#10.1 Whisky in Edinburgh and beyond

Dramming in the Capital

Some whisky stuff to do in and around the capital of Scotland, starting from the “in” ones.

One of the things that we liked the most about our last visit to Blair Athol was being able to do it in a single day trip, without using a car and therefore taking full advantage of the drams included in our distillery tour. Scotland isn’t a huge country, but sometimes travelling to distilleries is not as simple as someone might think by just looking at the map. First, living in an urban context such as Leith also means driving 20-30 minutes before you are even outside Edinburgh (we can’t bake our cake and eat it, we guess). On top of that, some distilleries are particularly off the beaten path, such as Bladnoch, Ardnamurchan or Nc’Nean, and reaching towns such as Campbeltown is not the easiest either! This has its own advantages though, like the beautiful landscapes you cross to drive there, and that you will hardly find a swarm of casual tourists or whisky fans during your visit.

Despite all this, since we moved here we have been able to do a few whisky-related activities in a single day. Some of them are in the city itself, like the Holyrood distillery, the Leith and Edinburgh Whisky trails offered by Kask Whisky, the recently open Johnny Walker Experience (which we haven’t visited yet) or the Whisky Experience on the Royal Mile. Others are just beyond the city (Glenkinchie distillery), or within an hour-or-so of public transport. In this series of posts, we will tell you about our whisky adventures in and around the Scottish capital city!

First off, The Whisky Experience, just a few feet away from the Edinburgh Castle, the very first whisky-themed activity we have done since we moved to Scotland. Gianluigi did the tour twice: the most basic one with a couple of friends (and where he tasted Ardbeg 10 for the first time!), and a few months later with Teresa, this time opting for a fancier experience with a dram per region. As beginners, this was a gentle and not-to-cheesy introduction to the world of Scotch whisky, we would say tailored for tourists. Also, their Amber restaurant serves very good food and their whisky bar is quite exceptional (and not expensive despite the location). Few meters away, you’ll find the Ensign Ewart pub, which deserves a mention for their whisky offer, tastings and the break-even prices on some rare bottles, and Jeffrey Street Whisky, which offer interesting tasting experiences.

Since then, our whisky journey took a while to take off, but in July 2019 we finally visited what at the time could have been considered the Edinburgh “home distillery”, Glenkinchie.

Gianluigi under the famous Pencaitland sun.

Part of the Diageo empire, it is located in the village of Pencaitland, about half-hour away from the city center by car. Unfortunately, the distillery can’t be easily reached with public transport, but they offer a shuttle service …good solution? Maybe, if you like to throw your money in the bin: the shuttle costs £20 per person independently of the number of people in the party (or others taking the same trip), so if you’re alone it might work. In our case we were five, so it was more convenient to just get a car through the Enterprise Car Club carsharing for 3h, which costed around £25, definitely more convenient…well, probably a cab would have been more convenient than the shuttle anyway, eheh! Almost three years have gone, so we cannot give a lot of details about the tour, also considering the big renovation works connected to Johnnie Walker (as for Clynelish and Cardhu). We remember it as a pleasant experience, with two drams at the end: the Glenkinchie 12y and the Distillers Edition. The available experiences are much more now, and sooner or later we will check them out. We hope to still find the very detailed scale model showing the whisky production process from barley germination to distillation – excellent for beginners.

Gianluigi showing off one of the Whisky Experience gifts!

The wave of new distilleries didn’t spare Edinburgh, meaning that we now have two home distilleries, Holyrood and Bonnington, and a third one, the Port of Leith distillery, is being built. Holyrood is open to the public, and we waited for Gianluigi’s brother and his girlfriend to be in town to visit, in February 2020. Scotland in February hasn’t the best weather usually (a few hours later Gianluigi and Edo will assist to one of the dullest, wettest and coldest Calcutta Cup games in a few years, at Murrayfield Stadium), so checking out Holyrood seemed a quite fitting activity. We chose the Whisky and Gin tour (now £15.50pp) instead of the Whisky Tour and Tasting (now £25.00pp) because some people in the party were more gin drinkers (yeah, we know…). It was a very cheerful and fun experience, including a sensory room to test our ability to recognize aromas.

In the gin production area, we learnt that they buy neutral grain spirit and re-distill it with juniper and their chosen botanicals. The whisky production area was quite nice, with very tall and thin stills. We found their experimentation with various barley and yeast strains extremely interesting. At the tasting we could choose one each of their sourced whisky (now discontinued), gins and gin liquors. Flights were also available. Definitely a very pleasant experience, which we might do again when the time is right.

Finally, last but not least, the historical whisky tours offered by Justine of Kask Whisky, the Edinburgh and Leith Whisky trails. Edinburgh has an incredibly important, as well as hidden in plain sight, whisky history, which Justine uncovered for us during these tours. We’d say that they are more oriented to whisky nerds like us, however Gianluigi’s parents (which are definitely not whisky nerds and don’t speak English) quite liked the Edinburgh Whisky Trail, which started near the Haymarket station (at the Caledonia distillery site) and ended in one of the prettiest neighborhoods in the city, Stockbridge.

The whisky history of Leith is even more obvious, it is really hard not to spot the signs, from the Cooperage on the Shore, to the (former) warehouses (now flats). However, Justine is able to take a deep dive in the history of this part of town, and show how it was connected to the whisky industry. As the icing on the cake, Justine’s tours end with a tasting of old, sometimes very old blends. Definitely a must-do for every whisky geek out there!

Old blends at the end of the Edinburgh Whisky Trail…and a special guest too.

For people interested in whisky tastings there is also a good choice. While we already mentioned the Ensign Ewart and Jeffrey Street Whisky here and in our Dramming at home post, another option is the Scotch Malt Whisky Society, in particular the venue at Queen St (open to non-members), where they have weekly tastings guided by their very competent crew. For other tasting experiences, it is also worth to keep an eye on the social media profile of Jolly Toper, One Malt at a Time, and East Coast Whisky. Finally, a recent addition is Tipsy Midgie, offering a plethora of tasting experiences (distillery-focused, chocolate pairing, etc.). As a result of our first tasting we booked another two, just to give you an idea, eheh!

A tasting in the Pip Hills Room at the SMWS Queen St.

The unbelievable whiskybcollection at the new Tipsy Midgie bar!

If this has not satisfied your appetite for whisky stuff, stay tuned: in the next couple of weeks we’ll tell you about a few of our daytrips from Edinburgh…until then: slainte!

Whisky activities links
https://www.scotchwhiskyexperience.co.uk/
https://jeffreyst.com/
https://www.kaskwhisky.com/
https://www.holyrooddistillery.co.uk/
https://www.malts.com/en-gb/distilleries/glenkinchie

Whisky bar links
https://www.ensignewartpub.co.uk/
https://www.tipsymidgie.com/
https://smws.com/
https://teuchtersbar.co.uk/
https://kilderkingroup.co.uk/
https://nauticusbar.co.uk/
https://www.thebowbar.co.uk/

#6 Lindores Abbey Road

Last of 2021 but not least

The last distillery visit of the year was in a very special place: Lindores Abbey!

And, as quickly as it came, Christmas 2021 was gone, with the usual few pounds added to our waist, giving us a goal for the first months of 2022. We finally came back to Leith, what we now call “home”, and as we arrived, we felt relieved. Staying in Italy for over a month was really nice, but definitely an overkill.
We were eager to come back also because we had planned a visit to a new distillery: Lindores Abbey! The distillery is in Fife, just about an hour away from the city. We could have visited it in other occasions, but because of its wider historical interest, we wanted to wait for someone visiting us to make the trip. Occasion that finally arrived, as Gianluigi’s friends Roberto and Cecilia, with their wee one, were in town to spend New Year’s Eve with us!

Gianluigi and Roberto left early to pick up the car in a small rental place in Tollcross, a bit far from Leith but the only one applying a decent rate for an extra driver – Roberto was eager to try driving on the left side for the first time. After a small breakfast, we were on the road! The ride was smooth in a nicer weather than forecasted, Roberto had no problem adjusting to the different side of the road. After we left the Forth Road bridge and the M90 and right before driving into the village of Newburgh we spotted another distillery on our left: Aberargie. This is a new one as well, owned by Morrison Distillers (Carn Mor series, Old Perth, Strathern distillery) – from the road the building looked very nice, and we could even see the stills.

Warm-up pictures before the distillery visit.

We arrived at Lindores Abbey a few minutes later. The distillery is in a very nice setting, surrounded by hills and looking towards the water. We will learn that the barley used by them comes from the surrounding fields. The distillery was carefully designed in 2015, while production started in 2017, with their first single malt released just a few months back, in 2021.

We checked in, and after a wee while the tour started. First stop, the “table room”, just in front of the visitor centre hall, with (as you might have guessed) a huge table in the middle. Here, our guide Matt delved into the history of the site, starting from the Abbey, built in the 12th century and one of the centres of religious (but not only) power in the Middle-Ages Scotland, which was also visited by a number of kings and queens. Destroyed during the reformations, a farm was then built on the site. The history is made very interesting by a draw of the abbey reconstruction, and an actual wall of the original building wall still standing a few metres outside the window. And the old spirit line, dividing Lowlands and Highlands, was even closer.

We moved to production, first into the milling room, where, of course, they could not possibly have a Porteus mill as most older distilleries, because Porteus were making such fine machines that they went bankrupt during one of the few whisky downturns. Similarly to few other distilleries (Tullibardine being one), mashtun, washbacks and stills are in the same space.

Here, there is also a remember of Dr. Jim Swan, the whisky guru who helped Lindores Abbey (among many other distillery) set up and passed away prematurely just days before their first spirit was produced. Back to the stills, there are one wash still and two spirit stills – a peculiarity is that the latter two work in parallel, not in sequence, so the spirit is distilled twice, first in the wash still, then half in one spirit still, and half in the other one.

Distilling lesson nr. 1 for the wee one.

The stills are very close to a huge window on the old abbey remains, but on the other side is also possible to spot the site where, a few years back, it was found a small crater which seems to confirm that distilling was actually happening in the Middle Ages, well before 1494, date of the king’s aqua vitae order to Brother John Cor. Unfortunately, the dig area was covered with a big plastic tarp for conservation reasons, and Matt told us that samples are being dated. This was quite exciting news, as the results could change the history of distilling in Scotland!
We moved to the warehouse, where many different casks were displayed on the metal racks: ex-bourbon barrels, ex-port pipes, hogsheads, quarters, octaves, and so on. Thanks to the Grattamacco visit, we could more easily spot (what we thought were) the ex-french red wine casks. Clearly, a lot of experimentation is going on here!

Finally, the tasting! First dram, their main single malt, the MCDXCIV (or 1494), slightly over 3 years of age, non-coloured and non-chill filtered, made up with 3 different types of cask: ex-bourbon, ex-sherry, and STR (shaved toasted and re-charred, one of the many legacies of Jim Swan in the whisky industry). Second dram, the aqua vitae, a similar recipe to the one Friar John Cor used, but without some ingredients to avoid losing the “spirit” nomenclature. The smell and taste reminded us a hybrid between a grappa and an amaro – not our cup of tea honestly, but it might be very good in a cocktail.

After the tour we decided to have a snack at the distillery’s cafeteria, ordering a charcuterie board to share and thinking: “we will have something later”…however the plate was so abundant (and delicious) that no other meal was needed until dinner! Definitely recommended!

Back in the car, direction St. Andrews, as our friends had never been. The village was very quiet with that typical atmosphere of the days before a party. We did a long stroll between the university buildings, the cathedral and castle ruins, and our favourite part, the pier and the beach. As it became dark, we got back to the car and slowly drove back to Leith.

This was our last distillery visit of 2021. The year started with lot of uncertainty, but in spite of that we somehow managed to do some great whisky trips and visit quite a few distilleries all over Scotland. Still, there is a quite big gap in the whisky trips: Islay! Maybe 2022 will be the one….?

For now, sláinte, and see you soon!

Lindores Abbey Tour & Tasting

Price: £15.00 pp (December 2021)

Tasting: 2 drams, the MCDXCIV single malt (46%, NAS, NC, NCF*) and the aqua vitae (40%)

Target: casual tourists and whisky enthusiasts

Value for money: good

Highlights: the history of the site

Distillery exclusive expression: cask strength ex-sherry cask #18/95 (61.4%, NAS, NC, NCF)

Link: https://lindoresabbeydistillery.com/

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

#2.7 A very Scottish summer holiday

A trip to Orkney Speyside et al.
(day 10)

The hard climb of Ben Lomond, and our final reward: the Auchentoshan distillery visit.

(Back to Days 7-8-9 / Days 5-6 / Day 4 / Day 3 / Day 2 / Day 1)

The last day of our holidays started early, around 6.30, because we had a great plan for the morning: climb Ben Lomond! So, after a quick breakfast at the van, we put our boots on and took the trail to the summit. The sky was very grey, and we hoped it would clear up a bit later. Spoiler alert: it did not. Actually, after the first couple of km, we got “inside” the clouds, so not only it was cold but also very wet. We took the less steep trail (“less steep” so to speak, because it’s still over 900m of ascent in less than 7k, compared to the other one which is about a km shorter). Despite the harsh climb and the terrible weather, we got to the summit, just to admire the whitest of the view: it looked like we were on Solaris!

The very rewarding view from the top of Ben Lomond.

The descent was a bit more enjoyable because of the view on the lake, which we could finally see after a km past the summit. We arrived at the campervan very very wet, but very very satisfied as well! A quick change of clothing, and a soup at the Clansman, and we were on the road again to go grab our prize for the morning climb, direction: the Auchentoshan distillery in Glasgow!

The distillery was reachable directly from the highway, so after a stop for a coffee and a detour because of roadworks, we arrived there fairly easily. Being a bit early, we had plenty of time for a deep inspection of the distillery shop. A couple of tips: they have an expression of their malt finished in Chardonnay casks (NAS and bottled at 47%), and we also found the cheapest glencairn holders made of cask wood! We were fortunate to get in in time to avoid an almost tropical storm (did someone say “climate change”?), which considering we were at the end of our holidays and that we had already had a change of clothes earlier in the morning, would have been not so great.

The other two guys joining us were not so lucky, and they started the tasting a bit wet. The tasting we had chosen was the Auchentoshan Masterclass. A particularity of this distillery is that, unlike many others in the Highlands which used to dry their barley with peat before the train lines were built, Auchentoshan never did that. Of course, this is because they are in Glasgow, which granted access to coal much earlier. We were very curious about this distillery, of which we already had a couple of bottles. Although the American Oak expression is fair for the money you pay for it at some grocery store, the Three Woods one already shows a bit of character (maybe for the 43% abv instead of 40%?). The tasting was guided by Douglas, which definitely knew his drams! During the tasting we found out that he’s from the same village as the other two guys (and we will find out later that one of the guys’ sisters works in the same institute as Gianluigi, although they never met…the whisky world is smaller and smaller!).

We started with a sample of new make spirit, which is something that we really appreciated as it is a fundamental piece to understand the character of what will become single malt. It did not disappoint: fruity and very light. The second dram was an 18y matured completely in ex-bourbon casks, which they can source directly from Jim Beam and Makers Marks, being part of the same company. A nice dram, a bit underwhelming probably due to the 40% and the chill-filtering (doesn’t look like it’s artificially coloured though, it’s very pale!). By contrast, the next it’s the already known Three Woods (with these being American Oak, ex-Sherry casks and ex-PX casks). A sherry bomb, not bad for being a non-age statement. But the real deal is coming with the last two drams, coming from their distillery casks: a vintage 2010, full maturation in an ex-bordeaux red wine cask, and a vintage 2006 from an ex-oloroso sherry cask, both cask strength (and natural colour and non-chill filtered). Both drams were absolutely delicious, but while in the second the sherry cask had definitely a big impact, in the former the soft spirit character was definitely still alive and kicking, mixing all the red fruits and grapes notes from the wine. So, we had our confirmation that Auchentoshan can have a mouthfeel, and it is quite impressive too!

One for our pals of the Edinburgh Whisky Group!

Coming out of the distillery we gave a ride to our whisky pals, to avoid them getting soaked again. And then, we finally drove towards Leith, which took a couple of hours (one of which just to exit Glasgow’s traffic jam) under an incessant rain. Once again, we were so happy that despite the initial setback, we had managed to take this trip anyway. All the midges and the rain in the world cannot beat this: amazing landscapes, great people and incredible whiskies. Sometimes we can’t believe how lucky we have that life brought us here. Until next time, slainte!

Auchentoshan Masterclass

Price: £30.00 pp (August 2021)

Tasting: 5 drams: new make spirit, Auchentoshan 18y, Three Woods, two distillery exclusive single cask 2010 ex-bordeaux cask finish and 2006 ex-oloroso cask

Target: whisky enthusiasts and geeks

Value for money: very good

Highlights: the drams

Things we did not like: nothing

Link: https://www.auchentoshan.com/

Dramming in the Capital

Last of 2021 but not least

A trip to Orkney Speyside et al. (day 10)

A trip to Orkney Speyside et al.
(day 10)