Category: Scotland

#46.6 The return of the smoke

One last stop in C-town

 

TL; DR: Back on the mainland, we indulged in a further treat before driving back home: a morning in Campbeltown. After spending the night in a camping just outside town, we drove there to get some goodies from Springbank and do a generous Cadenhead’s Warehouse tasting, very well conducted by Aly. What else?

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

The ferry back from Islay was uneventful. Once on the mainland, at the junction with the A83, instead of turning left towards north, we turned right, southwards. Well, at first we actually turned north, but just because we made a mistake and Gianluigi forgot to turn on the data on his phone, so Waze couldn’t help much. Anyway, our destination was Campbeltown. There were two available campsites near Campbeltown (unfortunately none in town), one in Machrianish, near the airport, and one on the east Kintyre coast, a mere 10-minute drive north of town, in Peninver. We opted for the latter, and to get there, we drove through the east coast of Kintyre. The road is a single track, much smaller compared to the faster one on the west of the peninsula. However, because it was a beautiful sunny evening, the landscape was quite spectacular, with the isle of Arran clearly visible. Around 7.30pm, we arrived at the Peninver Sands campsite: small but tidy, with campervan pitches on grass just a few dozen meters from the beach, behind a row of static caravans.

  • Not a bad spot for the night…

After dinner and a well-deserved shower, we had a few of the drams collected during the day. We were pleasantly surprised by the differences in the Laphroaig 10 cask strength batches (13 to 16): some more smoky, some more fruity, some harsher while others very mellow, drinking like a lesser abv whisky. We totally embraced batch variations! Unfortunately, there were midges outside, so we had to enjoy the drams in the van. That’s the West Scotland summer curse: either crappy weather or midges…What a bummer!

  • …except for the midges!

The morning was sunny again, and light came in through the van windows. Edo was the first one to wake up, we followed soon after. We then had breakfast, another shower (just because) and a walk to the beach. We dipped our feet in the incredibly cold water: after a minute we felt like pins in them. Then, we drove southwards under the Kintyre morning sun. Soon after we arrived in Campbeltown, where it was easy to find parking not too far from Springbank.

That was in fact our first destination, first to check out what the cage had to offer. Edo got himself a 7y heavily peated Kilkerran matured in bourbon casks, while we got a sherried teenager Kilkerran matured in sherry (probably Oloroso) and a 9y Longrow matured in refill Palo Cortado sherry cask. Of course it is always a gamble, but a safe one: never had a bad nor an average cage dram. A few days later the former two were mentioned in Roy’s vPub, hinting to two memorable drams (ours aren’t open yet at the time of writing, but we feel optimistic).

  • Three whisky enthusiasts in the old whisky capital.

It was soon time for the Cadenhead’s Warehouse Tasting. To our surprise, the meeting point was not the Springbank visitor centre, as the previous two times (three for Gianluigi). This was because the venue for the tasting changed (for the second time in the last few years): instead of being held in one of the warehouses behind Springbank, Cadenhead’s recently acquired a building not too far from the new hub (shop and tasting room), that has been gradually converted into a warehouse dedicated to tastings.

  • A wee warehouse…

The tasting was guided by Aly, who did a great job guiding us through the usual range of tasty drams: it was informative and entertaining. We started with a blended malt, a vatting of a 24y Glenrothes, 12y Aultmore and 14y Dalwhinnie, from an ex-bourbon barrel, bottled at 54.9% abv: a tropical deliciousness. It was followed by a few drams from fortified wine casks: 16y Glentauchers ex-Oloroso hogshead (49.4%), a 13y Glenburgie from a Madeira barrique (57.5%), an ex-Amontillado 11y Glen Garioch (58%) and an Oloroso-finished 13y Craigellachie (finished for 4 years). All these drams were very well received, although for the three of us the Glen Garioch was a notch below the others: too herbaceous and harsh. Finally, the peated dram was a Staoisha (peated Bunnahabhain) 9y at 60.4%, finished for three years in a PX-cask: delicious, only reason we didn’t buy it because we have waaaaaay too many peated Bunna at home. So, after much debating we opted for the ex-Madeira Glenburgie and the tropical blend, by far the best value for money.

…with great drams.

We had our seventh dram at Cadenhead’s Tasting room (Ardmore 11y ex-PX cask, Deanston 15y ex-Manzanilla, and Balblair 10y ex-rum cask for Teresa to take home, to add to the other six drams). Then, we finally had a nice big lunch at the restaurant of the Royal hotel, before going back to the Washback bar for a final dram of Springbank, whose Edo is a big fan, before finally hitting the road.

  • Thanks Aly!

That day Teresa had the shortest straw, but the day was beautiful and sunny, and the drive was smooth. Edo and Gianluigi fell asleep for a few chunks of it. We only stopped once at Inveraray, to meet our friend Ivan who was saving some venison burgers for us, and we took the chance to try the Ardnamurchan Midgie at the George Hotel bar: a super funky and tasty dram.

  • One down!

Another Warehouse Tasting, another banger: we really enjoyed the range of drams, and Aly was very entertaining and fun. As we said other times, warehouse tastings are probably our favourite type of experience. There is something more when sipping drams just drawn from the cask, in the dumpy cold warehouse environment, surrounded by the “angel share” (i.e. vaporised alcohol). Similarly to our last Cadenhead’s Warehouse Tasting (two for Gianluigi), this tasting was structured and tidy, while the very first one back in 2018 was a bit more wild (and we had more samples, if we recall correctly). The concrete floor made it less dumpy as well, although thanks to this year not-so-warm summer, it was definitely chilly (and indeed Aly was very heavily dressed). Also, it’s great that Cadenhead’s are keeping it at £40 per person, which is an incredible value for money considering it includes 6 (+1 at the bar) drams. Other warehouse tastings are generally pricier, like Bunnahabhain (£50 for four drams) or Deanston (£40 for three drams). In this specific case, if we have to be really peaky, maybe the only thing that was missing was another ex-bourbon cask dram, after the first one. Anyway, with experiences like this, and the honestly priced drams, Cadenhead’s is leading the way in the scotch whisky landscape. Kudos to them!

The very last dram stop.

See you in a couple of weeks for more whisky action. Until then, slainte!

Cadenhead’s Warehouse Tasting

Price: £40.00 pp (July 2024)

Duration: 1hr 30min

Tasting: 6 drams (plus a voucher for a seventh dram at the Cadenhead’s Tasting Room)

Target: whisky nerds

Value for money: great

Highlights: the drams

Recommended: absolutely

Link: https://experience.cadenhead.scot/

#46.5 The return of the smoke

Lagavulin and the rest of Kildalton

 

TL; DR: Final day on the island, it was time to visit the Kildalton coast and its distilleries. First, a tour at Lagavulin, followed by a nice lunch at Ardbeg. We closed the trip on Islay with a dram at Laphroaig, just before taking the ferry at Port Ellen.

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

As usual, we woke up very early when the morning light entered Mr Vantastic. We stayed in bed and, somehow, we managed to sleep a bit longer. When we finally woke up, Justine was already up, and offered us some food. Despite being parked on the main road connecting Bowmore to Bridgend, the vehicles noise had not bothered us. We actually felt rested. We took turns to go to the public restrooms at the Bowmore square, and Gianluigi took advantage of his “trip” to stop at the Co-Op for some fruit and croissants.

  • An unexpectedly good spot for the night.

We soon jumped on the van and drove all the way down the island, past Port Ellen, to the Kildalton coast. There, we had our first (and only) tour booked for the day, at the Lagavulin distillery. We had visited it before, but for one of their warehouse tastings, at the time (May 2022) hosted by the legendary Iain McArthur, who recently retired. This time, we were going to visit production, to find out how they make the stuff. Before the tour started, and after Justine’s White Horse miniature photoshoot, we had a coffee at the Malt Mill bar, in the building of the former namesake distillery. This was a “short-lived” (well, still over 50 years!) distillery built by Peter Mackie in 1908, who aimed to replicate Laphroaig after he lost control of it following a court case loss. However, it quite never made it, so in 1962 the distillery was closed. After the coffee Justine said her goodbyes, as she was going to get an earlier ferry.

  • These guys are ready for the tour.

The production tour started in a very cosy room with nice chairs and old memorabilia, which is just along the hall, past the shop and the tasting room. Alice, our guide, started telling us about the history and anecdotes of distilling on Islay: like that the island was the first recorded place of whisky-making in Scotland, and that the first attempt of sending an excise man from the mainland almost resulted in a hanging. Lagavulin officially started distilling in 1816, when John Johnson decided to go legal after he was caught by an excise man. We soon moved to the old kiln, where a dram of Lagavulin 16, their flagship, was waiting for us (and a sample for the driver, Gianluigi today). There, we found out that their maltings closed in 1973. The peat currently used comes from Castle Hill, near the Islay Airport, and the barley is peated to 36 ppm (phenol parts per million), a lower peat level compared to other Islay distilleries, usually around 50-55 ppm. The water source is the same as the nearby Ardbeg, brown because it is “peated”, but then filtered before entering production (and no, despite the urban legends, the peaty water doesn’t give the whisky any additional smokiness).

  • A welcome dram in the old maltings, nice!

They use 24 tons of barley per day, which is first milled in a 1963 Porteus mill (usual split husk/grit/flour of 20/70/10%), before being mashed in a full leuter mashtun. There, the grist is mixed with 19,000 litres of water at 64°C, while the second (and last) water is first sparged and then heated up to 84°C. They currently run 4 mashes per day for 7 days a week, for a total production of 3.5 million litres of pure alcohol. The wash is then transferred in one of the 10 washbacks, 4 made of larch, 6 made of Oregon pine (or Douglas Fir). On one of the washbacks there was an ”intruder”…We couldn’t understand why it was there, but it was funny.

  • A funny guardian of the washback.

Fermentation is short, 55 hours only, and kickstarted with Mauri liquid yeast. At that point, one of the operation managers, Grant, “joined” the tour and contributed to the already quite exhaustive explanations that Alice gave us. They have four stills, two wash and two spirit stills. The cut they take from the second distillation is exceptionally wide, from 75% to 59-60%, taking 10 hours, plus other 5 hours of feints run (which are then mixed in the same tank and redistilled in the next batch of low wines). Together with the first distillation, that takes over 9 hours, Lagavulin features the longest distillation on Islay and one of the longest in Scotland.

  • A welcome addition to the classic selfie.

After a brief stop at the beautiful pier, we went back to the visitor centre for the tasting. The first dram was Lagavulin 8y (48%): as the 16y became more expensive in the last few years, this one became more and more prevalent, now available in supermarkets as well. We had a bottle at Teresa’s mother house, it is a solid dram, matured in ex-bourbon casks from the Bulleit distillery. Next up, the Distillers Edition: like the other ones in this series, it is finished in fortified wine casks, Pedro Ximénex sherry for this one. The Distillers Edition used to have a vintage year, but apparently it’s disappearing: Alice told us this one is around 14 years of age. As predictable, this was a sweet and decadent take on Lagavulin. Finally, a surprise: the Feis Ile 2024 edition. This year they released a heavily peated (55 ppm instead of 35) malt, aged for 10 years in refill bourbon casks: delicious smokiness, a shame it was so expensive (£175). We were also surprised by how they aligned the price of older Lagavulin 12 cask strength editions (2020 and 2021 for sure) to the most recent releases: they were all £150, for some a jump of £20 compared to the RRP at release!

  • Drams in a cosy tasting room.

Overall we really liked the Lagavulin tour, and it confirmed us that it is one of the best distilleries to visit, for sure the best in the Diageo portfolio, at least based on our experience. Alice was knowledgeable, and Grant contribution was the cherry on top: the tour was really informative! They served us four drams, more than most basic tours, although the size was a bit small (around 10-15ml).

After Lagavulin, we drove to Ardbeg for lunch. We had a nice meal and a coffee at the cafè inside the distillery, as the cart in the courtyard was closed. We also got some of their limited releases drams: some very tasty, a pity the bottles were a bit overpriced.

  • Ardbeg…but just for lunch.

Finally, at that point we had to complete the Kildalton distilleries: so we stopped at Laphroaig, not to get the free coffee (although Gianluigi was tempted). As he is in the Friends of Laphroaig club, he could get a free dram, which was extended to Teresa and Edo by the very nice staff (and offered in a sample bottle to Gianluigi). We also bought a tasting pack: 4x15ml samples from batches of Laphroaig 10 cask strength for only £15, a steal! It was a brief stop, and once left, we drove straight to the Port Ellen ferry terminal. The sail was uneventful, we took advantage of the upper lounge to get some rest.

Next up, a last detour before driving home… until then, slainte!

Lagavulin Classic Tour

Price: £22.00 pp (July 2024)

Duration: 1hr 30min

Tasting: welcome dram Lagavulin 16 (43%), plus 3 drams, Lagavulin 8 (48%), Distillers Edition (43%, PX cask finish), Feis Ile 2024 (heavily peated, refill ex-bourbon casks, 56.7%)

Distillery Exclusives: Distillery Exclusive (NAS, 53.5%, £110.00)

Target: whisky enthusiasts and casual drinkers

Value for money: good

Highlights: the pier

Recommended: yes, the best Diageo distillery tour so far

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

#46.4 The return of the smoke

The gentle side of the smoke: Bowmore

 

TL; DR: We visited a “classic” Islay distillery: Bowmore! Located in the centre of the namesake village, it’s very recognisable with its typical white buildings, directly facing the sea. The tour was extremely interesting, particularly the part around the malting floor, and it ended with two cask samples. What else?

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

Our plan for the day was a good one in principle, and we were looking forward to it: after returning on Islay from Jura, we’d visit Finlaggan (check!) and Caol Ila distillery (check!), then drive to Bowmore for a tour at the local distillery, get a shower at the leisure centre (interesting fact: it is built in a former Bowmore distillery warehouse, and the pool is heated by the distillery), a few drams at the Bowmore Hotel and dinner at Peatzeria.

The tour at Caol Ila went quite long, so we had to drive fast to our next destination. During the tour we got bad news from Justine: the showers in Bowmore’s leisure centre were broken, so no showers for us that day…unless we went for a shower outside (oh well). We knew that it probably meant no shower for the day. We parked the van just outside the village, on the sea front, a very nice spot. As we were late, we had just enough time to warm up some “beefy bake”, a couple of pies and a sausage roll we bought the day before at the shop on Jura. A bit rushed, but not bad (the mince pies were particularly tasty).

  • A bit rushed, but we got there!

The distillery was then 10 minutes away, and it is in front of Bowmore main square. At the check-in, the staff offered to keep Gianluigi’s backpack for the tour (nice of them!), and we had just enough time to peek at the shop: other than the regular expressions (Bowmore 12y, 15y, 18y, decently priced) and some travel retails, the only other expressions on sale were 20+ years old (and very pricey). We didn’t have to wait long though, because our guide Margaret (25 years in the job!) gathered us and the others (mostly a group of American tourists) to start the tour.

In the courtyard, she told us that the distillery is the oldest on Islay (and one of the oldest in Scotland), dating back to 1779. Similarly to Laphroaig (owned by the same company, formerly Beam Suntory, now just Suntory), they kept their malting floor, where they malt enough barley to cover 25% of their yearly 2.15 mlpa (million litres pure alcohol) production. They soak the barley for 26 hours, then they move it to one of the three malting floors with a chariot, 140kg at the time (100 times, for a total of 14 tons), and it stays there for 24 hours, after which they start turning it every 8 hours.

  • Man at work…
  • While the barley is resting.

The whole process takes between 5 and 7 days, depending on the season and the barley (in our understanding, the low carbon one germinates faster). The barley is then dried in the only remaining kiln, including 10 hours with peat smoke, to reach a phenol part per million (ppm) of around 25-30. Thanks to some improvements, they moved from using 15 tons of peat per week to only 3. The kiln is run for a total of 44 hours (including the previously mentioned 10), before the malt is finally milled. To note, all the peat is machine cut and, contrary to other distilleries, they’ve been using it for 40 years. Suntory also started a peat restoration project, to achieve a sustainable peat usage, but this we knew from our first visit to Glen Garioch in October 2021. While she explained the malting process, we followed Margaret in the building, also walking on the spread barley…the other attendants were eager to try a couple of runs with the rake, but we were all set (we remembered how hard it was from our visit at Dunphail).

  • One of the nicest mash rooms we saw.

Each mash comprises 6 tons of sourced malt and 2 tons of their own, and the grist is milled to the usual split 20/70/10% between husk, grit and flour. The malt is then transferred into a semi-leuter mashtun (for over five hours), where three runs of water are added at increasing temperatures to absorb as much sugar as possible, with the third one used as first water in the following mash. Their water source is the same as in the 1800s, although with recent improvements (which we don’t remember, sorry), they reduced consumption by 70%. Fermentation, kickstarted with solid yeast, takes place in one of the 7 washbacks and lasts about 70 hours. Finally, the fermented wash is distilled twice in one of the two pairs of stills, two 30,000-litre wash stills and two ~15,000 spirit stills. The spirit cut from the second distillation is between 74% and 61-60%abv.

  • The “classic” selfie.

After visiting production, we went to the mythical N°1 Vaults, one of the warehouses on site, where we had the first part of the tasting. Other available experiences are the N°1 Vaults warehouse tasting (£65), which doesn’t include a tour, and one that combines the tour and the warehouse tasting (£85), plus a few other very pricey ones. As we walked in, we saw two casks, a 2010 (13y) ex-bourbon barrel (54.3%) and a 2010 (again, 13y) sherry hogshead (53.6%). We had a dram from each, and they were both delicious. We got similar notes in the third dram, their core range 18y, very tasty despite the low abv (43%), which was served in the tasting bar. Nice touch, we could keep one of the two small glencairn glasses they’d given us in the warehouse.

  • Dramming in the N°1 Vaults

Justine joined us at the tasting bar, while we were almost finished with our dram. As we came out, Gianluigi tried to get into the leisure centre, on the fence whether to risk the outside showers…However, the centre was closed, despite being over one hour from the closing time indicated online (5.30pm). So, we decided to go back to the vans to drop some stuff, and then head towards the Bowmore Hotel bar, for a dram or two (it ended being one, prices were a bit high). It was finally time for dinner, which we’d booked at the local pizzeria: the PEATzeria! While the fritto misto we had as a starter was quite tasty, the pizzas were a bit disappointing: the topping choice was clearly aimed to American tourists, and the pizzas were a bit uncooked. Because we were hungry, and well, it was still pizza, we ate without making any fuss, maybe we were just unlucky.

After dinner we moved to the bar next door, the Lochside. Drams were better priced there, so we had a few, including some stunning like the Mac Talla Rum cask 2024 Feis Ile: delicious stuff! But the day had been a long one, so we soon walked back to the vans for the night.

Anyway, the tour at Bowmore was very good, and Margaret was a great host. Even if it’s not the cheaper among the basic tours on the island, because of the drams in the warehouse (plus the 18y), it was definitely worth every cent.

  • A couple of tasty drams…

The only “meh” note was not about the distillery, rather about the facilities on Islay. It is always incredible to realise how little there is and in which conditions (the public toilets in Port Ellen, Bowmore and Jura are quite old), in particular when thinking how much money whisky brings in. Other than the Bowmore leisure centre, the only other available shower was at the Port Charlotte community centre, but only after 2pm. On the contrary, in other trips we found all-day open showers: in Tobermory (Mull) they were open from 9 to 5pm (cash only), but in Carbost, in front of Talisker distillery, the toilets/showers are open 24/7, and you can access after a card payment (and we’ll have an even better story in the coming weeks!). We wonder why facilities like these are not on Islay. 

  • Not a bad day, not a bad day at all…

Stay tuned for our last distillery tour on Islay (for the moment)! Until then, slainte!

Bowmore Distillery Tour (with Cask Exclusive Tasting)

Price: £25.00 pp (July 2024)

Duration: 1hr 15min

Tasting: 3 drams, 2 samples from the cask, 2010 ex-bourbon barrel (54.3%) and 2010 ex-sherry hogshead (53.6%), Bowmore 18y (43%), and a complimentary mini glencairn

Distillery Exclusives: none

Target: whisky curious

Value for money: good

Highlights: the building and the cask samples

Recommended: pricier than other tours, but worth it

Link: https://www.bowmore.com/en

#46.3 The return of the smoke

Islay’s Juggernaut: Caol Ila

 

TL; DR: Back on Islay, we first visited Finlaggan, the site of the castle of the Lords of the Isles, in the middle of a loch: a charming place. We then drove to Caol Ila distillery for the first visit of the day. It’s the biggest on Islay, recently renovated, definitely worth visiting on a good day for the view from the tasting room.

(missed Part 2/Part 1?)

We rarely sleep past 8am in the campervan, but this was one of the rare occasions. A combination of cozy and nice temperature, and not too much light (also thanks to a truck protecting us from direct sunlight!). We felt well rested, and after a nip at the loos (public toilets were just on the other side of the very narrow street), we had breakfast. There wasn’t enough time to do anything else, so we jumped in the vans and managed to take the first available Caolin Ferry back to Islay.

Caol Ila distillery is very close to the Port Askaig pier, and we had over an hour before the tour. Instead of hanging around, together with Justine we decided to visit Finlaggan, less than 10 minutes up the road towards Bowmore, with the last bit on a single-track road.

  • Where the Lords of the Isles used to rule…Finlaggan

This is the historic seat of the Lords of the Isles, the ancient rulers of the area, before it was absorbed by the Scottish crown. It’s in the middle of Loch Finlaggan, just a few minutes walking from the visitor centre (still closed when we arrived). There used to be a castle/fortified house there, built over different centuries, but the ruins we can see today are from the 13th century. It’s a very beautiful and quiet place, definitely worth a visit if you have some time to spare. While we were visiting the site, the visitor centre opened, but we didn’t have time to check it out: it was time to go visit Caol Ila distillery.

  • Yes, we’re in the right place.

It took just a few minutes to drive back from Finlaggan, after which we left Mr Vantastic in the new parking lot, next to the electric vehicles’ charging points. From there, we walked on a very nice wooden footbridge to enter the new visitor centre, from which you get some very nice views of the production site and the Paps of Jura (to note, for accessibility you can drive closer to the building). The visitor centre is “carved” inside a warehouse, of which they sacrificed a portion for visitors. It’s clearly new, with a typical Diageo’s style shop, not as nice as the Lagavulin one, but fortunately without that airport duty-free look as Talisker’s. At the bottom of the shop, there is a very long bar, and behind it, the “tasting room”: a few tables in front of a very large glass window with a magnificent view. On that day, the sunshine definitely made the experience memorable!

  • Can you spot the striding man?

As we walked in, they offered us a welcome dram: a choice between the blended malt Johnny Walker Islay Origin (a blend of Lagavulin and Caol Ila) and the Caol Ila 14y Four Corners of Scotland (the expression they brought in, together with Cardhu, Glenkinchie and Clynelish ones, to celebrate the “Johnny Walker”-ification of these distilleries). A few minutes later, we gathered at the tour starting point with our guide. Our guide was very new to the job (apparently ours was their second tour ever), so it wasn’t the most informative of the experiences: oh well, everyone needs to start somewhere (and we complemented the info with the Malt Whisky Yearbook 2024)!

We started in a room one floor below the visitor centre with a nosing experience of some aromas (as far as we remember, peat, supposed-sweet, sea and maritime spice?). It was followed by an 8-minute video about the history of the distillery and the crucial role it plays in DCL/Diageo’s blends, accompanied by animations on a relief map, with wee boats moving from Islay to the mainland and back. There was also a very informative wall display, with the parallel histories of Caol Ila and Johnny Walker. Overall, we felt this introductory part was a bit too long (slightly over half an hour), to the point that Gianluigi started doubting that there’d be a tour of production!

  • The ‘Four Corners’ part of the tour.

It was included indeed: we went down the stairs, crossed a courtyard to the distillery building, walking past the usual Johnny Walker statue and the old visitor centre (a small office on the ground floor). First, we visited the mill room, where a Porteus mill has been grinding malted barley since 1979, when the distillery was rebuilt. The husk/grit/flour split in the grist is the usual 20/70/10%, and the grist is then moved to the full Leuter mashtun for a slow mashing process to obtain a clear wort. They are equipped with eight wooden washbacks and two stainless steel ones, where fermentation lasts around 55-60 hours. This space, where mashtun and washbcks are, is very clean and tidy and looks very similar to other Diageo distilleries, including a table where all the processes are showcased “in miniature”.

  • A tidy distillery.

The still room is quite spectacular, with six stills aligned next to the glass windows. Of course, three of them are wash stills, for the first distillation (with descending lyne arms) and three are spirit stills, with straight lyne arms for the second distillation. After this, we went back to the warehouse/visitor centre, and we visited a part of the warehouse that is half-way between the two: many casks are still lying there, but the space is mainly used for other visits or tastings. There, we got to smell a few different casks from the bunghole.

  • The only spot where we could take a pitcure of the still room.

Finally, it was time for the tasting, in the area the back of the bar. We knew the drill, 3x15ml drams, drivers package ready to be filled with a small funnel, and a cocktail (the alcohol-free version for Gianluigi was based on a smoky tea, quite interesting, while for the others the base was Johnny Walker Black Label 12y). We got there a bit late, so by the time the tour was supposed to end, the guide had just finished to introduce the drams (and in fact, they left us to sip on our own). We started with the Caol Ila 12y, the distillery flagship: there is a reason why this distillery is called “Mr Consistent”, as even this widely available expression (watered down to 43% and probably chill-filtered) is a nice one. The next two were the two expressions only available at the distillery: the Distillery Exclusive and the Bottle-your-own (see below for specs). Both yummy, as usual, although they were way too pricey for what they are.

  • Failed attempt at capturing both tasting and amazing view in the background.

Caol Ila is by far the biggest distillery on Islay, with 6.5 million of alcohol litre per annum production, and because of this it tends to be one of the go-to peated expressions for independent bottlers, at much more reasonable prices. As a confirmation, the last three Feis Ile bottlings (2022, 2023 and 2024) were available at the shop, literally gathering dust. For example, the 2024 expression is a 13y sold at £185 – who would buy it considering that indies Caol Ila’s of similar age sell for about half that price?

Once Teresa and Edo finished their drams, we had to leave very quickly, as we didn’t have all the time we thought we’d have before the next visit, and we needed to get lunch too! Anyway, it was nice to finally get to see Caol Ila: probably, among Diageo’s whiskies, it is the one we drank the most throughout the years. Also, this was the only Diageo distillery we hadn’t visited yet (among the ones open to the public, plus Mortlach, Linkwood, Dailuaine and Auchroisk) – a six-year journey since we started with Oban in 2018. Of course, Brora is still missing – do you think they’ll will allow us in with a discount since we visited all the other ones???

Coming next, another of Islay’s classic: Bowmore! Until then, slainte!

Caol Ila Flavour Journey Tour

Price: £21.00 pp (July 2024)

Duration: 1hr 30min

Tasting: a welcome dram, choice between Johnny Walker 12y Islay Origin blended malt (42%) and Caol Ila 14y Four Corners of Scotland (53%), plus 3 drams at the end, Caol Ila 12y (43%), Distillery Exclusive (NAS, first and refill ex-bourbon and first fill re-charred California red wine, 57.4%) and Fill-your-own batch 2023/003 (10y, 1st fill ex-bourbon cask, 55.1%)

Distillery Exclusives: Distillery Exclusive Caol Ila (NAS, 47.4%, £100) and Fill-your-own batch 2023/003 (10y, 55.1%, £130)

Target: tourists and beginners

Value for money: good

Highlights: the tasting room facing the sound of Islay and Jura

Recommended: only if you’re really keen, but we think there are better options on the island for a standard tour (the view makes it worth though)

Link: https://www.malts.com/en-gb/distilleries/caol-Ila

#46.2 The return of the smoke

Off to Jura

 

TL; DR: After Port Ellen, we drove to Port Askaig to catch the Feolin ferry to Jura. Very different landscape here, except for the main settlement it feels very remote. The Jura distillery is tucked between the hill and the sea. Despite its not great reputation, we had some very good drams, and a great time overall.

(missed Part 1?)

The tour at Port Ellen overran slightly, about 10-15 minutes, which eroded the time we had to get to Port Askaig to catch the Feolin ferry and get to our next destination: the Isle of Jura. We sprinted in the vans, us first and Justine behind, and got there at the exact time it was scheduled to leave, just to see the ferry leaving…to our surprise, as it doesn’t happen often with Scottish and British public transport to be so on time. We were so close to make it that we joked about “Starsky and Hutch-ing” our way into the boat with a sprint, but it would have been a big ask to Mr. Vantastic. Oh well, the next ferry was only an hour later, still on time for our tour. We started fixing ourselves some food…but the ferry came back right away, and the staff decided for an extra trip (probably they needed it to accommodate two big lorries coming the other way). While Gianluigi drove on the ferry and then from the pier to Craighouse (the main settlement on the island), Teresa and Edo were holding the half-cooked food in the back (thankfully there are no pictures of this clumsy moment).

  • Spot the drammer.

The landscape looked different from Islay: more trees, less buildings, and the presence of the two Paps (the hills that can be seen from the north-eastern side of Islay) is certainly very notable. Fun fact, on the island there are more deer than people (nowadays about 250). Jura is also famous for being the place where Orwell wrote his masterpiece 1984.

Anyway, once in Craighouse, we parked the vans in a nice spot Justine had found, behind a multipurpose warehouse (including the Deer Island Rum distillery, closed unfortunately) and next to an old pier. A great spot, quiet and with some tables and benches too… just a shame that as soon as the wind calmed down, midges appeared to torment us. We just had time to walk to the Antlers Bistro for a coffee before going to Jura distillery for the tour.

  • And the tour begins.

The visitor centre is quite small, only a small entrance hall and a wee shop. Other than some merchandise and their full range of whiskies, they also have some special editions, a couple of distillery casks, bottlings, and the travel retail range. The guide for the day was Fiona, a local who has worked there for many years. She walked us through the shop and some offices to the courtyard, where she started introducing the distillery history, from its establishment (1810) to the first license (1831), and the troubled late 19th and early 20th century, when it closed. In 1960, the distillery was acquired by Charles Mackinlay & Co (of the famous Mackinley blend), rebuilt and extended, and in 1963 they restarted distilling. Since then, the distillery has never stopped producing (except for maintenance of course), not even during the whisky loch (when they just reduced production to 3 days per week).

  • Someone got distracted.

Their main malt supplier is Crisp, mainly Sassie and Lauriet, and they do heavily peated runs four weeks per year. The mill, a classic Porteous, was bought second hand in 1963, and never changed since. Their grist ratios are a bit different compared to others, with 15% flour, 25% husk and only 60% of grit. They do 28 5-ton mashes per week, working 24/7, and use the typical three waters at increasing temperatures (64.5, 75 and 85°C) in a semi-leuter mashtun. Each washback (six in total, all stainless steel) takes two full mashes, to which they add 150kg of Mauri yeast, left fermenting for about 60 hours. The two pairs of stills are heated by steam coils and used for a typical double distillation (7 hours the first one, 8 the second one), with a cut between 72% and 64% abv. Some casks are filled on site, usually the ones destined to stay in one of the four warehouses on the island (total capacity of 24,500 casks), while all the vatting and bottling (including re-racking for finishes) happens at Whyte and Mackay’s mainland sites in Invergordon and Grangemouth. To note, they recently demolished part of a warehouse to make space for a biomass boiler, so to decrease their environmental impact.

  • A glimpse of the still room.

After the tour, it was finally time for the tasting! A few words here: Jura whiskies, despite being best sellers in the UK, tend not to have the greatest reputation among whisky enthusiasts. Sales are probably driven by the notable number of expressions available at supermarkets (the Bourbon Cask, formerly known as “Journey”, the 10y, 12y, 14y Rye Cask, Seven Woods, Rum Cask, Red Wine Cask, Pale Ale Cask…have we forgotten any?), so well played to them. But quality-wise? Well, let’s say that in our opinion it’s not the best whisky you can find, not even for the money probably (when on sale, these expressions can be quite cheap). We had one bottle of Jura Journey a few years ago and tried very few independently bottled whiskies (maybe 2 or 3), so we were very curious to taste other expressions and didn’t really know what to expect. This is why, when we booked this tour, we went for the extended, fancier tasting.

A micro-warehouse for the tasting.

The tasting was set up in a dedicated warehouse-ish space (a damp room with a few dozen casks). Because we’d already parked for the night, we could all drink, yay! First dram, a 15y whisky finished for 1-2 years in oloroso sherry (42.8%), bottled for the south-east Asian market. Very sweet, a good start but not our thing (and the colour was suspiciously dark, which made sense given the target market). The second dram was definitely better, a travel retail 19y “The Paps” (45.6%), finished in a PX sherry butt (40 years old!). However, the third dram was the one where things started to get serious. It was a distillery cask, 1st fill ex-bourbon barrel, vintage 2016 (7.5y) and bottled at 60% – a very fruity dram, not too hot despite the high abv, and it took water very well too. The fourth dram was another distillery cask, same cask but a bit older (vintage 2008, 15y) at a slightly lower abv (55.5%), a very nice dram too. Finally, we had a choice between an unpeated 33y (distilled 1990, bottled in 2023) from a PX hogshead (44.8%), and an 18y heavily peated ex-bourbon barrel (distilled 2005, bottled 2023) at 53.7% – being four of us, we got two of each and we shared. They were both delicious in their own very different way.

  • A good line-up…
…with this one quite delicious.

After the distillery we went for dinner at the Jura Hotel. Our attempt to enjoy a pre-dinner pint outside lasted about 3 minutes, before the midges swarmed and made us run for a table inside. We had good time, good food, tasty pints and, worth noting, we found very clean bathrooms and strong Wi-Fi too! We soon retired to our campervans, to enjoy a last dram before a good night sleep (no wind this time!).

  • There are worse places to spend the night.

Overall, we loved the visit and the tasting, and Fiona was a great host, so money totally well spent. During the tasting we realised Jura can produce very tasty whisky, so probably the issue with their range is downstream. What is a bit strange, to us, is that all the supermarket expressions (all well below 46%, probably chill-filtered and with E15Oa too) seem to be aimed for the casual or novice drinker, none of them targets non-beginners. Other distilleries/brands (Glen Scotia, Loch Lomond, Laphroaig, Pultney, Tomatin, just to name a few) tend to target a wider range of drinkers, it’d be interesting to understand what drives Jura’s different approach.

Stay tuned for our time back on Islay! Until then, slainte!

Jura Distillery Exclusives Tour

Price: £50.00 pp (July 2024)

Duration: 2hr

Tasting: 5 drams, Jura 15 Sherry cask East Asia exclusive (42.8%); 19y The Paps travel retail (45.6%); Distillery cask 7y (60%); Distillery cask 15y (55.5%); choice between 33y ex-PX cask (44.8%) and 19y heavily peated ex-bourbon cask (53.7%), and a complimentary glencairn

Distillery Exclusives: Distillery cask ex-Bourbon 7y (60%, £90.00); Distillery cask ex-Bourbon 15y (55.5%, £120.00)

Target: whisky geeks

Value for money: good

Highlights: the island and the tasting

Recommended: if you want to try some good Jura’s, definitely!

Link: https://www.jurawhisky.com/en/

#46.1 The return of the smoke

The not-so-new guy on the block

 

TL; DR: More than two years after our first trip to Islay, we are finally back! This time, with Mr Vantastic and two special companions, we visited (almost) all the distilleries we didn’t manage the first time, starting with one that, 2 years ago, was still a building site: Port Ellen! A very beautiful site, with an experimental twist. 

It is not by coincidence that Islay is called the Queen of the Hebrides. There is something magical about this island, and it is not just the whisky. Maybe it has to do with the effort and the long trip to get there (well, unless you fly from Glasgow), that will take you through the west of Scotland and then, after a 2-hour ferry trip, finally on the island! But yeah, once you know, you know.

Our last trip, in spring 2022, was quite unfortunate: the rented campervan broke, so we had to book last-minute accommodations and cabs. During the only walk we did, it pished down rain, so we were also wet and smelly. But somehow, we managed to visit all the six distilleries we’d scheduled (Bunnahabhain, Ardnahoe, Kilchoman, Bruichladdich, Lagavulin and Laphroaig).

This trip was a long time coming, we would have liked to make it back in 2023,  but we couldn’t. Another idea was to go earlier this year  (2024, if you’re reading in the future) but the plan fell apart (well, we went to the stunning Raasay instead!). What finally made us take the step was the reopening of Port Ellen distillery. It originally opened in 1825, and the whisky was mainly used in blends. It was closed down by DCL (Distillery Company Ltd) during the whisky loch of the 80s, so together with many others, it didn’t make it to the new millennium. In the meantime, however, the whisky became a cult among single malt lovers, particularly the well-aged expressions (according to some experts, their malt was not well regarded at young ages, one of the reasons for closing it down). Therefore, similarly to Brora (and Rosebank, by Ian McLeod), Diageo decided to revive it: basically, it was rebuilt from scratch, near the Port Ellen maltings, to the west of Port Ellen village. It started production earlier this year. It is open to visitors, but with Diageo being Diageo, the tour is astonishingly priced at £200 (two-fricking-hundred)! Unlike Brora though (where the two available tours costed respectively £350 and £600 the first time we drove by, now -July ’24- changed to £225 and £900, ludicrous), they offer a once-a-month open day (first Friday or Saturday of the month), running several free tours per day: yay!

We took advantage of it as soon as we could, and we booked a spot for the July open day, for us and our friend Justine (Kask Whisky). Because it was on a Friday, we organised the whole weekend around it, with visits to other distilleries too. A couple of weeks after we’d booked everything, Edo (Gianluigi’s youngest brother) told us he wanted to come visit in July, so he joined us too. He likes whisky, and according to Gianluigi, he has the best palate of the family (he’s an exceptional cook!). So there we were, on a Thursday morning, ready for our trip: at first the two of us, Edo, and Mr Vantastic, on the road.

  • A sumptuous lunch.

Our ferry was booked for the evening, so we did a few stops in between: Fyne Ales brewery (always very tasty pints) and for lunch at Loch Fyne Oysters, pricey but the array of seafood we ate was exceptional! We also briefly stopped at the George Hotel, Inveraray, to say “hi” to our friend Ivan (and for Gianluigi and Edo to get a dram…Teresa was driving at that point). As we drove towards Kennacraig, the weather got worse, so much that they changed our destination, Port Askaig instead of Port Ellen (sad trombone sound). The wind was howling on Islay as well, but we drove straight to our parking for the night, while admiring some piles of peat drying out along the way. We parked our van next to Justine’s Post Dram Prat and had a small meal and a few drams (the Ardray, a new Suntory blended scotch, was the surprise of the evening), before slowly drifting to bed.

  • Calm after the (wind) storm…
  • …waiting for the tour.

Because of the wind, which was still blowing in the morning, we couldn’t get much sleep…especially Edo, who slept in the pop-up roof. We woke up early and had breakfast at the van with Justine. We were a tad slow, so before our visit we didn’t do anything except packing up the van, but we still arrived early at the distillery. Indeed, we were the first ones there, and at first everything looked closed. Fortunately, about 10 minutes before the tour starting time, someone opened the door and checked us in: for the first tour they were waiting for other 14 people, so 18 in total!

  • They finally opened the gate!

As everybody arrived, we started the tour with Allan, the distillery manager. He is very experienced, as he worked on all the four Diageo sites on the island (3 distilleries and the maltings), so we were quite excited. He started by showcasing the installations in the visitor centre hall. A note here: we call it “visitor centre”, but it is clearly different from what we are used to, even in comparison to other Diageo recently renovated distilleries. It is very modern looking and bright, and there is no shop (unless it is upstairs, where we didn’t go). The clear intention was to set up something classy…However, in a clumsy way, as to us it looked like a fancy residence or office lobby.

  • Modern art installation.

One great feature, instead, is their use of mostly renewable sources for energy. The distillery was (re)built with the intention of making it as carbon neutral as possible, which is very valuable. As we moved to production, Allan showed us their permanent lab, which is quite unique: here, a full-time analyst checks the peat levels in the barley and the spirit, thus serving both the distillery and the maltings.

We then took a look at the mill room, a very large space with a very modern mill, which we expected as the site has been totally rebuilt (so no Porteous here!). Back to the main production room, we were right in front of the mashtun: a stainless-steel big baby, semi-Leuter, with a shiny lid.

Look what’s mashing!

At the moment, they do 11 mashes per week, mainly with Concerto barley but really with “whatever comes in”, and they have no silent season (except for maintenance, when required). They do mashes of different sizes, one of 5.5 tons for the experimental stills, and one of 7.5 tons for the regular stills (more on that later). With less water runs per mash, this is one of the steps where they save on water, which is common to many Diageo distilleries nowadays. The process is like sparging when brewing beer, in our understanding, with only one water gradually heated up. The wort is then moved to one of the six Oregon pine washbacks, each one with a capacity of 52,000 litres, but they never reach these levels. Fermentation lasts between 92 to 130 hours, quite a long one. Allan allowed us to nose the wash, and if we wanted taste it, but none of our party did.

  • Fishing the wash.

Here is the interesting bit: the old stills that were in the distillery at the times of closing down in the 80s disappeared: they were sent to India and from there they lost track. So, the engineers at Diageo’s Abercrombie had to rely on drawings and sketches to recreate the new ones with the exact same shape. With these stills, the process is the usual: they run a double distillation, with the second cut taken after 25-30 minutes of foreshots, from 72-73% down to 60% (a large one!). The spirit is filled in both tankers and casks on site, usually diluted at 63.5%. However, they also have a second pair of stills, similar but smaller, that they use to experiment. The most interesting part is that instead of having the usual 3-part second distillation (foreshots or head, middle cut or heart, and low wines or tail; the first and last discarded and usually redistilled), the safe can separate out up to 10 different cuts, other than the discarded parts. These don’t get mixed together, and they are used to study and experiment how different cuts provide different flavours to the whisky, and in particular how this relates to the whisky peatiness and smokiness. We got to nose samples, and (maybe the power of suggestion) the difference was definitely there, in particular when comparing the first sample to the last.

  • Traditional spirit safe on one side…
…and experimental spirit safe on the other side.

After this, the tour ended. In general, the distillery manager giving the tour, and in particular the last bit, made the visit really worth it, even if we didn’t manage to try any sample (which we kind of expected). Overall, it was great to see this very beautiful new old distillery…We’d say we’re looking forward to the whisky in the coming years, but we know we’ll hardly be able to get it, if things stay the way they are now in terms of prices.

Stay tuned for more whisky action, and a little spoiler: we had to take another ferry! Until then, slainte!

Port Ellen Open Day

Price: free (open day, July 2024)

Duration: 1hr

Tasting: nope

Distillery exclusive: none

Target: locals and whisky nerds

Value for money: well, it’s freeee…

Highlights: the beautiful new architecture and the experimental stills

Recommended: yes if it’s the open day

Link: https://www.malts.com/en-row/distilleries/port-ellen

#45.2 Stepping over the (Highland) line!

Back in the Lowlands

 

TL; DR: After Glengoyne distillery, we headed down back to the Lowlands. First Dumbarton, then Auchentoshan. We had a very in-depth tour, which was great, and we could appreciate every bit of their unique triple distillation process. Worth the money, just a shame the drams were basic. 

(missed Part 1?)

As we came out Glengoyne distillery, we definitely needed some food. Fortunately, we had a couple of sandwiches we got earlier at the Turnip the Beat cafe, quite delicious ones, which we devoured in the Glengoyne visitors parking lot (thus, already in the Lowlands). We soon left though, heading first towards Loch Lomond, and then south. We had a few hours to spare, so we went to Dumbarton, which we’d never visited before.

  • Distilleries in the past, houses today.

Dumbarton used to be home to the namesake grain distillery, and (on the same site) the Inverleven single malt distillery. Both distilleries started producing in 1938, Inverleven was then closed in 1991 and Dumbarton in 2002. Today there is a housing development on the site, which kept some of the red brick buildings. Other than that, the only remaining signs of this town whisky history are the massive warehouses on the road to Glasgow. We parked at the bottom of the Dumbarton Rock, a huge volcanic plug with a castle on top of it (you guessed it, the Dumbarton Castle). Unfortunately, the castle was closed due to illness (!!!), so we only took a short stroll in the garden below the rock, near the estuary of the river Leven, and then got a coffee and a light bite in town.

  • A pretty spot, a pity we couldn’t visit the castle.

The coffee break was longer than we thought, so we had to sprint to Auchentoshan distillery right away. We got there at the exact minute the tour was starting (although we’d called them to warn we could be late). Our guide was Anya, who started the tour with some history: the distillery was founded in 1817 (licensed in 1823), and the name means the “corner of the field”, referring to where the barley was initially harvested. As a matter of fact, there used to be a farm on site since the 1500s.

  • Just on time!

Moving to production, for the mashing they use 7 tons of barley sourced from the big maltsters (Baird, Simpson and Crisp), which goes into a semi-Lauter mashtun with the usual three waters at increasing temperature. Anya told us they’d just replaced a manual scale with an electronic one, but apparently the new scale needs recalibrating so often that the time savings are not substantial: not all trials go well, we guess. After mashing, the sugary wort is moved to one of the nine washbacks (four made of Oregon pine, five of stainless steel), for a 70h fermentation.

Semi-Lauter mashtun at work.

One of the peculiarities of Auchentoshan is their triple distillation, a practice that was once common in the Lowlands distilleries, but gradually disappeared. Now other distilleries we visited do some triple distilled runs at times (Benriach, Benromach, Sprinbgank/Hazelburn, Glengyle), but Auchentoshan remained the only one doing it regularly, before the very recent reopening of Rosebank distillery, in Falkirk. The wash still can hold 17,500 litres, the intermediate 8,200 litres and the spirit still 11,500 litres. Anya described the process well, but it was also good to have, right in front of the stills, a scheme describing everything in detail – it made it more intuitive. Being triple distilled, the spirit has a higher abv than usual: they take a cut between 82.6% and 80%, average 81%.

  • A really cool still room…
  • …with a really cool explainer.

After the still room, Anya walked us into the warehouse, where she explained the maturation process while letting us look at different cask types. Casking and blending don’t happen on site, but in Springburn, where the other Suntory facilities are located.

  • Always nice getting to see dampy warehouses.

Finally, we went back to the distillery for the tasting, in the same tasting room/bar where we had our tasting back in 2021, above the visitor centre entrance and shop. This time the tasting was not so good – we got a dram of the American Oak (40%, non-age statement, apparently mostly 6y, with some 5y, whisky) and of the 12y (40%), that is, the two most basic expressions. The wee mug they gave us to take home, instead of the usual gleincarn, was a very nice touch, though. We get that this was the entry level tour, but it wouldn’t have costed them much to replace the American Oak with another more ‘advanced’ expression: in the shop they have both Bartender’s Malt limited editions, batch 01 (47%) and 2 (50%), the Sauvignon Blanc cask finish (47%), the travel retail range and a couple of distillery exclusive bottlings (see below), so plenty of options (in theory). Fortunately, at the shop they gave us a wee taste of one of the distillery exclusives, a delicious 9y sherry matured whisky, from an Oloroso cask (59.7%).

Two drams and a wee mug.

At first, we were not sure whether it was a good idea to do the basic tour, but in the end Anya was a great host: very clear and precise when describing the production process of this very unique distillery, she really made our day, so we were happy that we’d decided to go for it. As we said, the dram selection could have been better (yes, in this respect we could have opted for a different ‘experience’), but this has nothing to do with the guide.

Stay tuned for more whisky action, some smoky stuff coming soon…Until then, slainte!

Auchentoshan Origin Tour

Price: £18.00 pp (June 2024)

Duration: 1hr

Tasting: 2 drams, Auchentoshan American Oak (40%) and 12y (40%), plus a complimentary mini-mug

Distillery Exclusives: Auchentoshan hand-bottled  distillery 9y Oloroso cask (59.7%, distilled 22/10/14, bottled 1/6/24, £90/30 for 70/20cl) and 22y Oloroso cask (56.2%, distilled 15/10/02, £250 for 70cl)

Target: tourists and casual drinkers

Value for money: good

Highlights: the triple distillation process showcase

Recommended: yes

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

#45.1 Stepping over the (Highland) line!

An old acquaintance, Glengoyne

 

TL; DR: We took advantage of a free weekend to get on the van and go for a night away in the (not so wild) wilderness. The next morning, we visited Glengoyne distillery: a very nice tour, although very basic, which ended in a lovely tasting room with some very tasty drams! 

In recent months we had been quite busy, for various reasons: friends visiting, visiting friends, unfortunately work as well… so, except for the Spirit of Speyside weekend, we’ve not enjoyed much our van. In early June though, we had a weekend with no commitments, so wedecided to spend a night out, not too far away, in the area between Stirling, Glasgow and the Trossachs. This area sits across the Highland Line (roughly, very roughly following the Highland Boundary Fault), which historically was used to separate the taxing regime of whisky producers in the Lowlands and Highlands: we basically spent the weekend crossing it back and forth!

We’re not new to the area: back in February, we’d spent a lovely evening in Fintry, together with our friend Justine, having a meal at the Fintry Inn, followed by a few nice drams from the Uncharted Whisky Co independent bottler, which has strong ties with the pub (in our understanding, it’s also their tasting room). This time, we aimed for another pub that welcomes campervans, the Pirn Inn in Balfron. The drive was uneventful, but when we got there, we realised they didn’t have a kitchen: d’oh! So, we had to go find food. First, we tried the Old Mill in Killearn, but it was super-busy (in part because of a beer fair they had on for the weekend). Moving on, second time charme: the Clachan Inn in Drymen. We were lucky: it was very busy, which surprised us, before realising it is on the West Highland Way, already swarmed with hikers this time of the year. They found us a table at the bar to be shared temporarily with a couple waiting for their table at the restaurant: we had a nice chat, and as the man was a dairy farmer, Gianluigi asked some questions about farms management and diseases…professional bias. After dinner, we quickly drove back to the Pirn Inn, where we had a last pint and a dram (Bunna 12 never disappoints!), before going to sleep.

An ugly glimpse of a much more beautiful spot.

In the morning, the sky was cloudy. We woke up rested, and we somehow managed to avoid midges invading the van, probably thanks to the previous night breeze. We tried to look for an open cafè, but we were unlucky… so after a stop for the loo, we drove towards our first destination: the Devil’s Pulpit. The Carnock Burn goes through a very beautiful gorge, all green and brown. You’d almost expect to find something like this in a tropical jungle, rather than in the Southern Highlands (or Lowlands?). The parking spot can only take three cars (if well parked), so we left Mr Vantastic at a bigger lay-by at the cross of the A809-B834 roads, from where we had to walk no more than 10-15 minutes to find ourselves at the top of the gorge. It was very nice, although we were slightly upset by the amount of garbage found all over the place: from the lay-by, to the side of the road, and in the gorge itself: how can people be so inconsiderate?

Back to the van, it was time to drive to our next destination: Glengoyne distillery (with a brief stop at the Turnip The Beet for tasty coffee and snacks). Glengoyne is an old acquaintance , as we visited it during the pandemic years (can we say that?) in summer 2021, but at the time we couldn’t tour production because of COVID19 of course…and the waterfall was empty too! Gianluigi had also visited it as part of a networking event after a conference he attended in Glasgow in 2018: too many people, it wasn’t such a memorable experience.

  • Looking at the Highlands from the Lowlands.

We parked on the south side of the road, which together with their warehouses, is in the Lowlands: the road is the boundary, apparently. Thus, as you can guess, the distillery is in the Highlands. It is owned by Ian McLeod’s Distillers, together with Tamdhu, the newly rebuilt Rosebank, and a the soon to-be-built Laggan Bay, on Islay (in our understanding they also have acquired a single malt distillery in India). As we came out the parking, a hostess pointed us to the check-in for the tour, which started a few minutes earlier in the courtyard. Our tour guide was Diane, “fae Glasgow”, and the other two people on the tour were a father-and-son couple from Canada.

In a small exposition room, Diane explained us that the distillery has always been Scottish owned since its foundation and licensing in 1833. It must be one of the few among the old ones, we reckon. Glengoyne means “the valley of the geese”, and it is located in Dumgoyne (“the hill of the geese”), hence why you can find this bird on the label.

We quickly moved to production, which is fairly standard. First, Diane showed us a destoner dating back to 1912 and the mill, which we couldn’t take a picture of. The barley varieties they use are mainly Sassy and Lauriet, although one week a year they use Golden Promise, all coming from the East of Scotland.

A shiny mashtun.

The mashtun has a copper lid, and it takes 16,000 litres of water at 63.5°C for the first water, followed by the usual two waters at higher temperatures to maximise the sugar absorption during mashing. Fermentation takes place in one of the six Douglas Fir wood washbacks and lasts about 56 hours, a rather short one. The newmake spirit is obtained after a usual double-distillation process, first in a wash still (16,000 litres), to get to ~20% abv (from their 8-9% wash) and then in one of the two spirit stills (5,000 litres each). Their cut points for the spirit run (what it is going into casks) are generally from 75% to 65%, and the cut is taken only after 3-5 minutes of foreshots.

  • Classic, onion-shaped stills.

After production, we visited Warehouse 1, next to the production building (not on the other side of the road): quite small, they mostly made a maturation exhibition out of it, where transparent bottles containing spirit and whisky at different stages of maturation are showed, together with the different types of casks and wood. A very interesting bit for more inexperienced visitors. Diane soon after walked us to the Manager’s Cottage, where there is a very nice and relaxing tasting space, with sofas, comfy chairs and fireplaces (they were off while we were there, otherwise we could have easily taken a nap).

  • Whisky maturation explainer in one shot.

The tasting was ready for us: 3 drams from the core range paired with one chocolate each, from the Highland Chocolatier. First off, the 12y, bottled at 43% and matured in a combination of first-fill European oak (ex-sherry we think…20% of the total), first fill American oak ex-bourbon (20%), and not better specified refill casks (60%). Quite nice and bright. The second dram was the 18y, again bottled at 43%, but with a different composition: less refill (50%) and ex-bourbon (15%) casks, and more first-fill European oak casks (35%). This brought definitely more dark-fruity notes and richness, although not as rich and decadent as the last dram. This was a 21y, fully matured in first-fill European oak casks.

  • Heading towards the Manager’s Cottage for…
  • …the tasting!

Overall the visit was nice, geared towards less whisky knowledgeable visitors though. The best part was the tasting – while we were a bit sceptical because of the low abv, these were delicious and not watery at all. A shame their prices are a bit higher than expected (in particular in the shop, and even taking into account the discount for visitors doing a tour or a tasting), which is probably the main reason we haven’t connected so much with this distillery so far. However, the velvety and soothing quality of these drams was not lost on us, and we think they are perfect to share with family and friends less used to higher strength drams than us. So who knows, maybe one coming in the future?

Stay tuned for the rest of our trip, this time definitely below the Highland line! Until then, slainte!

Glengoyne Collection Tour and Tasting

Price: £35.00 pp (June 2024, plus £3.50 booking fee per transaction)

Duration: 1hr 30min

Tasting:3 drams, Glengoyne 12 (43%), Glengoyne 18 (43%) and Glengoyne 21 (43%)

Highlights: the tasting room

Distillery exclusive: Glengoyne Distillery Cask, ex-Port, 14y (56%, distilled 14/04/2010, £200…!)

Target: the whisky curious

Value for money: good

Recommended: yes

Link: https://www.glengoyne.com/

#44.5 Spirited in Speyside

Aucht… Actrh…. Aucr… Auchroisk!

 

TL; DR: Our final day at the Spirit of Speyside started with the Whisky Fair in Dufftown, a mini-whisky festival in the festival. Then we visited Auchroisk with its huge production, filling and cask warehousing facilities. A great visit ending with the usual stingy whisky tasting. 

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

We woke up under a grey sky, but the temperature wasn’t too cold. We had a quick breakfast under the trees, before going to take advantage of the toilet in a nearby Tesco Extra (well, that’s the downside of wild camping in villages or towns).

Soon enough, we were driving towards Dufftown, together with Justine (although in separate campervans, our Mr Vantastic and her Post Dram Prat). Once there, we had a second breakfast (or early lunch) in a fairly new cafè, almost in front of the clock tower, called the Cozy Coo: delicious food! Our first event of the day was the Whisky Fair, organised by local people (including our friend Sue from Glenallachie) in the Mortlach Community Hall, basically a whisky festival in the festival, which runs on the Saturday and the Sunday.

This one was delicious!

The ticket included some food and a hot drink (very nice touch), but the money would be donated to the local Whisky Museum. Most of the stands belong to small independent companies, among which Dramfool, Murray McDavid, Lady of the Glen, Moffat distillery (we finally tried their newmake spirit: definitely different from most, way less fruity and way more crème-caramel-like notes), Cabrach distillery (soon to be opened). An exception was Angus Dundee distillers, pouring both Glencadam and Tomintoul – Gianluigi could finally try the Tomintoul 14y we’d bought two days before. We also got a sample of Glencadam 18y to take home, such a delicious dram! Overall, we really enjoyed this event and the relaxed atmosphere, we’ll definitely book again if we go back to the Spirit of Speyside next year.

  • Wee distilleries at the Whisky Fair…Moffat!

Around 1.30pm (late) we left the fair, and we drove to our next destination: Auchroisk distillery. Google made us go through some backroads but didn’t realise there were some detours due to roadworks, so what was late became very late, and we parked exactly when the tour was supposed to start. Fortunately, a member of staff was waiting for us (and other latecomers), and walked us where the tour was about to start. The tour was given by Debbie, the site manager, and Stephen, an operator, and as a first thing they gave us a vest and a hard-hat: safety first!

  • Ready? Ready.

The Auchroisk distillery is relatively recent, they started building it in 1972 and the first mash was done in 1974, so ‘just’ 50 years ago! It looks more modern than most distilleries indeed, and the vanilla-coloured building almost gives it a mediterranean/hispanic twist (we realise this might a bit of a stretch…). The name, which means red stream, was taken from the nearby farm, which was bought to get access to the well. The name was (and is) so hard to pronounce that the whisky got called the Singleton, before Diageo decided to reassign this brand to the Dufftown, Glendullan and Glen Ord distilleries. Obscure to many, we knew the distillery from early days thanks to tastings at the Scotch Malt Whisky Society, but we didn’t know it is actually a big one (almost 6 million litre of pure alcohol per annum capacity!).

  • “Only” 50 years old.

Their weekly barley intake is around 312-330 tons, split in 10 loads, currently mostly Diablo and Lauriet varieties (and another one we couldn’t quite get). Unlike many distilleries, the grist split (grit/husk/flour) they get from the big red mill (not sure if a Porteus, but they didn’t mention it so…) is not the usual 70/20/10, as they aim for a higher share of flour to get more starches. They mash 12.5 tons of grist, initially with 47,000 litres of water at 63.5°C for about 45 minutes. Then, 25,000 litres of wort is pumped out, and the water temperature is increased to absorb more sugars until 78°C for 2.5-3 hours. They have 8 stainless steel washbacks, where the wort is moved while cooled down to 17.5°C through a heat exchanger. Fermentation only lasts 46 hours (probably one of the shortest we heard so far!). The washbacks are quite big, 52,200 litres, and they use 250l of yeast per mash. The wash is then distilled first in one of the four 13,000-litre wash stills, and then in a 7,000-litre spirit still (all heated with steam coils, steam obtained from a biodiesel boiler). The spirit cut from the second distillation is from 75.5% to 65%.

  • That’s a big still room.

This part is quite similar to many other Diageo distillery. However, on top of such big production site, they also have a filling station facility that served many distilleries located in the North of Scotland (not only Diageo ones). This facility and cask storage (we didn’t quite get the number though) is really huge: a team of 42 people fills about 3,000 cask per day, at a filling strength between 63% and 68% depending on the product destination.

  • Part of production we don’t see very often.

Debbie opened the doors of a warehouse, and we couldn’t help but notice the number of casks from ghost distilleries that we lost throughout the years: Pittyvaich, Glen Mhor, Lochside, Glenesk, Millburn, Linlithgow, Imperial, Banff, Dallas Dhu, Rosebank, Convalmore, as well as their second ever cask and a 1984 (Gianluigi’s birth year) Cragganmore! We really do hope those malts won’t end up in the Johnnie Walker Blue Ghost shenanigans…but probably we won’t be able to try them anyway.

  • This is old…said the old lady.
This is old…said the old man.

After this, we were walked to the main offices for the tasting. They offered 3x10ml drams, quite stingy in the face of the 80 quid tour price (unlike last year, this time there was no welcome cocktail). Anyway, we started with the Flora and Fauna Auchroisk 10y: a very delicious single malt, one of the best from that range in our opinion, and solid despite the 43% (mostly from refill ex-bourbon casks). The second dram was a cask sample, 14y from an ex-bourbon cask (51.9%), produced in a period when they were aiming for a “grassy” spirit. Finally, a 20y from the Diageo Special Release 2010 (58.1%), from European oak casks. The middle one was the winner for us, but they were all delicious.

  • A tasty but stingy tasting.

Again, as last year, Diageo distilleries surprised us for the incredible facilities they have, and for the knowledge and enthusiasm of their staff. And their willingness to show around whisky nerds like us, and the tasty spirit they produce. Such a shame the company doesn’t seem to care much – should we consider ourselves lucky to be able to visit a normally closed distillery for £80? We’ll leave this one with you.

After this, we slowly drove (well, Teresa did…) home, while Gianluigi depleted his stock of gummy candies. Another Spirit of Speyside under our belt, such a great festival! Different to last year, this time we also attended some non-distillery related events, which really improved our enjoyment of the festival overall – we still did a lot of things, but it didn’t feel rushed as last year. We’ll see whether we’re able to come up with an even better plan for next year.

Until next time, slainte!

Auchroisk Tour and Tasting

Price: £80.00 pp (Spirit of Speyside 2024)

Duration: 2hr

Tasting: 3x10ml drams, Auchroisk 10 (43%, Flora and Fauna), cask sample 14y (ex-bourbon cask, 51.9%), 20y from the Diageo Special Release 2010 (European oak casks, 58.1%)

Target: whisky geeks

Value for money: just OK

Highlights: the filling facility and the warehouse

Recommended: yes if you’re a whisky nerd

Link: https://tickets.spiritofspeyside.com/sales/events/2024-festival/auchroisk-distillery-tour

#44.4 Spirited in Speyside

A day at Tormore, a night at Glen Moray

 

TL; DR: After admiring it so many times from the outside, we finally visited the Pearl of Speyside, Tormore – thanks to the new ownership, Elixir Disillers, who opened it to the public for the festival. What an incredible site! Cherry on the top of a great day, a fun Star Wars themed tasting at Glen Moray.

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

Despite our lay-by being slightly on a slope, we slept well and woke up well rested. We really liked the campsite, very quiet and very clean too! We had a quick breakfast, and we started getting ready to go asap.

We were going to visit one of the most beautiful distilleries in the area, and one that is unmissable when you drive on the A95, past Grantown-on-Spey and before Ballindalloch, as you enter the heart of Speyside: Tormore! The distillery was owned for a few years by Pernod Ricard/Chivas Brothers, but it was eventually (and thankfully) sold to Elixir Distillers in 2022 (which in the meanwhile is also building the Portintruan distillery on the Kildalton coast, on Islay). Of course, they decided to open it up to the public for the festival, to give whisky nerds a chance to visit the site.

Our original plan was to get a bigger breakfast near Grantown-on-Spey indeed, but we ran out of time, so we just stopped in Aberlour, at our usual Gather’n Café, a safe choice (although this time they were a bit slower than usual, so we had to run to get to our event on time).

  • Gloomy day, still happy day.

As we approached the distillery, staff members showed us where to park (they are not equipped for tourists, yet). As we checked in, the distillery manager Polly Logan welcomed us with a small Elixir Distillers branded water bottle and a couple of stubs for drams or other drinks, and pointed us to the building where the tasting would take place. The event was called Perfecting the Pearl Masterclass (referring to the distillery as the Pearl of Speyside) and included a tasting and the Tormore Open Day (which was £25 alone), so the possibility to join one of the many production tours and visit the water source.

  • Whisky and friends!

The tasting was held in the filling store, where they’d set up a pop-up bar and many tables. There, we found some of our fellow drammers: Robert, John from the Edinburgh Whisky Group, Richard from Whisky Concerto, and later on the barfly Graham Fraser…and of course Justine, who was already with us. Back to the tasting, we had four drams, all Tormore: first two, a 1994 and a 1999, both ex-bourbon casks. Then, two younger drams finished in ex-sherry casks, but with a twist – the sherry casks used for the first dram were from a Spanish cooperage that builds casks with a different style compared to many others. This was slightly reflected on the drams, with the second bringing classic sherry flavours, while the other one was more subtle, and the sherry influence was not that overt. It would have been more interesting if we remembered the names of the cooperages, but hey ho. Overall, a very interesting tasting, drawing a bright picture for the future of Tormore whisky.

  • Delicious drams.

After the tasting, instead of getting some food at the truck that was there for the open day (like the charity pop-up stands set up in a storage warehouse), we queued to join a distillery tour: Mark, a warehouseman, took us a few minutes later. The distillery was completed in 1960, but started distilling in 1959, when there was still no roof…apparently there was a race to start distilling among nearby distilleries. Their Porteus mill however is dated 1965, and Mark said they didn’t know what was there before or where the mill came from. Each lorry of barley (unpeated) will fill slightly more than one of their silos, before being crushed and put into their 10.4 tonnes full Leuter mashtun. They add 40,000 litres of water at 65°C, followed by the usual other two runs of water at increasing temperatures.

Nobody knows where this came from.

The mash is then moved to one of the 11 washbacks, which are spread around the site. Fermentation is a combination of short (52 hours) and long (100 hours), and is triggered by cream yeast. Finally, distillation is done with one of the four couples of wash and spirit stills, in the majestic (almost cathedral-like) still room. Here we got an interesting info: for 3 years (with potentially an extension to 5) they are only producing for themselves 3 months a year, which is when they are able to experiment more with fermentation and cut points. The rest of the year they produce spirit for Chivas Brothers, and as a result, they filled their first own cask in September 2023 only.

The still room from above…beautiful!
…And a glimpse from below.

Once the tour was finished, we had some fried food, and then took a walk first to the cooper demonstration and then to the source of water: a very nice small lake, that we could reach with a 5-minute walk along the burn on the side of the distillery. Later on, for an extra tenner, we could attend another event where people who used to work at the distillery told some funny stories from the past decades…very romantic, but it also reminded us how important the current environmental and health-and-safety rules are. They gave us two drams, the same Tormore’s available to buy on the day, a small vatting of 8yr bottled for the Whisky Trail (50%, ex-bourbon cask, vintage 2015), and a 25yr (ex-bourbon cask, 47.1%, vintage 1997) under the Single Malts of Scotland brand. Both tasty, and showcasing how good is Tormore, especially in ex-bourbon casks.

  • Grogu is ready…are we?

As the event ended, we started moving towards our next destination: Elgin, and the Glen Moray distillery. Together with Justine, we parked our vans in a quiet parking lot, near the rugby pitch, and walked our way to the distillery. As it was May the Fourth, the tasting’s theme was obviously Star Wars: it was fun to see Emma and Iain from Glen Moray in, respectively, a resistance commander and stormtrooper costumes. They also hired a cosplayer company (we guess…?) so we were welcomed by wookiees (some of them  a bit scary), other imperial scouts and Bo Katan herself! Of course we brought our little Grogu with us, we had to. They offered cookies and sweets with the tasting, although to quote Iain, it looked more like a kids party rather than a whisky tasting.

  • Scary and exciting at the same time.

The welcome dram was the new-ish release from Glen Moray for the wide market, Phoenix Rising (40%, new charred oak), which despite of the 40%abv is a nice sipper, potentially a good introduction to the distillery. Then Iain handed over to Hans Offringa (from the Whisky Couple), who presented a new independent bottler called Saltire, based in Falkland (in Fife, not in South America), whose first release is in fact a Glen Moray (17y, 48.8%, 2nd fill ex bourbon hogshead). Hans explained that they will focus on malts from 14 years of age on.

First part of the tasting, a very interesting start.

The third dram was from the current distillery bottlings, a vintage 2008 (15y) ex-Manzanilla sherry cask, bottled at 54.1%abv. At that point, we took a break and went to the warehouse to take some pictures with the cosplayers…Grogu enjoyed that part.

Back to the visitor centre and bar, we were talked through a presentation by someone who actually ‘lived’ the Star Wars movies: Frazer Diamond. He was a kid at that time, who played one of the Jawas (those popular, small, hooded people who collect spaceships and droids scraps). This was because his father, Peter Diamond, was the stunt coordinator on set, and helped organise most of the fighting scenes in the original trilogy, and also played many of the demised stormtroopers in various scenes.

  • Grogu enjoying his visit at Glen Moray

After his (a bit long but very interesting) slideshow, we had another three drams: first, one from the Warehouse 1 range, a collection of small batches of interesting and different expressions compared to the standard Glen Moray range. This was an 8yr fully matured in ex-Rioja red wine casks, bottled at a whooping 59.8%. It was followed by another dram presented by Hans, an 11yr Scotch Malt Whisky Society from a 1st fill ex-bourbon barrel, bottled at 58.9% (bottling number 35.389). Finally, we tried a peated one, another ex-Rioja matured dram, again from the Warehouse 1 range, this time an 11y and bottled at 58.8%.

Another great day at the Spirit of Speyside, with a fun Star Wars twist. Stay tuned to know about our final day at the festival…until then, slainte!

Perfecting the Pearl Masterclass

Price: £65.00 pp (Spirit of Speyside 2024, including the open day)

Duration: 1hr for the tasting, plus the rest of the day for the open day

Tasting: 1994 ex-bourbon cask, 1999 ex-bourbon cask, two ex-sherry finished drams

Target: whisky geeks

Value for money: very good!

Highlights: the still room

Recommended: yes

Link: https://elixirdistillers.com/distilleries/