapped up all our stuff: it was the last night in the camping, the following and last night of the holiday we would wild camp again, although we hadn’t figured out where yet. We left the camping driving towards Dufftown, in a backroad that goes past the back of the Speyside Cooperage, from which you can admire their casks pyramids. Being Sunday morning, Dufftown was very quiet, and not all cafes were open yet. We managed to park on the main road, in front of the local CoOp, and tried hunting for a coffee. After finding one, we walked our way towards our first appointment of the day: Mortlach distillery, the so-called beast of Dufftown.

Where are we?

It is a very old one, founded in 1823 after the Excise Act, and it was the only one in town until their manager at the time, William Grant, left to found Glenfiddich. In 1897 the distillery was expanded, and thanks to the work of the famous architect Charles Doig, the pagoda roofs were added. It was acquired by John Walker & Sons in 1923, but the company soon merged with Distillers Company Limited in 1925 (then United Distillers in 1987, Diageo from 1997). Before 2014, the only official bottling of Mortlach was the 16y “Flora and Fauna”, now discontinued and dearly celebrated (like most things of the past, the abuse of “’member-berries” is widespread in whisky-land…if you don’t know the reference, check South Park season 20).

The beast of Dufftown under a gloomy sky.

A core range was introduced in 2014 (with some controversial 50cl bottles) and revamped in 2018, while the current age-stated range includes a 12y (Wee Witchie), a 16y (Distiller’s Dram), a 20y (Cowie’s Blue Seal) and a 14y travel retail (Alexander’s Way), plus the occasional Special Releases. The newmake spirit is mainly filled in ex-sherry casks, although you can find some independently bottled ex-bourbon matured expressions (we have an 11y from Signatory Vintage, a marriage of 2 ex-bourbon hogsheads, which is quite tasty). Mortlach whisky is quite famous to be meaty, and thus considered a malt for seasoned drinkers. Fun fact, the 16y (very decent in our opinion) worked quite well every time we’ve given it to friends (both beginners and casual whisky drinkers).

At the distillery we were given a welcome cocktail, a Mortlach-based Old Fashioned (this time with regular angostura, not the orange one like at Dailuaine), and the distillery manager, Kirstie, introduced herself. She’s a graduate form the Brewing and Distilling Master at Herriot-Watt University, and of course extremely knowledgeable: her explanations definitely gave value to quite a pricey experience. We also bumped into a couple of barflies at the tour, Angus and Graham, met back in November at the Aqvavitae’s Blind Challenge in Glasgow.

The shiny mashtun…

After the introduction, we started the proper tour: we moved outside in the courtyard, and then near the milling room, which hosts an old red Porteus mill. A notable difference was that they take a smaller cut of flour in their grist (8%) compared to other distilleries (usually 10%). In our understanding, one of the reasons is that their water to grist ratio is higher, 3.8 instead of 3.6. The mashtun looks very new, made of stainless steel and closed, with the usual window to check its inside. They only have two water runs instead of three, with the second being warmed up to get the sugars that are usually obtained in the third run (lasting 6.57 hours in total).

…and the beautiful wooden washbacks.

The walls of the fermentation room, where six Douglas Fir washbacks are located (wooden because of a combination of aesthetics and convenience, since they can be disassembled unlike stainless-steel ones, all replaced in 2016), are decorated with some nerdy facts about whisky making, like the formula to calculate the % abv of the wash using the gravity readings, and the graph showing the trends of different types of sugars digestion during fermentation. Their fermentation time is usually between 55 and 59 hours, never less than 50, and they work with yeast that can survive higher temperatures, around 35C.

Knowledge pill on the wall # 1.

We then moved to the still room with its 6 stills (3 wash- and 3 spirit-), very unusually of different shape and size. The distillation is very complex: wash-still #3 and spirit-still #3 are paired, and they work like in a regular distillery. The other wash-stills (#1 and #2) work together, but their distillation is (unusually) divided into two cuts, the first goes into spirit-still #2, while the second (heavier) gets re-distilled three times (with the other distillations feints) in the other spirit still, the Wee Witchie, and the cut is only taken every third distillation. If you are confused, no worries, we are too, but the idea is to provide different characters to the newmake spirit. Someone in the past made the calculation, and it turned out the spirit is distilled 2.81 times – it would be nice to see those equations (nerd alert! Nerd alert!).

Theory…

…and practice! (The Wee Witchie is the closest to us.)

As we moved outside, we could admire one of the other characteristics that made Mortlach popular: the 6 worm tub condensers, one for each still. It is believed this is what provides meatiness to the spirit. They are made of wood, except one which is made of metal because the wooden one started leaking – they told us it might be replaced at some point with a new wooden one. They take the cooling water for the wormtubs from the river Dullan, one of their 6 sources of water for all the process: remember that they produce between 3.5 and 4 million litres of alcohol per year! Finally, we ventured in the warehouse, where casks from many distilleries were resting, including many non-Diageo ones, surprisingly. Kirstie explained us the processes happening in maturation: additive (compounds from the wood affect the liquid), subtractive (compounds from the liquid are removed by the wood contact) and oxidative (the contact with air changes the liquid, as you will know if you ever had a bottle open for more than 4-6 months).

The famous worm tub condensers.

Back outside, Kirstie showed us where some buildings used to be, as well as their still existing but currently unused malting floor, on the other side of the road (at the moment part of it is used as deposit for the Dufftown Whisky & Heritage Centre). We went back to the meeting room to enjoy the (stingy, considering 80 quid) 3-dram tasting. These were the flagship Mortlach 16y (43.4%), Mortlach 15y Game of Thrones Six Kingdoms (finished in ex-bourbon casks and bottled at 46%) and a non-age statement (NAS) from the 2022 Special Release. We’re quite familiar with the 16y (we used to have it, and gifted some), and we had tried the 15y GoT once (nice to revisit), so we were very curious about the third, mostly because the RRP was insane for a NAS, well above £200. This expression was finished in Tawny Port, Red Muscato wine, Virgin Oak casks and bottled at cask strength (57.8%). Turned out, it was nice but not mind-blowing by any means, as you’d expect considering the fanfare.

The tasting at the end.

Overall, this was a great visit, and Kirstie contributed to make it as nerdy as expected, for such a peculiar distillery like Mortlach. The price is a bit steep, £80 for a tour and 3 drams (+ cocktail), so it’s hard to recommend it. However, if you’re at the right moment of your whisky journey, it is definitely one to visit, despite the price. For us, it was worth it, and we look forward to more deep dives like this.

The Mortlach Distillery Tour (Spirit of Speyside)

Price: £80.00 pp (April 2023)

Duration: 2hr

Tasting: 3 drams and a welcome cocktail, Mortlach 16 (43.4%), Mortlach 15 the Six Kingdoms (46%), Mortlach Special Release 2022 (NAS, 57.8%)

Target: a bit more seasoned whisky geeks and nerds

Value for money: not great

Highlights: the detailed tour and explanation of such a complicated distillation process

Recommended: only if you’re quite ahead in your whisky journey (see last paragraph above)

Link: https://www.malts.com/en-gb/brands/mortlach, https://www.spiritofspeyside.com/

#31.5 Spirit of Speyside 2023

To Forres and back to Rothes: Benromach & Forsyths

TL;DR: A nice day, started with an early visit at the Benromach distillery, which produces one of our favourite malts. Then, quickly back to the heart of Speyside, Rothes, for a visit at the Forsyths copperworks, to check out how they create the stills where the magic happens!

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

Say what you want, but compared to wild camping, we always wake up more rested in a camping. This time was no different, and although the sky was still overcast, it wasn’t raining. We fixed ourselves breakfast, fruit and eggs with bacon. We mostly cook breakfast when we sleep in a camping (much easier to do the dishes afterwards). No coffee though: we had run out, ouch! Anyway, we left as soon as we could, direction Forres. This is a nice town between Inverness and Elgin, the red chimney of the Benromach distillery can be seen from the motorway crossing the town. The drive was easy, not much traffic around. Because we were early, we were determined to get a much needed coffee. Unfortunately, we drove to the distillery not finding any, so we had to go back until the centre, and by the time we were back we were barely on time for the tour.

You could say we needed more coffee.

We checked in with our guide, Gale, before starting the tour: she is an ex-police officer, at her first experiences as a tour guide. The distillery is much smaller than we thought: it was funded in 1898, and after a few phases (it was owned by DCL for a while, as testified by their “Flora and Fauna” release), it was bought by Gordon & MacPhail (G&M) in 1993. They restarted production in 1997, and since then they never stopped. We couldn’t take pictures in the production area, but if you’re curious you can find a virtual tour on their website here. The tour was very basic (it was free!) and Gale was in training, which is fair enough. It was very informative, nonetheless. Similar to many family owned distilleries, they work from Monday to Friday, doing 18 runs.

A cute distillery…

They don’t have a Porteus mill, but a smaller brewery mill. Another peculiarity is their four Scottish larch washbacks (inside the building), while the other nine stainless-steal ones are outside, and their fermentation time is between 70 and 120 hours. Surprisingly, they only have a pair of stills which are directly fired with gas, and their distillation heart goes into a wooden spirit receiver. Warehouses are behind the production building. These warehouses also store casks from the G&M independent bottler side, and from the Cairn. The latter is a newly built distillery (which we visited during our Speycation) by the same company, and because it sits inside a national park, there can’t be warehouses on site.

…with a sizeable warehouse.

Back at the visitor centre, Gale gave us two drams each, the Benromach 10y and 15y: both quite nice, in spite of the 43% abv. Unfortunately, we couldn’t check out other expressions, as they are not allowed to sell other whiskies by the dram. We purchased one of their cask strength releases, only to find it 10 quid cheaper in another whisky shop later (well, the tour was free, so karma evened things out). Overall, it was a nice visit, but we would like to go back for one of their experiences geared towards whisky connoisseurs, as we know their stuff can be sublime!

The wee tasting at the end.

Back in the van, we headed towards Rothes (again having a sandwich while driving), directly to the Forsyths parking lot. This was the first time we visited a copperworks. And not a random one, one of the most popular, creating the stills for many of our beloved distilleries, in Scotland and beyond. They are so popular that they own The Station Hotel and Restaurant on site (and dram bar of course), where we had a well-deserved delicious dinner after our 2021 Dramathon. Also, not being a distillery (nor a cooperage), we didn’t quite know what to expect.

The visit didn’t start with a tour, but with a tasting, at least for half of the many attendants (around 50-60-ish?). We were presented with 8 small drams (10 or 15 ml we believe), for a blind tasting. We had to judge them without knowing anything but the age bracket: two 12y and under, two 13-20y, two 21y and over (although there were mistakes in the tasting mats, as these two categories were marked as 13-17y and 18y and over), and two non-age statement (NAS). For each pair we had to decide the best of the two, and the best overall. A very nice “taste” on how hard is to judge a whisky. They didn’t tell us what they were right away, but they published the results here a few weeks later. Of course, one of the oldest drams was the overall favourite: 25y Glenlivet Single Cask.

The hard job of judging whiskies.

Once done with the tasting, we moved outside where we were divided in two groups and started a guided tour of the site. They showed us the machine used to cut copper sheets, and the machine to roll them into the required cylinders or cones. Also, a machine that automatically welds pieces together, with the flame from both sides (doing a job in a few hours that would take a person more than a day). Notably, part of the warehouses used to belong to Caperdonich distillery (built to be Glen Grant #2), closed in 2002 and demolished almost a decade later to make space for other warehouses.

Gianluigi meets a condenser (we think)…

It was a very interesting experience overall, only flaw was that it was a bit of a random tour walking around the courtyard and pointing to machines and equipment as we saw them, not exactly following the order with which stills and condensers are made during production. But oh well, we would do it again, definitely. Definitely on the nerdy side as an experience, but it was still quite fascinating to see so many finished and unfinished stills and condensers in one place.

…and almost complete ones.

After the tour, we jumped back on the van, and drove first to Aberlour, where we stopped at the Speyside Whisky Shop. We found out that the owner, Matteo, is Italian, so we had a good chat with him, about whisky of course.

That’s Scotland in spring for you.

We later had a half-pint at the Aberlour Hotel pub (one of our favourite stops in the area), not before stopping to the local CoOp to buy coffee. Back to the camping, we cooked dinner, and in spite of the cloudy and cold weather, enjoyed one last pint outside at the end of a fine whisky day.

The Benromach Distillery Tour (Spirit of Speyside)

Price: free (April 2023, Spirit of Speyside 2023, the regular tour is £10.00)

Duration: 1hr

Tasting: 2 drams, Benromach 10y and 15y (both 43%)

Target: whisky curious and tourists

Value for money: great of course, it would be very good even at £10/15

Highlights: the manual settings

Recommended: yes!

Link: https://www.benromach.com/, https://www.spiritofspeyside.com/

#31.4 Spirit of Speyside 2023

Not “A”, but “The” Speyside distillery

TL;DR: left Tamdhu, we drove along a very beautiful road, all the way to Kingussie. Here, we visited the Speyside distillery, home of the Spey single malt. A very nice visit in a spectacular distillery, one of the most charming sites visited so far.

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

After the visit at Tamdhu, we sprinted to Mr Vantastic and left right away. Because the booking tickets process on the Spirit of Speyside website was so convoluted, we had to make some adjustments to our trip. One was visiting the Speyside Distillery, near Kingussie, after Tamdhu. Between the end of the first tour and the beginning of the second there were two hours, with about 1h10m drive. We prepared sandwiches ahead, so we could have a snack while driving and arrive there with something in our stomach.

The drive was not so bad actually, we drove along the road just north of the river Spey, instead of the usual A95, a first for us. The landscape along the road was beautiful, very rural with smooth hills…However, we couldn’t be too distracted, as we had to pay attention to the road in order not to kill the few pheasants we met. Past Grantown-on-Spey, we re-joined the main road to Aviemore. We decided to stay on minor roads, so we avoided the A9. This led us into Kincraig, where we stopped at the Old Post Office Cafè, a truly lovely spot, we were just sorry to have little time to spend in it. After a wee coffee, we were back on the van to finally get to the Speyside Distillery.

Such a beautiful spot!

We were not very familiar with their whisky, the main range being marketed as Spey, we had only one or two before. However, they were on our radar for a while, the only problem being that they normally do a few tours every week, usually mid-week (Wednesday or Thursday). Thus, the Spirit of Speyside Festival was the perfect occasion to get to this distillery. As we parked, we realised how beautiful the spot was: all stone buildings, it didn’t even look like a booze factory (which ultimately, every distillery is), rather a mountain cottage. Very romantically, the river Tromie runs along the site. We checked in the distillery office, where Susan was waiting for all the guests to kick-start the tour. As soon as everyone arrived, she started telling us about their distillery and their business, and gave us a wee taste of the newmake.

Even the office is cute.

The Speyside Distillery took 25 years to be completed, as it was the “summer project” of Alex Fairlie. He purchased the building in 1965, which was a 1760 barley mill, and renovated it by hand. Production started in 1990, a time when scotch whisky was not so popular (and in fact, only them and Arran, 1995, started in that period). The name was chosen because there once was another “Speyside Distillery” in the same village, built in 1895 and demolished in 1912. The distillery changed hands twice, in 2000 and 2012, being acquired by the Harvey’s of Edinburgh, which soon revamped the range and started selling the malt as Spey, an old brand dating back to the 1815. Before they purchased the Speyside distillery, the whisky (including the Chairman Choice) would come from a number of other Speyside distilleries.

The whole production in one shot.

We then toured the distillery, of course starting in the mill room, located in the same building as the office where we started. They mainly use Lauret barley. We moved to the main building where, mashing (or sparging), fermenting and distilling happen. They have six stainless-steal washbacks, for an up to 120-hour long fermentation, with living fresh yeast. The stills are only two, one wash and one spirit still, heated by steam produced by oil. The cut they take is from 72% to 65% as the heart. Warehouses are located near Glasgow, but plans are to relocate them in Speyside. This does apply to the distillery itself: because it is located in the Cairngorms National Park, they cannot expand it. So, to increase production (nowadays 850,000 mlpa) as they intend to, they have to move and the distillery is going to be closed. In case it is purchased by someone else, they’ll need to change the name, as Speyside will go with them.

After production, Susan led us into a memorabilia room, where lots of pictures and empty bottles and stuff about the Harvey’s family are showcased, like a family museum. The next part was the tasting, where Teresa got her driver’s pack while Gianluigi tried a few drams. The first one was their Trutina, one of the main expressions, matured in ex-bourbon barrels for 6-7 years (non-age statement, NAS) and bottled very pale (rightfully so!) at 46%. It was followed by the Tenne, finished for 6-9 months in ex-Tawny Port casks. The next was a weird one, called Beinn Dubh (“black mountain” in Gaelic) is kind of an experiment: matured in ex-bourbon casks, then finished for a year in double-charred casks then conditioned with Ruby Port, definitely a strange combination (just a shame they add caramel colouring to make it darker) but interesting nonetheless. Finally, we could choose between one of their three peated releases: Fumare (NAS 46%), Fumare cask strength (60.4%) and Fumare 10y (46%). Gianluigi chose the cask strength, which was delicious. Except for the Beinn Dubh, generally their whiskies are bottled at natural colour and are not chill filtered.

The tasting room.

As the tasting finished, we drove off back to the heart of Speyside, at the camping near Aberlour where we spent the night. We were happy to have finally visited the Speyside distillery: usually overlooked by many, it actually deserves more credit for the variety of expressions they are bringing to the table. And on top of that, the distillery is in a quite unique scenery, glad we visited it before they move elsewhere.

The Speyside Distillery Tour (Spirit of Speyside)

Price: £35.00 pp (April 2023)

Duration: 1hr 30min

Tasting: 4 drams, the Spey Trutina (NAS, 46%), Tenne (NAS 46%), BeinnDubh (NAS, 43%) and Fumare Cask Strength (NAS, 60%)

Target: whisky curious and tourists

Value for money: good

Highlights: the dreamy distillery location

Recommended: yes

Link: https://speysidedistillery.co.uk/, https://www.spiritofspeyside.com/

#31.3 Spirit of Speyside 2023

Next stop, Tamdhu station

TL;DR: On our second day at the Spirit of Speyside, we checked out the Pictish Stones before driving to the first distillery of the day. This is a famous one for sherry cask maturation: Tamdhu! Not the prettiest one, but an interesting visit nonetheless.

(missed Part 2/Part 1?)

We woke up early (campervan life!) but well rested. Because the weather was still a bit cold (3°C in the morning!), and also because we still needed to get a comfortable mattress for the pop-up roof (the basic self-inflatable ones provided at purchase were “not great”, let’s just say), we slept “downstairs” in the van. This means you can’t basically do nothing before putting the rock-and-roll bed bad together. Once done that, we could have breakfast: black coffee (we’re still Italian), fruits, yogurt and crumpets. The latter is becoming one of our official campervan breakfast supplies, after we ”discovered” them during our 2022 Orkney trip.

Being a sunny morning (the only one in the holiday), the temperature quickly raised, so before hitting the road we had a wee walk. There was a church there, with a porch hosting the Inveravon Pictish stones, uncovered in 1878 and dating back to the 7^th-9^th century. These are carved with animals and other symbols, quite a nice small bonus for the morning. Back to the van, we left directed towards the first distillery of the day: Tamdhu!

The not so famous Pictish stones.

We didn’t have to travel much, and as we were a few minutes early, we drove to Knockando distillery (at the moment not operational), just a stone’s throw away, for a quick snoop. Tamdhu distillery is located near the river Spey, quite hidden from the main road. We parked at the (former) train station, a familiar spot for us: it is where the Dramathon half-marathon starts. For the festival, the wee building was turned into a the visitor centre, with a pop-up shop, while another building was renovated into a “snug” for tastings (we just took a look from the outside). Our tour guides were Jackie and Mike, respectively guide at the sister distillery Glengoyne (the other owned by Ian McLeod’s, soon to be three with Rosebank), and brand ambassador. They gave us (well, they gave Teresa) a dram, the Tamdhu 12 (43%), a nice one to start with.

Teresa was not ready for the picture.

The distillery started producing in 1897, it isn’t the prettiest, having a very industrial look, with some parts even a bit run down (and missing the popular pagoda roof, destroyed in 1919 and never rebuilt). During its history it has been mothballed a few times, the last one between 2010 and 2013, when it was sold from Edrington to Ian McLeod (in 2011). As usual, we started the production tour from the milling room, where a big green-painted old Porteus mill was located. It was not the original, it was purchased in the mid-70s from an unknown location. One peculiarity is that they have two silent (i.e. not producing) seasons, March and September, where they switch fuel from gas to diesel. As the other two distilleries we visited, you could definitely see that it is not a place geared for tourists.

Not quite the “classic” distillery.

We soon moved to the tun room with its closed stainless-steel mash tun. Next, we checked out the 9 wooden washbacks where the wash is fermented for 59 hours. Jackie and Mike kindly opened a few of them to make us smell the wash at different stages of fermentation. As usual, it was then time for the stills: they have 3 pairs of wash and spirit stills. As we always do, we asked for the cuts of the “heart” (what goes in the casks), but they explicitly said they could not tell us…maybe they were afraid we open our distillery to copy them, ahah!

Traditional washbacks in a not that traditional room.

This time we were both ready.

We then took a walk in the courtyard, before visiting a dunnage warehouse, one of the 28 warehouses across all their sites. They have also racked and palletised warehouses, but for their single malt they only use dunnage and racked. Sandy, the distillery manager, was waiting for us in the warehouse. It was a very nice part of the tour: he told some stories about the distillery, their commitment to source only the best sherry casks (well…like most distilleries, so we wonder who gets all the crappy ones).

Dunnage warehouse, always fascinating.

Finally, after a wee walk back to the visitor centre, it was time for the other two drams, both very delicious sherried ones: Tamdhu 15 and Tamdhu 18. It’s just a shame that prices for these are slowly creeping up, probably moving their target towards the high-end market. As a confirmation, their Spirit of Speyside exclusive, the Dalbeallie Dram (which we could not try there), was £100. When Gianluigi asked information about it, including the age, the guides started a mini-rant about how age is not important and whisky can be delicious at young age. We definitely agree, but if you want to sell us a whisky for 100 quid “blind” (meaning, without letting us try it), the minimum you can do is telling us about everything on the liquid. They were very generous with the driver’s drams however, a pack of three 5cl miniatures – Tamdhu 12, 15 and 18. Hooray!!!

Things we tasted, and things we didn’t taste.

Well, another distillery under our belt. Overall, we enjoyed the tour, and we learned a lot about Tamdhu, definitely a dram to try for all sherry bombs aficionados (although, it’s more delicate than most sherry bomb drams, very balanced). Stay tuned to learn about the rest of the day. Slaintè!

Tamdhu Tour (Spirit of Speyside)

Price: £35.00 pp (April 2023)

Duration: 1hr 30min

Tasting: 3 drams, Tamdhu 12 (43%), 15 (46%) and 18 (48%)

Target: whisky enthusiasts

Value for money: good (if not very good, considering how expensive Tamdhu 18 is)

Highlights: a real working site

Recommended: if you’re a fan of sherried whiskies

Link: https://www.tamdhu.com/, https://www.spiritofspeyside.com/

#31.2 Spirit of Speyside 2023

Shut it, badger!

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.

Cute building behind us is Dailuaine offices.

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.

Can you believe all these warehouses are empty?

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.

Impressive, empty malting floor.

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.

Uh, look at the washback outside!

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.

Deep-dive into fermantation, interesting!

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.

Cocktail and drams.

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.

Beautiful Dalmunach.

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!

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