#11.2 Birthday in the Borderlands

Tripping in the South of Scotland to Annandale
(Day 2)

The second day in Dumfries & Galloway, driving from Portpatrick to the lovely Annandale distillery!

(missed Day 1? Or go to Day 3)

The morning wasn’t too cold as we went to a nearby hotel for a big breakfast. We went for a short walk on the cliff around Portpatrick, the view of the village was pretty spectacular, but the clouds prevented us to spot Ireland…hopefully next time!

First stop in the morning, Newton Stewart. It looked as a nice, quiet village. Here we met up with Tom, a Gianluigi’s former colleague and his family for coffee and cake. It was great catching up with him, since Gianluigi and Tom hadn’t met in person since March 2020, despite spending a big chunk of the pandemic working together building a Covid model for Scotland.

The road between Newton Stewart and Annan was a quite different landscape compared to others in Scotland. A rug of intense green rolling hills, punctuated by cattle and sheep quietly grazing. We stopped by a smokehouse just past Creetown, on the main road, to get some of their delicious goodies. Past Dumfries, instead keeping on the main road, we drove straight south to Caerlaverock Castle. The visitor centre and the castle were closed, but it was possible to park nearby and, thanks to a sunny day, take a walk in the park. The castle looks like a proper medieval fort, including a catapult “parked” in front of it as a reminder of those walls purpose. As we will learn from the Wikipedia page, this has been under siege many times, until it was abandoned in 1640.

Beautiful castle behind an even more beautiful catapult!

It took just a short half-hour drive to arrive to Annandale from the castle. As we left the car in the wide parking lot, we could admire the awesome restorations of the distillery buildings. It sits in a nice spot as well, close to a stream and surrounded by fields and woods, almost like a postcard! We checked-in at the visitor centre’s shop (where we got our very first whisky lanyard!) and while waiting for the tour to start, we had a coffee at the Maltings, their cafè.

Other than the basic tour there are other three options available, which is possible to enquire about from the website: one focused on the buildings restoration, one about the new owners journey and project, and a technical one about whisky production. Gianluigi enquired about the latter, but that week the person in charge was on annual leave, so he chose the basic tour (prices of the alternative ones are not specified on the website).

Our guide led us to the room where the tour started. While she was explaining the history of the distillery, which dates back to 1836, she gave us a first dram of a blended scotch whisky prototype (not on sale yet), a blend of North British grain whisky with their peated expression (Man O’Sword), diluted at 40%: despite the thin mouthfeel, not bad at all! The distillery was bought by the Walker family in 1893 as a source of peated single malt for their blends: their kiln used peat from local bogs, making it a pretty unique malt. Compared to other peated malts, it was also easier to transport it to Kilmarnock. The distillery was closed and dismantled in 1924, and prior to their acquisition by David Thomson and Teresa Church in the late 2000s, it was abandoned. When the renovation happened, all the equipment was new, making it another (almost) 200 years old “new distillery”, similarly to Bladnoch. In the middle of the courtyard we could admire the old stillhouse building’s base, with the two circular structures that used to host the stills.

The historical ties of these distillery don’t end here, as they decided to name their single malts after two very important characters tied with the local and Scottish history: while their unpeated whisky is named “Man O’Words” in honor of Robert Burns, their peated one is the “Man O’Sword”, after Robert The Bruce (and the peat doesn’t come from the area anymore, but it’s sourced by the Simpson maltsters).

As we moved to the production area, we spotted the similarities with other distilleries influenced by the late Dr Jim Swan (Lindores Abbey). In particular, they have a mashtun closed by a copper lid, and three stills: one wash still and two twins, slightly smaller, spirit stills.

All in one room: mashtun, washbacks and…

In the filling room, a poster of Doddie Wair, which filled their first peated cask. The dunnage warehouse is on two levels, and here is where we had a wee taste of their products (well, not Gianluigi as he was driving). We tasted their peated and unpeated Rascally Liquor (newmake spirit bottled at 63.5%), and their young Man O’Words and Man O’Sword from bourbon casks (unchillfiltered, natural color and cask strength). Back in the shop, we realised that all their bottling were £80-85 or over, depending on the cask type, so we opted for a tasting set of 6x5cl drams: peated and unpeated single malts in ex-bourbon, ex-sherry and STR casks, a good compromise (we still have to taste them however…). For what we could taste on that day (but also in another Kask Whisky tasting, when we had a dram of their sherry cask matured Man O’Words… and a real sherry cask, not a seasoned one) the whisky is very promising, and we are excited to see what is in their plans in the years to come!

As we left the distillery Teresa wasn’t aware of the next stop, and she was really clueless until we crossed the border with (cracks in the sky noise) England!!! The distillery for the next day was, of course, the Lakes distillery, but Gianluigi decided to spend the night in a town on the coast, Workington. We stayed in the very clean and tidy Hall Park Hotel, which has a bar as well, so before dinner we could watch the second half of the England-Ireland 6 Nations game from a comfy couch in our room with a pint! Sublime!

So another distillery in the sack, this time the beauty of Annandale really made the difference. We will definitely go back for another tour (hopefully the technical one), maybe in a few years when more expressions of this whisky will be available.

Annandale Distillery Tour and Tasting

Price: £20.00 pp (February 2022…But there was a discount at the time, we paid £10pp)

Tasting: Blended scotch (a blend of North British grain and their peated single malt, 40%), Rascal spirit (new make), Man O’Word & Man O’Sword (unpeated and peated, NC, NCF, CS)…and wee glass and laynard to take home

Target: everyone

Value for money: Good

Highlights: The beautiful site

Distillery Exclusive: Man O’Words and Man O’Sword single cask bottle your own vintage 2015 (CS, NCF, NC, ~£60 for a 375ml bottle)

Things we did not like: Feeling like broken records, but the bottling prices were a bit steep again

Link: https://annandaledistillery.com/

#11.1 Birthday in the Borderlands

Away to Galloway: Bladnoch Distillery (Day 1)

Another trip to discover distilleries in the Lowlands on a special occasion: Teresa’s birthday.

(Want to read the whole story? Go to Day 2 or Day 3)

There was one trip we aimed to do back in 2020, but because of you know what, we postponed it: Dumfries and Galloway. We heard this is a lovely region and, very important for us, home of two single malt distilleries, Annandale and Bladnoch.

This year, Gianluigi decided to catch up with this trip, and the perfect occasion was Teresa’s birthday, in March. He organized the trip as a surprise, so on that Friday morning when we ignited Cliff’s rowdy motor (thanks again Justine!), Teresa had no idea where we were going. As we left the city and didn’t take the Fifth of Forth bridge, Teresa recognized the landscape of the M8 towards Glasgow, so she narrowed down her guesses to two: Arran or Galloway. As we turned south towards Ayrshire, she got the correct guess. Smart lady! The distillery visit of the day was at Bladnoch. Their 1817 Tour is only available on Wednesdays and Fridays at 11.30, and because Gianluigi wanted to drive on the Ayrshire coast (which is a bit longer route), we had an early start.

Ayrshire itself is now home of at least three whisky distilleries in two production sites. One is the huge Girvan complex, owned by Willian Grant & Sons (the same company owning Glenfiddich, Balvenie and Kininvie, in Speyside) and including the Girvan grain distillery and Ailsa Bay (and for gin lovers, this is the place where Hendrick’s is produced). We briefly stopped to take a picture and snoop around the site.

The third one is a new small farm distillery called Lochlea, who released their first whisky in early 2022. They don’t have a visitor centre, but in some interviews on podcasts and on an article on the Whisky Magazine, they seemed to suggest they could welcome small groups of visitors, if contacted by time. That was very far from the reply they sent to Gianluigi’s email, which was polite but categorical in saying that, because it is a farm distillery, there is zero chance of welcoming guests (to be honest, that was not the case when a few weeks ago it was showed on social media that they actually had bloggers/podcasters, but hey ho!). Along the coast we also drove past Cairnryan, where the ferries to Northern Ireland leave, and the nice town of Stranraer, which we pictured much smaller.

Since the day was cloudy but not rainy (yet…), we decided to park the car in Wigtown and reach the distillery on foot. Wigtown is a very cute village and the Scottish capital of books. The place is in fact full of bookshops where you can find both new and second-hand books. In the afternoon, after the distillery visit and lunch, we took advantage of it to enlarge our collection of Ian Rankin novels and whisky books. The walk from the village main square to the distillery was about 20 minutes long on a very quiet road through a rural landscape which we’ll find very characteristic of the area.

As we crossed Bladnoch’s doors we realised how new the visitor centre, shop, restaurant are, and we checked in right away with our tour guide, James. He used to work as a chef, until he decided to join the Bladnoch team part time as a guide for their tour and, occasionally, to prepare meals for business visitors. When the tour started he told us how everything changed when the distillery was bought by Richard Prior in 2015, in particular the distilling plant (stills, washbacks, etc.). So, it is basically a new 200 years old distillery! We moved to the mill room, where he showed us how the shuttle box is used with a scale to check that the mill grinded husk, flour and grist at the correct ratio. We made a brief stop at the closed steel mash-tun, and moved to the room with 6 wooden (Douglas Fir) washbacks. James and the operator showed us how to measure the alcohol content of the wash, before and after fermentation (very similar to what we did in our timid attempts to brew beer at home, actually).

We moved to the still room, where four shiny copper stills (two wash stills and two spirit stills) were actually working! It was very nice to see the liquid been distilled through the wash still’s little window.

Once in the courtyard, we could admire the old distillery building including the malting floors, that are now used as offices. James also showed us the water source, just behind the old buildings. We spent a while inside the dunnage warehouse (where we couldn’t take pictures, except from outside the door). The new make spirit is maturing in a variety of casks: quarters, lot of sherry hogsheads, lot of wine barriques, bourbon, etc.

Birthday girl and the old malting floors.

We finally got to the tasting room, adjacent to the shop, where 5 drams were waiting for us: the new make spirit (nice surprise!), and four of their core range expressions (see summary below). Because most of the whisky they are currently bottling comes from the previous owners, at this point in their journey they want to showcase what they can do with the range of casks available. In our opinion all the four drams were all very cask-forward and enjoyable, although not mind-blowing. The two stand-out were the 14 y/o matured in ex-oloroso sherry casks, and the 19 y/o matured in ex-PX casks, of which James gave us a wee taste at the bar. A shame the price of both was a bit too steep. After the tour we stayed for a quick meal at their nice café: a plate of smoked duck and salmon, very good!

On the way back to Wigtown it started raining (sad trombone sound), so as we got into the village we sought refuge in another café (that was Gianluigi’s excuse to get another cake…). After leaving Wigtown (with a few more books in the trunk) and driving around a bit we directed ourselves towards our place for the night: the Waterfront Hotel in Portpatrick. This is a quite spectacular village on the Rhinns of Galloway peninsula, right in front of Ireland (which we couldn’t see because of the clouds). Our room was very ‘cosy’ (not to say tiny), but the staff was nice enough to give us one with a spectacular sea view. We had a delicious meal at the Connor’s restaurant, where we could also taste a couple of discontinued Bladnoch expressions: the 10 y/o (which Ralfy talked a lot about…and in fairness, it was one of the best we tried) and the 17 y/o.

Despite not bringing any bottle with us, we were very happy to have visited Bladnoch distillery. This experience was an example how the guide’s enthusiasm and knowledge can really “make the tour”, which otherwise could have been a very ‘standard’ one. So, to James, Sláinte!

Bladnoch 1817 Tour & Tasting

Price: £50.00 pp + £5 per transaction (March 2022)

Tasting: Bladnoch new make spirit (63.5%), 11y/o (46.7% , NCF, NC, ex-bourbon casks), Samsara (46.7%, NAS, NCF, NC, California wine and ex-bourbon casks), 14y/o (46.7% , NCF, NC, oloroso sherry casks), Alinta (peated, 47% , NAS, NCF, NC, 1^st fill ex-bourbon and 1^st fill ex-sherry casks)…and the glencairn to take home

Target: whisky enthusiasts and geeks

Value for money: a bit pricey but the in-depth tour made up for it

Highlights: the very enthusiastic guide James and the possibility of tasting extra drams

Distillery Exclusive: single cask 2007 vintage (55.9%, ex-port pipe, NC, NCF, £170) and 2002 vintage (48.4%, ex-sherry butt, NC, NCF, £400)

Link: https://bladnoch.com/

#10.3 Whisky in Edinburgh and beyond

Dramming in
Glasgow and Fife

Another couple of distillery trips right outside Edinburgh: Clydeside and Kingsbarn.

(missed Part 2 or Part 1?)

Being in a new golden era of whisky, recent years saw a plethora of new single malt distilleries being built around Scotland and the rest of the world. A few new ones are in the Lowlands. Here, distilleries opened really all over the place: in Fife (remember our trip to Lindores Abbey?), in Edinburgh (someone said Holyrood?), in the south of Scotland (ehm-ehm, Borders), and in Glasgow. One of the most recent here, is the Clydeside distillery, which opened in 2017 and started producing new make spirit in 2018. We visited it back in November 2019, at a time we were getting more and more involved into whisky. We spotted an event in the SMWS website which included the distillery tour plus tasting and bites. What else could we ask?

Coincidentally, a couple of friends of ours were visiting, so we gladly involved them in the visit (we’re still unsure whether they really wanted to get involved, but they didn’t say “no”). Being a time when people used to go every day to the office, Teresa was already in Glasgow, and the three of us reached her in the late afternoon. At the time the distillery was not quite easy to reach by public transport from the city centre, so we grabbed an Uber. The distillery building is beautiful, a mix of modern and industrial architecture, right on the side of the Clyde river (well, the distillery name kind of gave it away, I guess…). There is a whisky shop inside the visitor centre, with a wide selection of whiskies.

The tour was very nice, we had to translate it in Italian for our friends, so we ended up not taking any pictures (and tbh, at the time the blog idea was not there yet…), but we enjoyed it nonetheless. We were very happy to try the newmake spirit at the end of it. Being a SMWS one, the rest of the tasting was quite great as well, and there we could try a single grain whisky distilled a couple of days Gianluigi was born! The bites were a bit underwhelming, so to calm our hungry stomachs we had to get a (very typical late night in Glasgow) kebab when we were back in the city centre, before our train back to Edinburgh. At the time they didn’t have any official release yet, but now that they have, we are waiting for the right occasion to go back to Glasgow and try something tasty!

Among the most prolific areas for new distilleries, Fife could almost be a region on its own now. We recently visited Lindores Abbey, but among the new distilleries we can count for Aberargie, Daftmill, Eden Mill, Inchdairnie, and Kingsbarns. We visited the latter in March 2020, right before the pandemic. The event was organized by the Fife Whisky Festival, and consisted in the projection of the Amber Light documentary, featuring Dave Broom, and the tour of the distillery. To attend this event Gianluigi had to turn down a free ticket offer for a Scotland rugby game at Murrayfield, where it was playing against France. His epidemiologist instinct suggested avoiding big crowds, since Covid was already spreading across Italy and, in his mind, it was just a matter of time for it to get to Scotland.

Reaching the distillery in a combination of train and buses turned out not being the cheapest, we ended up spending more money than what a rented car would have costed at the time. However, it paid off as the distillery is situated in a very beautiful spot of the Fife coast, nearby the sea and meters away from golf courses. The projection of the movie was not the best, due to the initial technical problems and a very low audio volume.

The distillery was built in 2014 on an abandoned farm originally from the 1800s, of which they retained the main structure (including the pigeon house and, as many newly built distilleries, they have a café, where you can have food and tasty cakes. The very enthusiastic tour guide walked us through the production stages, and tested our ability to recognize flavours and aromas in a dedicated area. We understood that the intention was to release single malt at a young age, therefore commonly to others they use lots of shaved, toasted and recharred (STR) casks. They started making newmake spirit in 2015 (the first cask is exposed in the visitor centre), which we could taste at the end of the tour, together with a first core range expression, Dream to Dram (46%, ex bourbon and STR casks), and the Family Reserve: a similar expression but bottled at cask strength. The distillery is owned by the Wemyss Family, which is an independent bottler as well, so we were also offered a Velvet Fig 25y/o malt from their range. We particularly liked the Family Reserve expression, however at the time we had a 10-day trip to Islay scheduled for the end of the month, so we didn’t buy it and we got a couple of Wemyss blended malts miniatures instead…fortunately we could find that bottle months later, since that trip to Islay never happened.

In spite of the young age, the drams we had were both very tasty. We recently attended a Kingsbarns vertical tasting at the Tipsy Midgie, in Edinburgh, which confirmed how promising their whisky is, when matured in a range of casks as well. Overall, getting to know these new distilleries is very exciting: all of them can offer a unique take on single malt, and unlike many of their older brothers, the new and family-owned ones have more freedom to experiment and provide innovation in the category. Being able to reach them (more or less) easily is definitely a big “plus”!

Until the next adveture, stay safe and sláinte!

Whisky Activities Links

https://www.theclydeside.com/
https://www.kingsbarnsdistillery.com/
https://smws.com/
https://www.fifewhiskyfestival.com/

#10.2 Whisky in Edinburgh and beyond

Dramming by bus

Other whisky things to do easy to reach from the capital of Scotland.

(missed Part 1?)

There was a period when we were poorly experienced drammers, and our search for new distilleries to visit was done through the good (although it could be improved) Visit Scotland map or with the map we got from the Scotch Whisky Experience in Edinburgh. The brands we knew better were the ones we could find in grocery stores or the super classics (Oban, Lagavulin, Macallan, etc.), so we didn’t have much clue about many of the distilleries around Scotland. In this context, we started looking out for places to visit in daytrips. One of the first ones we spotted, and quite isolated with respect to others, was in a village called Hawick, the Borders distillery! So, on one sunny morning in November 2019 we decided to head south and go!

The same morning was actually the day of the Rugby World Cup final England – South Africa, so we already woke up early to find a pub showing it in the city and to get breakfast. We ended up at the Black Cat, in Rose St, where we fully enjoyed the game, including that two incredible Springboks tries.

Finished the game, we moved toward the Edinburgh bus station, to find out that our pronunciation of “Hawick” was definitely very wrong. The bus ride was about 2 hours long, including a 10-15 minutes stop in Galashiels to change coach. The landscape with rolling hills and lot of green was not as dramatic as others in the country, but it was beautiful nonetheless. Once in Hawick we went for a short walk to check out the village. It looked like a nice and quiet, nice to visit for a day or maybe two, but not much more. We then went to the distillery, situated in a late 19^th century building that used to be an electric company, a great example of recovered industrial architecture. At the time it was very new: renovated in 2016, it started producing new make only in 2018. On the side they produce gin and vodka, and yes, we bought a bottle of the latter at the end of the tour, argh!!!

Our guide for the day was David, which looked very invested in the project and gave us a very nice tour, delving into the details of their whisky and other spirits production. It finished with a tasting in a very cozy bar above the visitor centre. The taste included their new make spirit, Kerr gin and Puffing vodka, and one of two scotch whiskies, both sourced: the blended malt Lower East Side and the blended whisky Clan Fraser. Of course, we tasted one each, and although pleasant, we decided to wait for their own single malt. After the distillery we conceded ourselves a coffee and cake in one of the nice little cafes in Hawick, and we took the bus back to Edinburgh, to end a very nice day.

We found ourselves into a similar situation a couple of months later. It’s early January 2020, a friend was visiting us from Italy for a few days…A friend that, being from the north-east of Italy, appreciates spirits and is very curious about whisky. After the a quite lame Hogmanay’s celebration, we decided to take her to visit a scotch whisky distillery…Clearly just out of courtesy, not because we wanted to!

We didn’t have enough time for a big trip, but still enough to go outside Edinburgh, so we figured out that Tullibardine or Deanston would have been good options. We picked the second option, for no special reason other than a better combination of train timetable and timing of the tour.

We woke up quite early to take the train to Stirling, and from there we took a bus that very conveniently left us in front of the distillery. Our friend had never seen a distillery, so we decided to do a standard tour (we caught up with the Warehouse tasting later on).

The building looked quite different from other, more classic distilleries. We understood why at the very start of the tour, when the guide covered the history of the distillery and told us that the building used to be a cotton mill until the mid-60s. Before moving to the production area, we could take a wee look at the turbine that produces power for the distillery from the river Teith.

The tour was quite informative and interesting, with two highlights: the huuuuge open-top mash tun (we were all impressed!) and a cask in the warehouse signed by the cast of The Angels’ Share movie…because yes, part of the movie was filmed here!

We finally moved to a nice tasting room, where four drams were waiting for us: the classic 12y, the Virgin Oak, the 18y, and the 14y Spanish Oak Finish, all 43.6% except for the latter (57.9%). The drams were paired with delicious chocolate. To be honest, our palates were not that developed at the time to fully appreciate the quality of these whiskies. We definitely do now, and Deanston is one of our great favourites!

After the tasting we browsed the shop (which btw offers a lot of 35ml bottles), but very briefly because it was already time to head back to Edinburgh. We would have hanged out a bit longer, but we’d decided to bring our friend to the SMWS in the evening to put a cherry on the top of her full-on whisky day. She still drinks whisky, so we consider her initiation to the water of life a great success. Stay tuned for another couple of car-free whisky adventures in the next post, meanwhile, as always, Slainte!

Links
https://www.thebordersdistillery.com/
https://deanstonmalt.com/

#9 A daytrip visit to Pitlochry: Blair Athol

Raindrops keep falling…in my dram

A rainy day trip to yet another Diageo workhorse distillery (and a wee rant about bottles pricing).

Over the last three years, we embraced the dry January tradition. After over a month in Italy, this year felt even more necessary to regenerate our livers for a few weeks…and, as usual, they were the slowest of the year.
For this reason too we were particularly thrilled when we woke up on a rainy Sunday morning in February for our first distillery trip of the year! It was an old acquaintance of us: Blair Athol, in Pitlochry. We had already visited it in July 2019, although only for a tasting in their unique bar (a former copper mashtun IS the bar). Since then, we tried a number of Blair Athol expressions, mostly from the SMWS, and were never disappointed.
When planning the trip we were quite happy to realise that we could do it in a day using public transportation. The return bus ticket was less than £20 each, more environmentally friendly and way cheaper than going by car. Pitlochry is just about 1h and 40 minutes away from Edinburgh, and if it wasn’t for a 15-20 minutes stop in Perth, the bus trip would have matched that duration.
We woke up quite early and walked our way up the Leith Walk to the bus station, only stopping to grab a coffee and a roll at the Snax Cafè (W Register St), just a few minutes away from the station: the only one open at 7.30am on a Sunday (and probably the cheapest in the area). We can’t say the bus ride was exactly smooth, as the table was vibrating so much that we couldn’t leave our coffees on it until we hit the highway. But in a figurative sense, it was a smooth ride indeed. Once in Pitlochry, we had enough time for a second breakfast, espresso and (a very yummy) cake this time, in the very cosy Escape Route Café, while hiding from the rain.

With an extra half-slice of cake in the stomach, we were definitely ready for the tour! Since we were here in 2019 the tours offer has changed a bit. When we booked there were three experiences available (at the time of writing they added a fourth: Blair Athol Cask and Cocktail experience, for £75): the Signature Tour (£16, “guided distillery experience” with three drams), the Allt Dour Tour (£35) and the Managers Tasting Experience tour (£65). According to their webpage, the latter two included 6 drams, so we inquired about the difference and learned that while the Allt Dour Tour features a mix of Blair Athol and other Diageo’s distilleries’ drams, the Managers Tasting Experience is an exclusively Blair Athol tasting, with two samples from casks and two distillery exclusives. We chose the latter, of course.

Our tour guide was David, whose kindness didn’t betray the fame Canadians have. Commonly to other distillery guides we met, he moved there when about to retire and decided to pick up a part-time job at the distillery. We both agree that it sounds like a very good plan.
As the tour started David told us that the 99.7% of Blair Athol single malt goes into blends, mostly Bell’s. We knew it, but not to that extent. We were also surprised by how the production process is still very manual, in contrast with other Diageo workhorses such as Clynelish, mostly automated.

There is no filling room, as the new make spirit is loaded into tankers and put into casks at the main Diageo facilities near Alloa. We moved to one of the few dunnage warehouses they have on site, which keeps casks dating back to the 60s…Awesome smell!

After the tour, we moved to a very small but cosy room accessible from the courtyard, where five drams were waiting for us. The first one was the Blair Athol 12y Flora and Fauna. We discovered that it comes from only first-fill ex-sherry casks and is not artificially coloured (which makes sense, given the former). We wondered why they don’t put it on the label. The second dram was their Distillery Exclusive. The age is not stated, however it is a bit higher in abv (48%) and from “refill, rejuvenated and American oak ex-bourbon casks”. Very buttery and sweet dram, we thought more ex-bourbon casks than sherry ones were in the vatting. The third was a cracking dram: Blair Athol 23y (58.4%, 2017 special release, cracking price as well, unfortunately). Then, we had two samples from the cask, a 2009 vintage from an ex-bourbon barrel and a 1993 vintage from an ex-sherry butt.

While both lovely, the bourbon was truly great, a shame it wasn’t for sale. Finally, David gave us a wee sample of the 11y bottle-your-own expression (56.2%, full maturation in ex-red wine casks)…Maybe it was the 6th dram, although the “we are gifting this” feel of it was not great since it was advertised on the website and in the email.

As the tour ended, we were conducted to the distillery shop. To be honest it felt a bit rushed, with most of our samples still in the glass…Fortunately we had empties with us.
We returned to the village to look for food, which we found (in good quantities) at the Old Mill Inn: the lamb Sunday roast was particularly tasty! The rain didn’t stop however, so except for a wee walk up to the local church courtyard, we spent the rest of the afternoon in a pub, watching the England rugby team smashing Italy yet again.

The bus was perfectly on time and took us back home while we were happily sipping the leftovers from the tasting.

The glasses they gave us at the distillery turned out to be handy.

It was a nice experience to revisit a distillery we had seen in the early days of our whisky journey. The liquid did not disappoint, as well as the staff, nice and welcoming. However, here we need to have a bit of a rant about distillery bottle pricing and offering (***). Blair Athol is the fifth Diageo distillery we visited in the last year, the others being Clynelish, Ord, Lochnagar, and Cardhu. All of them had a Distillery Exclusive (all 48% and non-age statement), priced at £85 or £90. All except Ord, if we recall correctly, had a bottle-your-own expression: single cask, naturally presented, usually around 11-12y, in all cases £120. First, in our opinion, both distillery exclusive and bottle-your-own are overpriced. We are prepared and willing to pay a premium for special expressions and distillery exclusives, and we are also aware of the current prices’ madness. However, it needs to be somehow justified. 120 quids for a 11-12y naturally presented is quite steep, 30 quids above single cask expressions of similar age at other distilleries (Glenallachie or Auchentoshan). Furthermore, how is it possible that all these cask permutations come always at the same price? Talking about the Distillery Exclusive range, these are decently sized batches (6000 bottles), still non-age statement whisky and not cask-strength: how come they cost £85/90? As an example, the Glenlivet bottle-your-own, a small batch as well, came for a much lower price (£55 for the 12y, £70 for the 15y, both cask-strength). We find really hard to explain the logic behind prices, it looks almost like they want to take advantage of whisky enthusiasts, which is not great, in particular considering the very convenient price of the entry level expressions in their core ranges. We can see why new and independent distilleries would push prices a bit, but here we are at decades-old sites backed by a huge multinational company. It is a shame because, in spite of the nice visits we had at these distilleries, this left us a bitter taste, and we probably won’t rush to go back and check out new bottlings.

Blair Athol – The Managers Tasting Experience

Price: £65.00 pp (February 2022)

Tasting: 6 drams, BA 12y (F&F, 43%), BA Distillery Exclusive (see below), BA 23y 2017 special release, BA ex-bourbon cask sample, BA ex-sherry cask sample, BA Bottle your own (see below)

Target: whisky geeks

Value for money: a wee bit pricey

Highlights: the single cask drams

Things we did not like: the sampled drams not for sale, and see rant above (***)

Distillery exclusive: BA bottle-your-own (11y, ex-red wine cask, NC, NCF, 56.1%, £120) and BA Distillery Exclusive (NAS, 48%, £90)

Link: https://www.malts.com/en-gb/distilleries/blair-athol

NAS: non-age statement, NC: non-coloured, NCF: non-chill filtered

#7.2 Dramming around begins

Back to Kentucky

A weekend to complete our Bourbon Trail passport!

(missed the first episode?)

When we stop and think about it, it’s incredible how this all started, almost by chance. Someone would say “serendipity”. Roy Aquavitae centered one of his vPubs around this concept, telling the story of how he stumbled upon whisky (scotch in his case) at some point in his life, almost by chance. We are no different.

Back in August 2016, we had picked up the Bourbon Trail Passport at Heaven Hill, the first whisky distillery we ever visited. At the time, to complete the passport, there were only 9 distilleries to visit. Just to give you an idea on how quickly things are changing in the world of whisk(e)y, now there are 18 (and, on top of that, there is also an alternative Craft Bourbon Trail). Had there been that many at the time, we probably wouldn’t have completed it. However, with only 6 to go after our roadtrip in the South, we thought it was doable in a weekend, so there we go!

March 2017, Teresa was back in Illinois to visit. We were coming out of a quite cold winter, at least for our standards – earlier in January the temperature wouldn’t have gone above -10C for an entire week, with peaks (well, drops) at around -23C. One Friday, we rented a car and drove straight to Louisville, where we had our hotel booked.

The Saturday was particularly challenging, with four distilleries visits planned. This is still the maximum number of distilleries we visited in a single day, and to be honest, we wouldn’t do that again, but rather take an extra day. The driver of the day was Gianluigi, and that meant he only took a sniff from the samples and a few tiny sips, planning to fully enjoy the stuff later at the hotel.

First off, Maker’s Mark, joining the first tour of the day. The distillery is in a very nice location, with rolling green hills (like many places in Kentucky), wood, and black and red buildings.

As for Jim Beam earlier in August, in the tasting at the end of the tour we appreciated the range of flavours a single distillery could produce, and although their flagship product was not our favourite, some of the other drams were truly excellent (we wish we could remember what they were…).

After we were done with the Maker’s Mark and their very generous tasting, we headed North-East towards Woodford Reserve. There, we only did a tasting, a couple of drams paired with chocolate for about 10 dollars.

As the previous distillery, it looked quite nicely immersed in the rural landscape. A bit of a change would have come later, at Wild Turkey. Compared to the other ones, the Campari-owned distillery looked more like an industrial plant (or maybe the other ones are just better at hiding this, considering they all produce a huge amount of spirit). This not to say we did not like it, on the contrary we loved it! Also, the tasting room was in a very scenic spot, overlooking an old rail bridge. Here they gave us four drams, including a delicious Rye whiskey and a less so honey liquor (some things you just can’t unlearn…definitely not a drink for us). The other stuff was great however, and Wild Turkey is now one of our “never without at least a bottle in the cabinet” (at the moment: the 101 and the Rare Breed).

Wild Turkey tasting (yes, they gave us the glasses!) and…

We moved on to the last distillery of the day: Town Branch. Located in downtown Lexington, it marked the move from the rural landscape of the early part of the day, to a nice and vibrant urban atmosphere. We picked the distillery tour only, skipping the brewery part, which brought us into the whiskey making plant. Particularly notable was the still room with the two long-necked copper stills, and a big window overlooking the landscape.

What a still room they have at Town Branch!

We enjoyed the view while enjoying the tasting at the end of the tour. We drove back to Louisville for dinner, which we had at the Feast BBQ…guess what we had? We’ll just say that the beef brisket was spectacular.

Sunday started slowly, taking advantage of the hotel’s facilities, including a (first) light breakfast. We drove towards downtown Louisville to have a (second) bigger breakfast, which we had in a local restaurant called Wild Eggs: holy molly that quesadilla (yes, Gianluigi does still remember…)! We then moved to the first of the two distilleries of the day: the Evan Williams experience, in the middle of the city. Although the main Evan Williams production is at Jim Beam’s, here they have a little experimental distillery with a capacity of one barrel per week. We chose the tasting experience, which was organised as a tour in a speak-easy bar, with the guide dressed as a bartender of the 1920s-30s. The drams here were pretty awesome, we still fondly remember a 12y/o (which we hugely regret not buying…what newbies!) and a 22y/o bourbon that blowed our socks off! Unfortunately for Teresa, she was the designated driver for the day, but she eagerly packeted the samples for later.

We proceeded to the last distillery of the trip where we’d have (finally!) our Bourbon Trail Passport completed: Bulleit!

No longer newbies (well…), Bourbon Trail done!

To this day this is still one of our favourite bourbons, probably also because of the high rye content of the mashbill. Their Rye whiskey is also a favourite of ours, and we’re not the only ones: months later the bottle of Bulleit Rye that Gianluigi had gifted to his parents evaporated in mysterious circumstances (a dinner party, apparently…or maybe angel share?).

Our trip was over, and we finally headed back to Illinois, tired but happy to have done something special (including the fact that in all tours we were the only non-Americans). Thinking back to this experience today, it seems like ages ago. Maybe it’s because of the pandemic, or maybe the years have really gone by, or maybe it’s just that so many ‘whisk(e)y things’ have happend afterwards.

Today whysk(e)y is not just our hobby, it’s our gateway to a world of flavour and experiences. Visiting distilleries is by far our favourite holiday-type, we love getting to know whisk(e)y and the people making it. Every distillery has its own story and is embedded in its own unique atmosphere, which cannot be replicated anywhere else. We are never tired of learning, and with 50 and counting distilleries visited now, we still feel there is not enough time to learn and see all the things we would like to! And all started with a “why not”….serendipity?

Kentucky Bourbon Distilleries – Links

https://www.makersmark.com/
https://www.woodfordreserve.com/en-uk/
https://www.wildturkeybourbon.com/
https://www.lexingtonbrewingco.com/distilleries-tours
https://evanwilliams.com/plan-your-trip
https://www.bulleit.com/en-gb/

[Again, no summary box. We visited these distilleries 5 years ago, our feedback would be too out of date!]

#7.1 Dramming around begins

Road-trippin in the US

How a bad weather day throwed us into the world of whisk(e)y!

So, how did a couple of Italians, whose families’ drink of choice has been wine for (probably) generations, get caught into the fabulous world of whisky? Well, thanks to a road trip in the United States South and to a very nice host. But let’s not go ahead of ourselves and proceed in order.

Before 2016, we did not have much idea about what whisk(e)y was nor how it was made. In 2015 Gianluigi moved to Illinois, right in the middle of mid-west. One evening, a friend poured him something that he never forgot, something new: a Laphroaig. That prompted him to purchase a couple of scotch bottles (two because he first bought a Glenfiddich 12y, thinking that it would have been the same…how dare him!). Besides that, not much…whisk(e)y was just another spirit. Teresa was a bit more experienced (so to speak), as from time to time she would end an evening with friends with peated whisky instead of amaro.

Comes 2016, Teresa arrived to Illinois for the summer holidays. We had decided to take a road-trip, our favourite style of vacation. This time, a really big one: the mighty South! From Illinois down to Kentucky (through Indiana), Nashville, the Appalachian Mountains, Charleston SC, Savannah GA, then straight West to New Orleans, up to Memphis, St. Louis, and back to Illinois.

First stop: Louisville, Kentucky (KY)…you probably already see where this is going. At the time we were still using AirBnB (later we decided to stop because of the increasing cost of living that this and other short-term rent companies are causing to locals, who struggle to find affordable flats, in particular in cities like Edinburgh) and we stayed in a typical American suburbia house, hosted by a very nice couple. While having a relaxed chat in the evening, he poured us some bourbon and suggested us to take the exit 112 from the Interstate 65, because there were a few open distilleries just 10 to 15 minutes away. We looked at each other and thought: “why not”?

The day after came, and the weather was not exactly a delight. So, a further reason to take a few hours for the “bourbon detour”. First, we tried the farthest from the highway, the Heaven Hill Bourbon Heritage Center, in Bardstown. We were unlucky there, as the tour had just left, but a tasting would have started soon enough. In the meantime, we could admire the huge rickhouses on the rolling hills outside the visitor centre.

The tasting was very informative, covering the history of the distillery and all the brands they had acquired, in particular after the prohibition era. The line-up was made of four drams, the first one (a rye) promptly necked by Teresa despite the guide telling us to take a wee sip… of course Gianluigi shared his afterwards. There was also an Elijah Craig bourbon, while the final dram was a very “woody” example of how, sometimes, too long maturation can go wrong. At the visitor centre, we spotted the Kentucky Bourbon passport, which we both took and put the Heaven Hill stamp on.

A new challenge ahead: getting all the distillery stamps!

We tried our luck at the next distillery: Four Roses (actually, the warehouse and bottling plant in Cox’s Creek). Again, no luck, the tour had just started, so we did the tasting, again. We had their three main bourbons for the (ridiculous) price of $5.00: the Four Roses Bourbon, Small Batch and Single Barrel. While Teresa loved the latter, Gianluigi preferred the middle one, but overall we were surprised by how good it was (Gianluigi in particular, as he remembered a drunken night of over a decade earlier fuelled by an unpleasant Four Roses bourbon).

Back in the car, we headed towards the third and last distillery (for now), Jim Beam. Here we were finally able to take the tour (hurray!).

It was a great experience, the guide was very funny and prepared, a great start for newbies like us. We could understand how whiskey is made, and walk inside one of these huge rickhouses we kept seeing around, and all the rules of bourbon and rye (>50% corn/rye, new oak barrels, etc). At the end we could choose two or three drams in their huge product range (great favourites, Baker’s and Knob Creek).

Here, by trying several expressions next to each other, we could fully appreciate how bourbons (and whisky in general) can be very different despite being produced on the same site. And in this moment, folks, the seed of our curiosity towards whisk(e)y was first planted in our mind, taste buds, and heart, paving the way to what would have happened next.

[If you are only interested in our whisk(e)y journey, you can skip the rest and go to the second episode. Otherwise keep reading about our road trip]

The trip continued not as smoothly as we would have liked. Nashville was great, although the Music Broadway was a bit too fake for us (in three out of four bars we entered the band played “Sweet Home Alabama”, in all four “Take me Home, Country Roads”). That was compensated by an early morning visit to Jack White’s Third Man Records store and a delicious fried chicken lunch!

The Appalachians and the Smokey Mountains were also great. After driving through Chattanooga and before the Blue Ridge Highway, we stayed near Sylva (NC) where our friend Matt (if you want to know all the coolest things about plant ecology, he is the guy! here his website and podcast) brought us to taste delicious beers at the local Innovation Brewing.

After a detour to Charlotte (NC) to pick up two Pearl Jam tickets and before visiting the stunning Charlestone (SC), we had our first setback: bed bugs! We left the motel (clearly too randomly picked) in the middle of the night to avoid being eaten alive (fortunately we had not opened our luggage to avoid our clothes smelling like cigarette…not sure about calling that luck). But the real issue happened the day after: 10 minutes before reaching our (more carefully picked) motel right outside Savannah (GA), we got rear-ended by a distracted lady on the highway! We were intact, the car not so much, and we had to spend half of the next day trying to get another one from the closest open (it was Saturday…) car rental branch. Thankfully this didn’t translate into a huge financial issue, as we were covered by the roadside assistance insurance. Since then we have always included it in our rentals!

That was the last bad thing happened to us during the trip (hurray!).

Savannah was truly gorgeous, a shame we could not stay more. At one point we were having a beer on the river side, and a guy asked Gianluigi if he could take a picture him and his gilrfriend. “Of course”, the prompt reply. The phone was filming a video, however, and when Gianluigi was about to tell the guy, he realized that the guy was proposing to his (soon) fiancé. Gianluigi could not hold back a loud “holy s**t!”, ruining the proposal video forever. Teresa laughed at the idea of the two showing it at the wedding.

After driving through the Florida Panhandle (if for any reason you happen to be in Fernandina Beach, close to Jacksonville, get a sandwich at the Hola! Cuban Cafè: OMG!!!), we finally arrived at the most awaited stop-over: New Orleans.

We both fell in love with the city, its atmosphere and the music which seems to permeate every bit of life. Even Gianluigi, contrary to Teresa not a big jazz fan, couldn’t stop speaking of how great that was, in particular after a concert at the Preservation Hall. Following NOLA, another music city: Memphis, one of the cradles of Blues, with a capital “B” (and the best pulled-pork we have ever had!).

Spectacular Missisipi river side in Memphis!

Final stop: St. Louis, once an important industrial centre, now a tale of two sides: it is staggering, and frankly very sad, the difference of livelihood between neighbourhoods, sign of deep inequalities (to be fair, that was a constant of all cities we visited during this and other trips in the US).

What about the other KY distilleries? Well, you’ll have to wait until next week. Stay tuned and sláinte!

Kentucky Bourbon Distilleries – Links
https://heavenhilldistillery.com/#3
https://fourrosesbourbon.com/
https://www.beamdistilling.com/

[No summary box this time. We visited these distilleries almost 6 years ago, so we figured it’d have been too out of date.]

#5.2 Run through the stills

Race day and Glen Garioch

(Day 2 & 3)

After weeks of training, the race is finally here! And after the run, a well-deserved trip to Glen Garioch distillery.

(missed Day 1?)

The day of the Dramathon is here, finally! We woke up very rested after a dram-less night. Off to a quick breakfast (toasts and jam for Gianluigi, a huuuuge porridge bowl for Teresa), then we drove to Dufftown to the race meeting point, the Glenfiddich distillery parking lot. Because of Decathlon gear colour choices and a lack of attention, Gianluigi looked like a smurf…at least he matched Cliff!

At this point our destinies separated, Gianlugi took the “half-dram” (i.e. half marathon) coaches to get to the start at the Tamdhu station, while a bit later Teresa got to the “wee dram” (i.e. 10k) start in Aberlour.

G.: As usual, I was a bit nervous before the race started. The day was ideal to run: not-too-cold and sunny-ish. The first part of the trail, along the former Speyside train line, was mostly downhill, therefore I could keep a nice and steady pace. A few kms in, I could admire the newly built Dalmunach distillery, on the site of the now demolished Imperial: a truly beautiful building, which I hope to visit someday. The middle of the course is in the Aberlour village, and from this point it’s almost all (very mildly) uphill. My GPS was a bit wrong about both the total ascent (180m on paper vs. 80m on my device) and the distance (900m short)…when I saw the Balvenie distillery I realised that I was about to finish, so I sprinted towards the end line, finishing in about 1 hour and 25 minutes. It was a very nice experience, and I loved the course, probably one of the best I ran so far (not that they are many…). The prize was quite fitting for the event: a wooden medal from a dismissed cask and four 50ml miniatures: Balvenie 12, Glenfiddich 12, Monkey Shoulder and Glenfarclas 12 (unfortunately, no Tamdhu, which I’d have loved!).

The prize: Speyside drams and the original “medal”.

T.: I strongly disagree with Gianluigi’s “not too cold”. After waiting 2 hours for the bus (with just a wee stop at the Dufftown whisky shop to nose around) and then at least half an hour for the race to start, I can safely say that it was freezing! Not too bad, as I normally perform (well, survive) better when it’s cold. I don’t have much to add on the course itself (the 10k course was the same as the second part of the half marathon), except that it was very enjoyable. The view of the huge warehouses as I was approaching Dufftown was stunning. Same prize at the end except for the Glenfarclas (fair enough, it was still the wee dram), and I was soooo happy for making it under the hour!

After Teresa finished, we grabbed a warm soup and tea while waiting for the award ceremony and went back to the hotel in Rothes. A bit of relax sipping from the hardly earned miniatures, a shower, and for dinner we had a special plan: we had booked a table at the Station Hotel. This hotel/bar/restaurant is owned by the Forsyth company, and according to some is the place where the really important whisky meetings happen. We treated outselves with adult-cow meat and a delicious dessert. Then, a few drams at the bar (worth of mention, the now dismissed Arran 14y) before going back to the hotel for a well-deserved sleep.

We woke up quite early, and after breakfast Cliff drove us in a very foggy Speyside (the fog won’t leave us until we got in Fife, making Gianluigi homesick of Northern Italy). The first stop of the day was the Macallan distillery. Neither of us is particularly fond of this brand (it’s the only distillery not offering tours and tastings, rather “experiences”…) but we were curious to see the building. So, despite all available “experiences” were sold out for the day, we went in aiming for a coffee and the peek. We have to say, the building is quite spectacular, it felt like being in a modern art museum lobby…or in an airport.

The Macallan stills – hopefully one day we’ll get closer!

The courtesy of the receptionist, which welcomed us very warmly and explained where things were, was counterbalanced by the rudeness of the waitress who served us. After the quick coffee we could walk inside to admire the unique circular disposition of the stills. On the way out we also saw the old distillery building, and wondered if one of their “experiences” included that as well.

Back on the road, our next stop was a completely different one: Glen Garioch, in Oldmeldrum (Aberdeenshire), one of the oldest in Scotland. A few months back, in an interview on Mark Gillespie’s WhiskyCast, we learned that the distillery is undergoing many renovation works, including moving back to directly fired stills and the restoration of the old malting floors, which would be used to produce a peated malt, in contrast with what is produced today. Beam Suntory, the owner of this and a few other distilleries, is also pursuing a peatland restoration plan, since peat use has a fair impact on carbon emission.

Look what’s at the end of Distillery Road…a distillery!

As we checked in, our guide Rob walked us in a very nice bothy on the side of the malting floors, which used to be the excise man office. We sat on a very comfortable sofa with four drams in front of us, while Rob told us the story of the distillery and maaany details about the production (thanks for the patience answering all our questions!). We were very curious, since Glen Garioch is not one of the most common single malts for us – we had a bottle of their non-age statement core range expression (the Founder’s Reserve, 50%abv) early on but none since. The first dram was suspiciously transparent…In fact, it was the newmake! We moved on to the second (Gianluigi only sniffing), the Renaissance Chapter III (17y/o, 50.8%), a few years old series that marked a new phase in the distillery history. This was followed by a great dram: a 19y red-wine cask matured (48%). Finally, a very surprising dram: 2012 vintage cask strength, matured in a virgin American oak barrel from Missouri (single cask, 61.6%). This is part of a series as well, with the two others being matured in barrels made from Minnesota and Kentucky wood. The malt was really different, with very prominent bourbon notes (and colour), but still definitely a scotch single malt! Unfortunately, the price was a bit too steep, but definitely one to try!

Thanks to the lovely staff, at the shop we also tried the Renaissance Chapter II (16y/o, 51.4%), which we bought, and the Virgin oak (this time a vat of different barrels from North America, 2013 vintage bottled at 48%).

Back in the fog, destination Leith, happy for the Dramathon (yes, we’ll do it again) and another great whisky trip. Stay tuned and Slàinte!

Glen Garioch Masterclass

Price: £30.00 pp (October 2021)

Tasting: the newmake spirit and three drams: GG Renaissance Chapter III (17y, 50.8%, ex-bourbon and ex-sherry), GG red wine cask maturation (19y, 48%), and GG 2012 vintage Missouri virgin oak cask (61.6%)

Target: whisky amateurs and enthusiasts

Value for money: ok

Highlights: the tasting bothy and the kind shop manager

Things we did not like: we couldn’t take the newmake with us

Link: https://www.glengarioch.com/

#5.1 Run through the stills

Balvenie all the way!
(Day 1)

For the first post of 2022 we go back a few months: a trip to Speyside for the Dramathon and a couple of distillery visits, including our 50^th!

First things first, happy new year! And we hope you had good and resting holidays, possibly filled with drams!

In spite of the ongoing situation 2021 was a decent year, and we managed to “dram around” quite a bit and do a few whisky trips! One of the highlights was an event we attended back in October. This one has been on our radar for a while, but for various reasons we haven’t been able to attend before: the Dramathon! This combines two of our major extra-work activities, running and dramming.

Gianluigi has always been running, more or less. During his rugby years (first as player, then as referee) it was part of his training, of course. Since he moved on, running was the only activity he kept doing regularly. On the other hand, Teresa has never been a sporty lassie, but she recently got into running after realising she couldn’t run up the stairs without getting heavy breath. We already participated to a couple of races back in 2019, before the pandemic. For this one, we prepared for approximately a month and a half, and after recovering from Covid, so the aim was just to finish our respective races (Gian the half-marathon and Teresa the 10k) and have fun.

Of course, could we plan a trip to Speyside without visiting at least one distillery? Never! A couple of months before the race Gianluigi got in contact with Balvenie to ask if there were tours available and the answer was yes for the morning before the race, what a luck! That required our friend Justine handing over Cliff’s keys (don’t know who is Cliff? Read here!) the night before, and us leaving Leith early in the morning. The trip was smooth, except we had to refill gas at a gas station at Dalwhinnie, just a few hundred meters before the distillery. Getting off the car we realised that, when you read that Dalwhinnie is coldest place in Scotland, it might be right…the temperature drop from Leith was significant! From the gas station we quickly drove to Aviermore, Granton on Spey and finally entered mighty Speyside.

Celebrating the 50th distillery visit! (Credits to James for the pic)

Balvenie is a distillery we have been wanting to visit for a couple of years. However, during our first trip to Speyside in 2019 it was fully booked, while earlier this summer it was closed to visitors. The other important reason to celebrate is that we were reaching an important milestone, with this being the 50^th (working) distillery visit! Nine of these distilleries were in Kentucky, US (including the Evan Williams micro-distillery in downtown Louisville), two in Ireland (excluding the former Jameson Bow St distillery) and 39 in Scotland (for the nerds: 3 in Campbeltown, 10 in Speyside, 6 in the Lowlands and 20 in the Highlands….still no Islay, thanks to Covid).

After checking in at Glenfiddich, the distillery ambassador and guide James met us at the visitor centre. While walking towards the maltings, he started introducing us to the history of the brand and the site.

We entered the malting building – we were really looking forward to this, and not just because it was freezing outside! The facility looked bigger than Springbank, and James told us that around 30% of the barley used to produce Balvenie gets malted here. We were really impressed by the golden “dunes” of barley, we could definitely see why this is one of the highlights of the tour! Next, the kiln itself (yes, we were inside the pagoda), where we got an understanding of the process, which very veeeeery roughly is a combination of heating and hoovering. James patiently let us take more pictures of the barley dunes on the way out.

Red Riding Hood and the Balvenie’s peat.

Then, we moved to the other stages of production. To our surprise, we discovered that the mashtuns and washbacks of Balvenie are just next to the mashtuns and washbacks of Kininvie, a sister distillery whose malt mainly goes into the Grant’s blends. So basically we visited one distillery and a half, yay! We could also see an extremely lively wort, double yay!

The still house was less of a surprise, but only because we had had the chance to briefly see it two years ago when we visited Glenfiddich. In the warehouse, James showed us a wooden tun used for the vatting.

A not-so-little gem in the warehouse: a wooden tun.

Now the tour (and what a tour!) was complete, so we moved to the tasting room, small and cosy.

When James heard that we had done a vertical Balvenie tasting very recently, he made sure the lineup for the tasting was completely new to us, so kind of him! First, we had the Balvenie Single Barrel. We both fell in love with this dram, and indeed this is the bottle we bought. Then the Distillery Exclusive Sherry Butt (61.3%), the 19y “Edge of burnhead wood” (48.7%, interesting experiment with heather, but not really our cup of tea), a yummy 21y Port wood (40%) and the Tun 1509 (Nas, 50.4%, batch 6). Chats around our whisky journey and the history of UK train lines (another James passion) accompanied the tasting.

This was probably one of the best, most complete tours we had so far, we couldn’t have celebrated the 50th distillery in a better way! We happily drove to Rothes, where we had our hotel booked. After a quick warm-up run (well, for Gianluigi, Teresa ehm….) we had a light dinner, resisting the drams temptation. We needed a good rest before the big day!

Balvenie Tour Tasting

Price: £50.00 pp (October 2021)

Tasting: 5 drams selected for us by the distillery ambassador – Balvenie Single Barrel (12y, 47.8%, ex-bourbon), Distillery Esxlusive Sherry Butt (16y, first fill oloroso, 61.3%), The edge of burnhead wood (19y, American oak barrels, 48.7%), Port wood (21y, 40%), and Tun 1509 (Nas but at least 21y, 50.4%).

Target: whisky enthusiasts and geeks

Value for money: good

Highlights: the kiln and the intimate tour

Things we did not like: nothing

Link: https://uk.thebalvenie.com/

#3.3 Campbeltown Loch, I wish you were whisky!

How things are done!
(Day 3 & 4)

A day at Springbank and Glengyle distilleries, plus a Glen Scotia tasting.

(missed Day 2 or Day 1?)

And finally it’s the Springbank-Glengyle day! During our first trip here, back in 2018, we only visited Glen Scotia and opted for the Cadenhead’s Warehouse tour instead of the Mitchell’s company distilleries…what did we miss! Fortunately, the folks at Springbank were nice enough to offer us a tour on a Saturday, which is normally closed (many thanks to Mary for that), and a tasting at their newly build Washback (spoiler: the bar is made of an actual wooden washback!).

Since we were the only group, we could tour the distilleries all together. First off, Springbank. We started off with the malting facility, which they still do 100% on their own (and we realised how this is the bottleneck of their production size, but also their strength). There was barley drying on the malting floor, one of the first times we actually saw this stage of the process happening live. Of course, it is all done like in the old times, and as a testimony of this there was also a hi-fi system (go 90s!) to keep the workers company.

Moving outside, another thing new to us: a pile of dry peat and one of wet peat. The knowledgeable Mary told us that they are used in a slightly different way depending on the product they are producing. The kiln is run for 30h with hot air when they are producing the unpeated Hazelburn (10% of their production), for 6h with peat and 30h with hot air for Springbank (80% of their production), and up to 48h with peat smoke for the (quite heavily) peated Longrow (another 10% of the production).

In case you need a recap about distillation.

Moving to the next production stages, the mashtuns, (actual) washbacks and stills, we could again see how hands-on are all the processes here: no computers, everything very manual. In a world moving too fast, it is comforting to find a place where time seems to slow down, and where people definitely take their time to do things. And rightly so, since their bottlings normally fly off the shelves like pigeons after a gunshot. Next up, the warehouse, which is of course the best smelling place of the distillery, as always…eheh.

Glengyle brought us back to slightly more modern times. Opened in 2004, one of the reasons being to circumvent a rule of the SWA (Scotch Whisky Association) which wouldn’t allow to call an area a whisky region with only 2 distilleries. The stills came from the defunct Ben Wyvis distillery, dismantled in 1977. The distillery looked more “conventional”, although still way less automated than many distilleries we visited, which looked like they could be run by computers…maybe in a dystopian future that will happen and the machines will take control on humanity by poisoning the booze! Don’t worry, we are not becoming sci-fi writers, and going back to Glengyle distillery we could spot the window which inspired the Kilkerran Single Malt logo: a selfie was a must!

Glengyle, or the second distillery tour in less than two hours.

At the Washback bar we picked a Hazelburn and a Longrow flights, since they included drams we were not very familiar with. Both awesome, in particular the former: the Hazelburn Cognac SC knocked our socks off! And among the latter, the (at the time) just released Longrow 18 was outstanding.

The smile only a flight of Hazelburns can give you!

After a few extra drams, the party moved to another bar, were we took turns wearing a “90s Meg Ryan” wig…We’ll spare you the pictures! We had dinner at Number 42 – great food quality (probably one of the best fish&chips tried so far), although not ideal combination of small portions and high prices. The night still ended on a high after a few drams at the Ardshiel.

On the last day we had a free morning. Many (including Teresa after a run and a shower) joined Justine in a lost distilleries’ hunt – Benmore, Argyll and so many others! Meanwhile, in preparation for the upcoming half marathon, Gianluigi went for a 24k run on the hills around the town. Fortunately, the weather wasn’t too bad, so he could actually take some (far from decent) pictures!

In the afternoon we attended the last event of the trip, a Glen Scotia tasting with Ian MacAlister at the Ardshiel Hotel. We started with the 10y, a very new bottling destined to grocery stores. This is why it is bottled at a 40% abv, like their other NAS supermarket release, the Campbeltown Harbour. Similar to this, and in spite of the 40%, it is a quite drinkable sweet dram, very well engineered for a broader audience. The other three drams – Warehouseman’s Edition (2005 recharred American oak finished in first fill oloroso, 56.2%), Single Cask Shop Bottling (2013 highly peated 1st fill bourbon, 61.4%) and Master Distillers Edition (2002 refill American oak hothead, 57.3%) – were all outstanding, with the Single Cask Shop Bottling being the one we liked the most. At this point, Ian surprised us with two more drams. The first one was a 2002 single-cask refill PX, which he (and us) loved – too bad there isn’t enough for a bottling, it was quite unique! The second was their new festive bottling, a 12y cask strength which has spent some time in heavily charred and oloroso casks, frankly delicious!

Last but not least: the Glen Scotia tasting!

We were all quite happy (well…you know), and the party naturally moved to the Ardshiel bar, with Ian staying with us for a couple of pints and many chats. Dinner was booked there as well: delicious and again great service, strongly suggested! Back to the bar, our friend Cath started playing the guitar and singing. At some point Gianluigi was invited to play the guitar, but it was not a great success since Tool and Mastodon songs are not quite as sing-along songs as he would think, who knew! He somehow managed to remember Don’t look back in anger and Everlong to accompany Cath solid effort, before passing the guitar back to her. Probably because of the many drams, we went to bed quite early, although it felt like 1am!

The day after was smooth, returning back to Edinburgh with only a quick stop at Fyne Ales to grab a few of their sour beers, with anything notable happening. As a first group trip, we really enjoyed it. And it was awesome to spend time with people sharing our same whisky passion and which up to now we had mostly met on Zoom. Going to Campbeltown again was great, and put back in perspective how whisky can (and should) be enjoyed at a slower pace, after all the FOMO and online hysteria which went crazy during the pandemic. Can’t wait to go back!

Springbank Tour

Price: £10.00 pp (October 2021)

Tasting: a 20ml of Springbank 10 and a 50ml of Springbank Distillery Visitors bottling (NAS 46%), and a sampler glass

Target: everyone, literally!

Value for money: Great

Highlights: the malting floors

Things we did not like: nothing

Link: http://springbank.scot/

Glengyle Tour

Price: £10.00 pp (October 2021)

Tasting: a 20ml of Kilkerran 12 and a 50ml of Kilkerran Distillery Visitors bottling (NAS 46%), and a sampler glass

Target: everyone, literally!

Value for money: Great

Highlights: the malting, but the distillery overall

Things we did not like: nothing

Link: https://kilkerran.scot/

Glen Scotia Tasting*

*Since this was a bespoke tasting, we won’t make a summary card.

Link: https://www.glenscotia.com/