#31.2 Spirit of Speyside 2023

Shut it, badger!

TL;DR: Second distillery visit during the Spirit of Speyside: another workhorse, owned by Diageo this time, Dailuaine! Contrary to Tamnavulin, we know their malt mostly thanks to independent bottlers, as most of the production goes into blends. The tour was great, although it felt like visiting a distillery after a zombie apocalypse.

(missed Part 1?)

After the visit at Tamnavulin, we had only 45 minutes before our second visit of the day at another distillery usually closed to public: Dailuaine. Fortunately, the drive was only 25-ish minutes, and because we knew we were tight with time, in the morning we had prepared sandwiches, so we could have a quick lunch. Everything went fine, we drove from Tamnavulin to Ballindalloch, and before Aberlour we turned left, with the distillery being mid-way between the main road and the village of Carron. We had run through this village during the Dramathon, admiring the recently built Dalmunach distillery (on the site where Imperial used to be), but despite being the n-th time in Speyside, we had never driven there, so we didn’t quite know what to expect. As we drove downhill form the A95, we found Dailuaine distillery on the left, spotting their big warehouses, almost terraced to cope with the slope.

Cute building behind us is Dailuaine offices.

In the courtyard, we noted how massive is the site: the warehouses on the left, a small house (will turn out to be offices) on the right, and behind it the huge production building. As soon as we parked, a guy asked us if we were there for the tour, and because it was starting to rain, he told us to go inside and wait for him. He turned out to be Archie, the distillery manager, quite a character who made our visit unique! In the office, all visitors could sit around a table, and as we started, Archie poured some filter coffee and gave us some brownie squares – a very nice touch. He told us about his career before landing on this job, a few years before, and explained the history of the distillery. It was founded in 1852, and in 1925 it was acquired by Distillery Company Limited (or DCL, one of Diageo previous incarnations). He showed old pictures of the distillery, which testified how the staff numbers decreased over time, to the current handful of operators (2.5). Sad but understandable. He also told us that the warehouses on site are empty, quite a surprise to us given their size.

Can you believe all these warehouses are empty?

Soon after we went back outside and started the tour. On site, there is still a dark grain plant, which until 2018, when it was closed, used to process draff and pot ale (leftovers from mashing and distilling) to make cattle feed. As we moved inside the production building, we couldn’t help but notice how big the spaces are, and how empty they look too! As technology advanced, less and less space was required for the production. Also, part of it moved away, in particular malting and cask filling, as currently all the newmake spirit is put in tankers and shipped to Diageo’s sites in the central belt. As a matter of fact, one of the most surprising parts was the huge malting floor, so big you could use it for a sizeable concert! They used to have Saladin boxes, a short-lived mid-20^th century innovation replacing the need of hand-shovel the barley while malting, which was soon replaced by maltings drums. These big empty spaces gave us almost an eerie feeling, maybe we were influenced by The Last of Us TV series, but this really looked like a distillery in the post zombie apocalypse era. Decadent, but fascinating.

Impressive, empty malting floor.

Empty spaces apart, the production is very modern and all controlled by computers (although they still carry out manual checks). They have a closed mash-tun, 8 wooden and 2 steel washbacks (the latter outside the building), and 3 pair of pot stills (with copper shell-and-tube condensers). The distillery produces over 3 million litres of alcohol per year, placing it among the medium-big ones.

Uh, look at the washback outside!

As we visited the fermentation room, Archie made us find three samples of wash for us to smell (not to drink!!), collected at different times: 1, 15 and 45 hours after fermentation started (overall fermentation is about 46 hours for a nutty style). Very nerdy and interesting. There, he was helped by Kyle, a distillery operator from Knockando distillery, deployed at Dailuaine as Knockando is currently closed. He also explained us how the system works in the stills room, answering all our (many) questions. We finally visited the “filling store”, basically a tank with newmake spirit waiting for tanker truck to take it away.

Deep-dive into fermantation, interesting!

After the tour, it was time for the tasting! One of the offices was set up as a tasting room with a pop-up shop too (which turned out to be common to all Diageo distilleries we visited during the festival). As we got in, we were offered a cocktail: a variation of the Old-fashioned, made with Dailuaine 16 (of course) and orange bitters (instead of Angostura): very tasty! The drams at the tasting were three (four including the cocktail), a bit stingy for an 80-quid tour. We started with the Dailuaine 16 (43%), the Flora and Fauna bottle with the badger on the label. Second dram, another Dailuaine, a cask sample vintage 2010 usually offered in tastings at Cardhu distillery: a truly delicious dram, one of the best we tried during the festival. Finally, for some reason there was a Benrinnes 15, again from the Flora and Fauna range.

Cocktail and drams.

As we came out from the distillery we drove to another, Dalmunach, just to take a couple of pictures: we already knew from the glimpse while running the Dramathon, but that is a stunning one! After paying a visit to the GlenAllachie shop (we didn’t have any event booked there, so….), we found a spot for the night, a small parking lot near a church. The weather was a bit crappy, so we cooked something in the campervan and caught up with the drivers drams collected during the day: both the Tamnavulin and Dailuaine cask samples were quite great.

Beautiful Dalmunach.

Dailuaine distillery really impressed us, it was like experiencing tradition and progress at the same time, and Archie was truly a great host! Throughout the festival, we also noted that, there is something different about distilleries normally closed to the public compared to the others: they are not “sweetened” to look like tourist attractions. The ultimate whisky nerd paradise!

Dailuaine Tour (Spirit of Speyside)

Price: £80.00 pp (April 2023)

Duration: 2hr

Tasting: a cocktail and 3 drams, Dailuaine 16 (43%), cask sample and Benrinnes 15 (43%)

Target: whisky enthusiasts

Value for money: too pricey

Highlights: Archie was a great host!

Recommended: if you are really really keen to visit

Link: https://www.spiritofspeyside.com/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dailuaine_distillery

#31.1 Spirit of Speyside 2023

To the mill on the hill

TL;DR: This year we finally managed to go to the Spirit of Speyside Festival! We were very excited because during this event, some distilleries usually closed to the public open their doors. We started with a very well known one (especially if you buy whisky in supermarkets too): Tamnavulin!

Among the regional events or festivals, there was one that we were eager to attend. Nope, not the Feis Ile: while some tastings look fantastic, the idea of so many people on such a small island (Islay) makes us feel claustrophobic. Not the Campbeltown Malt Festival either, more or less for the same reason. Don’t get us wrong, it would be great to attend both of them at some point, let’s just say that we don’t feel ready yet.

So, by exclusion (and of course, because of the title of this post), by now you’ll have guessed that we are talking about the Spirit of Speyside. It is a huge festival, lasting one week, with plenty of events happening in the constellation of villages and distilleries that form the biggest whisky region (not in size, but in volume produced). Other than the obviously expected tastings at various venues (hotels, bars, distilleries, warehouses, shops, etc.) and distillery tours, there are runs, whisky fairs, bonfires, walks, truck trips…Really a plethora of whisky-related activities. If you know what our trips (and thus blog) are about, you probably stopped at “distillery tours”, wondering which ones we visited this time. And you’ll be right, one of the beauties of this festival is that many distilleries that are normally closed to the public (at the moment at least), open their doors to visitors just for these few days. Because most of the experiences are not cheap, we decided to focus our attention on these (but not exclusively).

Because the booking system on the website is not the most straightforward nor really smart, and because of the huge crowd trying to buy tickets as they came out, we had to change our plan twice because some tours were sold out at our preferred time/date. We came out with a decent plan anyway, although that meant driving around a bit more than we would have liked. We intended to stay away 4 days, but because of some late addition, we ended up with 5 days, Thursday to Monday! Hurray!

Driving in good company.

When the day came, we left very early in the morning, mostly to avoid the traffic outgoing the city (one of the few down sides of leaving in Leith, it takes 30-40 minutes to leave the city independently of where we want to go). There wasn’t much traffic on route, and once arrived in Perth, instead of following the A9, we drove straight up through the Cairngorms, always gifting nice views. The first appointment in this trip was in the village of Tomnavoulin, of course at the Tamnavulin distillery. This one, at the moment, is only open during the festival, they don’t have a bar nor shop nor visitor centre. So, because we were half-hour early, we kept driving towards Glenlivet distillery, to have a peek at nearby Blairfindy Castle. One day we’ll have a rant about the loose definition of “castle” in Scotland, but this one looked nice enough (a very small one, it wasn’t possible to enter). Because it started raining (of course), we quickly went back to the van and drove back to Tamnavulin.

The distillery (built during the mid-20^th century whisky boom, in 1966) is quite a popular one, mostly because of their presence on supermarkets shelves. As a matter of fact, the Tamnavulin double cask was Gianluigi’s second whisky purchase after he moved to Scotland, for a “whooping” 20 quid. Other than this expression, you’ll easily find the Sherry cask finish, a range of red wine cask finishes (it seems they have different wines finishes in different supermarkets, French Cabernet Sauvignon at Morrison and Asda, German Pinot Noir at Tesco, Spanish Grenache at Sainsbury). More recently, they added a Sauvignon Blanc cask finish. As you can imagine, to support this heavy supermarket presence the distillery is quite big, with a capacity of 4 million litres per annum of alcohol. In spite of this huge production, they lack expressions suited to more experienced drinkers, with everything being bottled at 40% (and probably artificially coloured with E150 and chill filtered). This, together with the fact that it is super rare among independent bottlers, made us even more curious to visit this “workhorse” distillery.

The not so charming distillery…

As we arrived, we checked in just outside the gates with Anne Marie, who usually works at Dalmore distillery (another one of the Whyte and Mackay group, together with Tamnavulin, Jura, Fettercairn and Invergordon grain distillery). The tour started there, outside the gates, with Leon (distillery manager) and others from the team. First, we walked down to a path outside the gate, to reach an old mill: Tamnavulin is the Gaelic for “mill on the hill” indeed! Inside, the old mill had that “Alps cottage” feeling, and currently it is not used. It used to be a visitor centre, which closed in 1997, two years after the distillery was mothballed (1995). When they restarted production in 2007, the visitor centre was not revived, although we understood it might be in the plans. We were served a small cocktail there, with a fruit soda and Tamnavulin Double Cask (for Gianluigi only apple soda, driver duties).

After the mill, we walked back to the gate and then behind the distillery, where malted barley comes in from three different places. The actual mill is not an old Portheus, rather a much modern Buhler, from Switzerland. As usual, we followed production, so next we went to the mashtun room, where Leon showed us how they check the wort cloudiness: they aim for a clear one. We walked through the nine stainless steel washbacks (around 52hr maturation, longer on weekends) and the six stills. In the still room, we couldn’t take pictures but we could take a tiny sip of the newmake, nice touch!

Swiss mill’s destoner.

Next, we checked out the filling store, and finally we entered a big warehouse, where some of their stock (together with other spirit from the Whyte & Mackay portfolio) is resting. First, we were given a cask sample: a refill bourbon barrel from 2007, the first year of production after they restarted. It was a very nice dram, clean and fruity, very similar to the only independently bottled Tamnavulin we have tried so far, from Gordon and Macphail’s Connoisseur Choice range (bought to celebrate our 70th distillery visit during the Speycation, and one of the few we ever saw around). Then, we tried three of their usually bottlings (see below) paired with amazing chocolates (that Gianluigi could try!).

A classic combination: whisky and chocolate.

Overall, it was a very satisfying visit, and definitely good value for money. Very interesting was the mill, and we would definitely go back for another peek when and if they reopen the visitor centre. The whisky was OK, quite inoffensive, a quintessential “supermarket dram”. We hope that, similarly to what happened at Fettercairn Warehouses bottlings, the company will decide to bring out some more interesting expressions, aimed to whisky enthusiasts, although we won’t hold our breath. Having tried two delicious cask strength expressions now, in our opinion the potential is definitely there.

Tamnavulin Tour (Spirit of Speyside)

Price: £30.00 pp (April 2023)

Duration: 2hr

Tasting: a cocktail and 4 drams, cask sampled (2007 vintage, refill ex-bourbon barrel, cask strength), ex-Sherry cask finish (NA, 40%), ex-Sauvignon Blanc cask finish (NAS, 40%) and ex-French Cabernet Sauvignon finish (NAS, 40%), the last three paired with delicious chocolate

Target: whisky enthusiasts and curious

Value for money: very good

Highlights: the mill and the cask sample

Recommended: yes

Link: https://www.tamnavulinwhisky.com/

#27.5 Speycation

The one when we made it to 70 distilleries

TL;DR: And finally, we got to 70 distilleries! The lucky one was the Cairn, a new and very modern distillery in the Cairngorms, right outside Grantown on Spey. We went back to Edinburgh the day after, but only after a visit to Dunphail distillery, at the time still a building site.

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

Sunday was a long day, we started with Glendronach, followed by a Chivas Regal tasting at Strathisla. In the last post we left you off on the bus, as we were leaving Keith. The last (and final) activity of the day, was a visit to a new distillery (spoiler: it won’t be the newest in this post): the Cairn. It is located in a very beautiful flat spot in the Cairngorms Park, and the building concept is to “mix” with the landscape. It is owned by Gordon & MacPhail (remember the first tasting of the holiday?), and because it’s inside a national park, there are no warehouses on site, they are at Benromach distillery, in Forres (also owned by G&M).

We arrived there 20-30 minutes late on the schedule, it was almost dark outside, but the team were very kindly waiting for us (they will be rewarded, at the end…wink, wink). The building is very modern, almost futuristic, substantially departing from what you’d expect from a typical Speyside distillery. Here the group split in two: some only had drams at the bar, while others (including us) toured the distillery.

By wondering around it, we could see how everything is computerised, so they can run the production with minimal effort. The tour guide, John, was very nice: he took this job recently after a past in the ski industry. Gianluigi (who used to enjoy skiing before rugby took his ACL away…twice) chatted with him a bit about Dolomites ski locations – there are some truly memorable tracks over there!
The touristy part of the distillery, including the video, was a bit cheesy (do they really need a clock to mark how long are we away from a 10-year Cairn whisky?), but thankfully not as much as others we visited in the past.

After the tour we had two drams, both from the range of CRN 57 (57 being the latitude) blended malts, the 12y and 18y. They are bottled at 43%, which at our arrival discouraged us, but we have to admit they are both quite good, in particular the 18y. As a matter of fact, we brought back a bottle of it to share with Gianluigi’s family at Christmas: velvety and easy drinking, chocolate and dried fruit notes, the perfect dram for such an occasion (full disclosure: in Teresa’s family almost no one drinks alcohol, hence no bottle). The range is only available at the distillery, and it is completed by a 25y (43%) and a 30y (51.1%). They were (and hopefully still are) all very well priced, and in fact almost everyone bought a bottle, and quite a few 30y were sold (proving that the distilleries who didn’t reply to our visit requests definitely missed out!).

The Cairn is the 70^th distillery we visited (well, 71^st for Teresa, ahah): hooray! To celebrate we had bought a bottle the day before, a very rare independently bottled Tamnavulin from the Connoisseurs Choice range (by G&M), which we shared with the gang on the bus. We chose it because it ticked all the boxes: cask strength, not chill-filtered, not artificially coloured, 14y of age, full maturation in a refill bourbon barrel, which makes the distillery character emerge (unlike the many Tamnavulin offerings in supermarkets). Creamy, light fruit, vanilla: a great clean and crisp dram! This confirmed our theory, that most scotch single malt distilleries can produce great whisky, and if things go wrong it is usually at bottling…
Back to the hotel, because it was late, we all had dinner at the Fayre Brewer, next door from the hotel. One of our pals, Mark, was disgusted by Gianluigi’s choice to have mashed potatoes instead of chips with his battered fish. That brought lot of laughs, and we even found a name: THE FISHY MASHY! Oh well, that might resemble what we feel as Italians when they put weird toppings ion the pizza!!!

Well, that’s all for our Speycation…oh no, wait! Justine the maverick didn’t leave anything untried, so we had an activity for the Monday morning, on the way back to Edinburgh: the visit to the Dunphail distillery! This is located in, you guess where, Dunphail, just a few miles south of Forres. It is owned by the same company owning the very successful London boutique distillery Bimber. At the time, it was being built: we visited a construction site or “the embryo” of a distillery, if we want to be poetic. We were greeted by Dariusz, who started showing us around. The buildings, which used to be an old farm, were renovated already, and about to be completed (well, structurally speaking): the main distillery building, the malting floor (more about this later) and the shop/visitor centre. A warehouse was there already, where at the time they were keeping their equipment.

There are many reasons to be excited about this project. First, they will have their own malting floor. Considering the current malt shortage (in particular peated malt) this is a very smart move, and they plan to produce both peated and unpeated malt. In the main distillery building, the equipment was about to be fitted inside. They aim for long fermentation (hurray!), and there are going to be three stills: two wash stills (first distillation) and a directly fired spirit still. The reason for the two wash stills is that a single one was too big to fit inside the farmhouse building. At the time, however, the equipment was laying around so we could take a sneak peek at it. We really can’t wait to visit the distillery and try their new-make spirit!

After this, we all said “goodbye” to each other and everyone left towards Edinburgh. It was a very different experience compared to visiting distilleries on our own. While on the one hand we didn’t have much time to explore the area as we usually do, the tours and tastings with such a good bunch of people were definitely much more fun and (because the knowledge of the crowd is always bigger than the individuals’ one) more interesting. We are really looking forward to the next Edinburgh Whisky Group trip.

Until next time, slainte!

The Cairn Explorer Experience

Price: £25.00 pp (October 2022)

Duration: 1hr 30min

Tasting: 2 drams, CRN57 blended malt 12y (43%) and 18y (43%)

Target: Anyone, but whisky geeks might appreciate it more

Value for money: Good

Highlights: the distillery setting

Distillery Exclusives: all the CRN57 blended malt range, 12y (43%), 18y (43%), 25y (43%), 30y (51.9%)

Recommended: only if curious to visit a modern and totally automated distillery

Link: https://www.thecairndistillery.com/

Dunphail Distillery*

Link: https://www.dunphaildistillery.com/

*No summary because it is not open yet!

#27.4 Speycation

Out of Speyside and back:
Elgin-Huntly-Keith

TL;DR: Sunday was a busy day: we started off with a trip to Huntly, to check out Glendronach distillery. After the tour and a very nice (but stingy) tasting, we jumped on the bus again to go to Strathisla, a beautiful distillery where we tried some cask strength Chivas Regal.

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

Sunday was a big day: not one, not two, but three distilleries! Not all of them were in Speyside though. Because of the planning issues we wrote about last week, we had to go outside, but just: Glendronach, in Huntly. This distillery is very popular although some of the recent choices they made, plus a price increase in the releases, are making them being less on geeks’ radars (at least the ones we follow). Nevertheless, their stuff can be really superb – for example, when we visited the distillery in 2021, we tried some great expressions. Similar to Glenallachie, at the time it wasn’t possible to do a tour of the production because of Covid, so the possibility to visit their production this time was definitely a bonus for us.

When we arrived, the weather was still very nice and sunny. They split us up in two groups, one starting off with the tasting, the other with the tour: we were in the latter. Our guide was Vicky, a very funny and knowledgeable lady who had also hosted the sherry masterclass tasting we did in August 2021. The tour started in front of a very old building in the corner on the right with respect to the road coming in. In our understanding, it is one of the first buildings on the site, with a very nice internal courtyard. There, we took a quick look at the milling room with its old malt mill. We moved to the rest of production, which is mostly located in the big windowed building right in front of the parking lot, characterised by a more modern (and not particularly nice) architecture, with the bonus that the stills can be seen from the outside. At the moment they have six stills, with the last four installed in the 60s. However, there are currently plans to have more to increase the production capacity. They have six warehouses on site – we visited one of the three dunnage, just next to the visitor centre.

After the tour, the tasting was waiting for us: five drams, at Justine’s request without any of their regular core range (so NOT the 12, 15, 18 and 21). We started with the Portwood (46%) and the cask strength batch 10 (58.6%). Moving on, we tried one of the distillery bottlings (or fill your own) at the time: a vintage 2012, 10y, matured in an ex-oloroso puncheon (61%, £105). The fourth dram was a 1989 vintage (29y, bottled in 2019), from an ex-PX puncheon (49.9%), while the final was the second distillery bottling: a 1993 vintage (again 29y) from an ex-oloroso puncheon (54.9%, costing an eyewatering £550). The drams were all delicious, however while decanting an extra set that was poured by mistake (to gift the bus driver) we realised that they were only 10ml measures…a bit stingy for the £50 we had paid. At the bar, most of us took another dram: we got one finished in virgin oak (definitely one of the strangest drams we had) and a 12y (vintage 2007) matured in ex-PX cask which was delicious.

Back on the bus, we only had time to grab a meal deal at a big Tesco on the way to our next destination, Strathisla! As we arrived, we remembered how beautiful it was, one of the prettiest distilleries in our opinion. This time we didn’t do a tour (which we had already done it in 2019, together with a blending experience), but a tasting of Chivas Regal, in the warehouse number 3.

The guide gave us a brief introduction about the distillery and its role in being at the core of this very popular blended whisky. Chivas 12 is very popular indeed, in Italy is omnipresent at grannies/aunties houses, and it was during our trips back home that we realised that, compared to its peers (ie ”value blended whiskies”), it is actually not a bad offering. After the introduction, we moved to a caged part of the warehouse, where 5 casks were laid out. We knew these already: as part of our tour in 2019, we could choose two of them to try. These were cask strength expressions of the main Chivas Regal bottlings: the 12y, the Extra (13y), the 18y, the 25y, and the Ultis, which is a blended malt (so without a grain component). However, because of the pandemic, these casks lasted much longer, so we’ve been told by the guide that we needed to add 5 years to each of them…quite a great deal!

The drams were all very good, the 18y (actually a 23y) very chocolatey, reminding us how blended whisky can be great. Unfortunately, none of these were on sale…at the shop the offering was a bit pricey (as in most Pernod Ricard owned distilleries), and because we couldn’t try any, we just gave it a pass. We were surprised that some bottles of 12y single grain from Strathclyde we bought after our visit in 2019 were still there: a sign of how grain whisky is underrated sometimes.

You wouldn’t say we just had 5 cask-strength whiskies…

Back to the bus, we finally headed to the last working distillery visit of the holiday. More about this in our next post, just a tiny clue: the distillery is in Grantown on Spey. Until next week, slainte!

Glendronach Distillery*: https://www.glendronachdistillery.com/
Strathisla Distillery – Home of Chivas*: https://www.maltwhiskydistilleries.com/strathisla/

* No summaries because there experiences were bespoke

#27.3 Speycation

From Glenallachie to the
blend of Doom

TL;DR: Saturday morning we visited a distillery that is special to us, Glenallachie. After an amazing tour and a few drams, we spent the rest of the day walking around Dufftown, enjoying the sun. We finished the day with a sip of the infamous Blend of Doom and a pizza at the Craigellachie Lodge.

(missed Part 2/Part 1?)

That Saturday morning was a very nice one, warm and shiny…We’re told that’s unusual for Speyside in October, but it’s not the first time we got one. After breakfast, we jumped on the bus towards Aberlour (the village, not the distillery again) to reach our next destination: GlenAllachie distillery!

Such a beautiful day for a distillery visit!

We were super excited about that. When we visited it in August 2021, on a much colder and wet day (so much that we couldn’t light up our BBQ in the evening!), it wasn’t possible to tour the facility because of Covid, so we only had a tasting while the guide played us an interesting video. It wasn’t one of those ‘let’s celebrate Scotland’ videos with deer, waterfalls, glens, mist, etc…, but literally a worker filming and explaining production with their phone, so much more interesting in our opinion. This time, we could finally visit production. And mostly, we really like their stuff. We know some whisky geeks are put off by the big use of secondary maturation and finishes, but we love their bottlings anyway and we regard the whisky as top notch, so far it never disappointed.

That morning the distillery was (almost) all for us. Sue, Brenda and Karen warmly welcomed us with a dram, a special one to start with, one we hadn’t tried before: a 15y GlenAllachie finished in Virgin Scottish Oak wood (48%, non-chill filtered, NCF, and not artificially coloured NC). Then, they split us into two groups, to have a bit more space while wondering around: our group started with the tour. We had a look at the usual Porteus Mill, and the huge stainless steel closed mashtun.

The washbacks are made of steel as well, and there are 6 of them. Currently the distillery is running way below capacity, a bit less than a half in our understanding. This started when Billy Walker bought the distillery in 2017, to improve the produced spirit. In particular, fermentation is now about a week long, and they don’t work during weekends. In the still room, two wash stills and two spirit stills were off for the weekend…so we could take a sneak peek inside (just another occasion for a silly photo). Finally, we went to the warehouse to admire the maturing stock and the huge variety of casks (wine, various size of sherry and bourbon, etc.); they laid out not a typical dunnage warehouse, but a racked one.

Back at the visitor centre, we had another two delicious drams in the tasting room: the 16y Present Edition (48%, NCF, NC, Mizunara and Virgin oak) released in celebration of Billy Walker 50 years in the business, and the Glenallachie 21y Batch 2 (51.1%, NCF, NC). Well, it looked like that was it. Instead, we moved upstairs to join the other group, to have two last drams all together. Such a nice touch! The two drams were the bottle-your-own (or distillery casks) on sale at the shop at the time: an 11y ex-oloroso puncheon (60.5%, NCF, NC) and a 16y finished in refill ex-bourbon barrel which held peated whisky before (59.5%, NCF, NC), both amazing (and of course, we came back home with one)!

Overall, this was one of our best distillery tours ever: Sue, Brenda and Karen were all very funny and knowledgeable, and we could see how they love their job. Karen even told us that she followed Billy Walker after he acquired the distillery, after Glenglassaugh was sold to Brown Foreman (together with GlenDronach and Benriach).

Here, we have to make a little digression. Speyside is by far the biggest whisky region, not by size but by number of distilleries and production quantity. Therefore, in the planning phase of the trip, at first it looked like we had a plethora of possibilities that we wouldn’t know where to start, like for a kid going to Disneyworld or Legoland. Unfortunately, it didn’t go down like that, and according to Justine filling the schedule was much harder than prevented. In some cases, she was told that there was personnel shortage. Others still have to come back to her (6 months after…ahahah). This felt really weird and very much in contrast with our first EWG trip to Campbeltown – the smallest whisky region, and by far the smallest production (according to the 2023 Malt Whisky Yearbook the 3 distilleries combined don’t get to 2.5 million litres per annum of alcohol), so with a limited number of available activities. Still, despite this and Covid restrictions at the time, we managed to have a very full schedule fairly quickly (Cadenhead’s warehouse tasting, Springbank, Glengyle, and tastings with Mark Watt from Watt Whisky, Ian McAllister from Glen Scotia and Kyntire gin).

Things you see if you take a walk in Dufftown.

We discussed a few times about this ‘Speyside struggle’ in the group, and probably the main cause was the lack of personnel indeed (thanks Brexit, “the gift that keeps giving”…), but we suspect that some of them just couldn’t be arsed to organise an open day for 22 thirsty whisky enthusiasts. A bit unexpected, but in the end we managed to have a great holiday anyway, as Justine came up with some great surprises for us.

Anyway, all this to say that, as a matter of fact, the Saturday afternoon was free from whisky activities, and we decided to spend it in Dufftown. After a brief lunch in a café near the clock tower (characterised by some quite rude staff), the day was still so nice that a group of us decided to walk around, and we basically repeated Michelle’s walking tour we did in 2019: from the clock tower to Dufftown distillery, then Mortlach, Glendullan and we finished off at Glenfiddich. This time, however, we checked out Balvenie’s castle, which unfortunately was still closed (together with a worrying number of Historic Scotland sites, we later found out). Here our pal Joe opened a Glen Scotia Double Cask rum finish, a novelty of that period, and shared it with us.

Back to the bus, we moved to Craigellachie, and as we had some time to kill before dinner at the Craigellachie Lodge, we went down to the Spey’s bridge where Justine had something “very special” ready for us: THE BLEND OF DOOM!!!

This is a bottle she filled throughout the years with all the whisky samples she tried but didn’t (or couldn’t) finish. It was very funny to see people faces – to Gianluigi it tasted like old bathroom cleaning products, but most people went directly to “piss”. It was truly dire, and almost felt like an initiation ceremony for the Edinburgh Whisky Group. Fortunately, the pizza together with a pint and a dram, bingo and music set things right again in our mouth, so we could go to bed happy again.

GlenAllachie Connoisseurs Tour*
*ours was a bespoke tour, but from the description and price it looks very similar to this one

Price: £50.00 (Oct 2022, now £60)

Duration: 2h

Tasting: 5 drams, 15y Scottish Oak (48%), 16y Mizunara Billy Walker 50^th year anniversary (48%), 21y Batch Two (51.1%), Vintage 2011 11y distillery cask ex-oloroso puncheon (60.5%), Vintage 2006 16y distillery cask ex-peated bourbon barrel (59.5%)

Value for money: very good

Highlights: the guide team was superb, knowledgeable and very funny!

Target: whisky enthusiasts and geeks

Distillery exclusives: there are always two distillery cask bottle-your-own available

Recommended: absolutely!

Link: https://theglenallachie.com/

#27.2 Speycation

Single casks tasting vs. warehouse tasting

TL;DR: Second day of the Edinburgh Whisky Group Speycation! In the morning, we headed to Aberlour distillery where we split into two groups for a single casks tasting. In the afternoon, we went to the (dismissed) Coleburn distillery for a warehouse tasting with Murray & McDavid. We ended the evening at the Windswept brewery, in Lossiemouth, enjoying pints, music, and good company.

(missed Part 1?)

We woke up quite rested on the Friday morning. The day looked very interesting: a tasting at an already known distillery, followed by a warehouse tasting (as we said a few times, always our favourite) and a visit to a brewery…Not bad, eh?

We had a quick breakfast in the room with some food bought the day before. The alternative was a heavy breakfast at the near Brewers Fayre, but we left it for another day, considering we wouldn’t workout nor run for four days, as we are used to. For this and the next couple of days Justine had arranged a bus: Speyside is a big area to cover, and of course if we used our vehicles, at least 5 of us couldn’t have enjoyed the drams along with the others, defeating the purpose of the trip. There weren’t many others options, as public transport in the area is…ehm…(euphemism alert) not the best? And with cabs it would have been way more expensive. The company sent us a young driver, Lyndsay, which was super nice and it turned out she was a whisky fan too (must have been a torture to watch over 20 people getting pished for three days and not being able to have a sip!).

The first visit of the morning was at a distillery we already knew, Aberlour, but that we have overlooked since our visit in 2019, except for a bottle of A’Bunadh which for a while was our “Teresa’s mother house dram”. Reasons being, their other core releases are a bit dull in our opinion, and there are not many independently bottled. The distillery, however, offers many single cask bottlings (the Distillery Collection). This is a feature of all distilleries owned by Chivas Brothers/Pernod Ricard (Glenlivet, Scapa and Strathisla): they have many bottlings from the distillery and sometimes from the others. Only down side: they are 50cl bottles priced like 70cl ones. We personally have nothing against smaller bottles – we like exploring, so smaller bottles allows us to get more variety, in theory a win-win. However, in some cases (included this) we feel like they are just an excuse to sell less at a higher price.

The group had to split in two because they couldn’t accommodate us all at the same time, and we happened to be in the second, so as usual when we are in Aberlour, we had a coffee and a snack at the Gather’n café. Back at the distillery, we were welcomed in a very nice tasting room overlooking the distillery, some of us on chairs, some of us on comfy sofas.

The four drams were in front of us, as well as a small gift: a set of three branded black glasses, very useful for blind tastings. Gianluigi was super happy, Teresa not so much (you have to know that Teresa thinks we have too many whisky glasses in the house and she’s not too keen on more, but no worries Aberlour, you made at least one of us super happy!). The tasting was hosted by Shirley (that’s her name, if memory serves us well!), initially a bit shy, but ultimately very funny and knowledgeable (also, with a family heritage in the whisky industry). The first dram was a 10y from a first fill ex-sherry butt. It was cask strength (CS, 58.3%), of course not-chill filtered (NCF) and not artificially coloured (NCF), like all the drams. It was followed by a delicious 18y from a 2^nd fill (probably ex-bourbon) hogshead (51.6%), a 17y from a first fill ex-sherry butt (58.5%), and finally a quite nice 21y from a 2^nd fill ex-sherry butt (58.9%). A good reminder about how delicious Aberlour can be.

We came out from the distillery quite satisfied, had lunch at a nice café nearby, and after a bit the bus picked us up in the village. The next stop was the now not operational distillery of Coleburn, on the road between Rothes and Elgin. The former distillery’s warehouse is now used by the good folks at Murray McDavid (independent bottler) to store some of their casks. So of course, we were going to do a warehouse tasting, hurray! This is the same type of experience they offer during the Spirit of Speyside festival (by the way, if you look at the picture on the festival webpage, that’s us in the photo in the orange vests!).

So, we spent the following hour and a half wondering around the warehouse, stopping in front of certain casks where Dan and Steve would get some whisky and fill our glasses with a mighty valinch, and happily drinking the drams. First off, a young Caol Ila (about 5y), followed by an old Allt’A-Bhaine, 22y, finished in an octave from Koval distillery. They have a great relationship with this producer from Chicago, and we could see many of their octave casks lying around. After another bit of wandering, we had the third dram, a magnificent Glentauchers from a wine cask (continuing the series of “no” answer to the question “have you ever had a bad Glentauchers?”). Finally, a Glenburgie from a sherry cask (oloroso? We don’t remember exactly), another tasty dram, albeit the winner for both of us was the third one.

Unfortunately, they had no shop on site, so we returned the vests and jumped back on the bus, this time heading to the Windswept Brewery in Lossiemouth. The day was nice, so instead of going straight inside, a small group of us decided to walk to the nearby beach. It was a very nice and relaxed stroll, and at the beach we could see the anti-landing concrete blocks from WWII.

Back at the brewery, we had a couple of nice pints and a not-so-good meal from a local burger joint (won’t name names here, but someone told us they have closed). Spending the evening chit-chatting inside, we realised too late that there was a band playing outside…ouch! Overall, it was a nice close to a very nice day, and we went back to the hotel in Elgin very happy!

Aberlour Single Casks Explored tasting

Price: £40.00 pp (October 2022)

Duration: 1hr

Tasting: 4 drams, all CS, NCF and NC: 10y from a first fill ex-sherry butt (58.3%), 18y from a 2^nd fill (probably ex-bourbon) hogshead (51.6%), 17y from a first fill ex-sherry butt (58.5%), and 21y from a 2^nd fill ex-sherry butt (58.9%), plus three black copitas

Target: Whisky enthusiasts

Value for money: Good

Distillery Exclusive: Most single casks Aberlour bottlings

Recommended: if curious to try non-standard Aberlour’s

Link: https://www.maltwhiskydistilleries.com/aberlour/

Murray McDavid warehouse tasting

Link: https://murray-mcdavid.com/

(No summary because this was a bespoke experience)

#27.1 Speycation

Dramming in Elgin

TL;DR: After the fun of the Edinburgh Whisky Group trip to Campbeltown in 2021, a year later we replicated with another one, but to Speyside! Plenty of whisky activities and fun, starting from Elgin, where we attended a bespoke tasting at G&M and we visited Glen Moray distillery, both great experiences.

During the pandemic, one of the things that helped keep us sane was the very nice people we met after joining the Edinburgh Whisky Group, on Facebook. While the group grew almost exponentially in numbers, during the lockdown a small part of it, mostly spread all over the Lothians (with some exceptions in London and…Norway!), started having regular Zoom whisky tastings. When the restrictions slowly phased out, we started meeting in person for drams, which was very nice and at times surprising (on Zoom we hadn’t figured out that John and Joe were that tall!). And in October 2021, we even went all together to Campbeltown. Storming the Wee Toon was very fun and therefore a big success, so we obviously replicated the experience in 2022. This time, however, the idea came from our brilliant friend Cath (part of the group, of course), to do a Speycation! So, Speyside it shall be!

Left Edinburgh very early, and we still managed to be late!

The plan Justine organised was easy: staying in Elgin (most of us booked a room at the Premier Inn, a good solution to keep us all together although a bit pricier than expected and not that close to the centre), spending the first day there, and then travelling around the region with a rented bus that could fit the entire group of 22 people. The appointment was at 11am for the first activity of the holiday, a tasting at Gordon & MacPhail old shop in Elgin in South St (now undergoing renovation, in our understanding). The travel from Edinburgh or elsewhere was done by car or car sharing. We travelled with Justine and because of a wee late start, a break a wee too long, and a freaking huge and slow truck on the road, we got there late, fortunately just a few minutes.

The tasting was a bespoke one Justine had agreed with them: 5 20ml drams for 50 quid. The drams came from their Connoisseur Choice range, except for the last one, and of course, were all non-chill filtered (NCF), not artificially coloured (NC) and cask strength (CS). We kicked the day off with a delicious 13y Strathmill from a refill ex-bourbon barrel, distilled in 2008 (57.3% abv). This is one of those Diageo’s workhorse distilleries whose product mostly goes into blends (there is a big J&B sign on the road leading to Strathmill distillery in Keith), but we are starting to appreciate it more and more thanks to the Scotch Malt Whisky Society and other independent bottlers. The following dram was again a 13y, distilled in 2008 and from a refill barrel, but was a lightly peated Ardmore (whooping 62.5%), another distillery with little core range these days, but fortunately very prevalent with indy bottlers. The third dram was the best for both of us, a Tormore distilled in 2000, matured for 21y in a first fill ex-bourbon barrel and bottled in 2022 at 58.6%. Tormore is another of those distilleries we’d love to visit. It changed owner recently, from Chivas Brothers (Pernod Ricard) to Elixir Distillers, so we are hoping they’ll open to the public at some point.

The fourth dram was from a demolished distillery in Dufftown: Pittyvaich, distilled in 1993, matured in a refill American hogshead for 29y and bottled in 2022 at 48.6%. Finally, a sherried dram, a Speymalt from Macallan distillery, 20y and 55.9%. A nice one, but it didn’t blow our socks off as we were expecting. Overall it was great tasting, with a good overview of the whisky produced in the area (Ardmore is just outside Speyside), and we particularly appreciated the ex-bourbon casks heavy line-up, which gave us a better idea of the distilleries character.

Lunch was “free”, so we walked towards Elgin main square, where many diners and cafes looked full. We had a very average lunch in a quite anonymous one on the square (we chose a half-empty to be quick…probably it was half-empty for a reason), and we soon walked towards the next destination: Glen Moray distillery.

Glen Moray is one of those we initially underestimated due to their cheap expressions in supermarkets, but that now we are big fan of! And actually, we like them more because of their ability to provide cheap but still decent quality drams, as well as more serious stuff for the whisky nerds, like their Warehouse 1 series, featuring the amazing 8y peated whisky from an ex-PX cask we bought a couple of years ago: a treat! We’d been at the distillery in 2019, only for a (not so) quick tasting though, so visiting the production was a real novelty for us.

We had booked the Intermediate Tour, which included an in-depth visit of the production, followed by a tasting of three of their bottle-your-own casks (all NCF, NC and CS). Emma took us around the distillery, which combines old and new elements, as it underwent recent renovations, including the addition of new shiny mash-tuns. The courtyard is dominated by a huge black silo used as malt storage, which can be spotted from far away, including from the near highway.

A peculiarity is that the wash stills in the old stillhouse, the one right in front of the entrance, have all been converted into spirit stills. The tour ended in the warehouse, where a number of empty (d’oh!) casks were aligned. They used to contain various types of sherry, Sauternes, Bordeaux, Rioja, bourbon, and many others. We nosed all of them, it was definitely interesting to understand how different they can be!

In the café, the three drams were waiting for us: first, a controversial (some people loved it, some definitely didn’t, including us) vintage 2014 (bottled 2022, so 7 or 8y) unpeated whisky from an ex-cognac cask (60.2%). It was followed by a vintage 2006 (so 15 or 16y) in an ex-oloroso sherry cask, definitely a sherry bomb (60.9%). Finally, a 2012 (so 9 or 10y) peated matured in an ex-Rioja red wine cask, another delicious one (58.4%). As a bonus dram, we got another peated, but matured in an ex-Sauternes cask (vintage 2013, 58.9%), of which they still had a few bottles.

After walking back to the centre, we finished the day with a nice meal at the Drouthy Cobbler, a cute restaurant hidden in a small lane near the main square. We finally got to Premier Inn after a quick cab ride, where we had a restful night looking forward to the following days!

Gordon & MacPhail

Link: https://www.gordonandmacphail.com/#

(No summary because this was a bespoke experience)

Glen Moray Intermediate Tour

Price: £35.00 pp (October 2022)

Duration: 1h 30min

Tasting: 3 drams from the current bottle-your-own range, for us Glen Moray Vintage 2014 (7-8y) ex-cognac cask (60.2%), Vintage 2006 (15-16y) ex-oloroso sherry cask(60.9%), Vintage 2012 (9-10y) peated ex-Rioja red wine cask (58.4%)

Target: Whisky enthusiasts and geeks

Value for money: Very good

Highlights: Smelling the empty casks in the warehouse

Distillery Exclusives: Three bottle-your-own casks (see above), and the travel retail range (Elgin Classic, 12y and 15y but bottled at 48%, NCF and NC, and one litre bottles)

Recommended: Yes!

Link: https://www.glenmoray.com/

#23.2 On the run again: Dramathon 2022

Back to the Glens
(Grant and Garioch)

TL;DR: The day after the Dramathon we took advantage of being in Speyside to visit two distilleries we’d only had tastings at: Glen Grant, in Rothes, with their unique rectifiers, and Glen Garioch, in Oldmeldrum, which has been recently renovated. Both worth returning.

(missed Part 1?)

So, after a (not so) resting sleep in Dufftown (guess why), we found ourselves with a spare Sunday (the drive home is about 3 hours only): plenty of time for some whisky stuff! Deciding which distillery to visit in Speyside and its surroundings, however, is becoming more and more difficult. Despite being the biggest single malt producing area, most distilleries are closed to the public, and a bunch of them are closed on weekends. Let’s also say that we already had the opportunity to visit a few of them (ehm, ehm, ehm, ehm).

Nevertheless, because we’ve been there also around Covid times, we only saw the visitor centre or the tasting room of some distilleries, so this was a good occasion to catch up with the production tours we hadn’t done yet. First off: Glen Grant! We’d been there for the first time in July 2021: at the time we could only visit their marvelous Victorian gardens (if it’s a beautiful day, they are worth the price of the ticket alone), have a quick tasting at the shop, and an Illy espresso at the café (spoiler: this time the café was closed, so no Illy, ouch!).

The distillery is owned by the Campari group, reason for the Italian flag in the courtyard: after Wild Turkey, this is the second distillery we visited from this owner. Glen Grant is in Rothes, almost in front of the famous copper still-producer Forsyth (also, where Caperdonich, nicknamed Glen Grant 2, was located). Founded in 1839, except for the modern and polished shop/visitor centre, it has maintained a classic distillery feel. A notable fact is that their master distiller, Dennis Malcom, is one of the longest serving workers in the whisky industry, with over 60 years of experience under his belt: impressive!

The guide of the day was Kirstie, very knowledgeable and professional. Since it wasn’t raining, her explanation of the history started in the courtyard. We swiftly (or schwifty) moved to production, where we went through the usual path: milling, mashing (closed stainless still mashtun), and (wooden) washbacks.

Mashing in progress (looks like the first water).

Here came the interesting part: the still room. Like Glenfarclas and others, the room is separated from the rest of the production. As we walked in, we noted the curious shape of the wash stills, with a copper cylinder-ish bulge at the bottom of the neck, rather than the usual round one. The spirit stills have a classic round bulge, but the most fascinating characteristic, however, is the rectifier installed at the end of the lyne arms, looking like another small still. This was an intuition by John “the Major” Grant, who took on the business in 1972, and their purpose is to allow only the lightest vapor to be condensed. To produce a light spirit, they also set quite a short and high cut for the spirit heart: from 73% down to 68%.

Have you seen a rectifier like this before?

We then visited the warehouse before the self-guided tasting at the visitor centre. At the time of booking, we asked if we could pay more to upgrade our drams: not because they are bad (because they are not, in our opinion), but just because we had had the very same drams during our 2021 visit (Arboralis and 10y). Unfortunately, it wasn’t possible, which was a pity because it would have been a simple but relevant improvement to the experience, in particular for more experienced drammers (other distilleries do it), but oh well.

Bottles on display (we tasted the middle ones).

After sipping (Teresa) and nosing (Gianluigi) the two drams, we went back to the car and drove towards the Aberdeenshire for the second distillery of the day. While driving we did some distillery spotting, first Glentauchers and then Strathmill, in Keith, reached after a nice short walk along the river Isla (the day was truly gorgeous!).

Glen Garioch is in a very different setting: even older than Glen Grant (it was founded 1797), it is almost stuck in the village of Oldmeldrum (near Inverurie): it looks like the village grew around the distillery. Funnily, it was the distillery we visited after our 2021 Dramathon as well, but at the time it wasn’t possible to visit the production due to a combination of Covid safety rules and ongoing renovations, so we were quite excited about the tour!

Our guide Iona started the tour from the new malting floor, one of the parts under renovation the previous year. There was one originally, but it was dismissed back in the day when industrial maltings became too convenient to be ignored. This happened across the entire industry, so that now only a handful of distilleries malt their own barley in a malting floor (Benriach, Balvenie, Kilchoman, Laphroaig, Bowmore), and to our knowledge, only Springbank/Kilkerran do it for the 100% of their production (waiting for Dunphail), so bravo Glen Garioch! They also re-introduced the use of peat in their kiln, to get peated malt from time to time.

We moved on to follow the phases of whisky production: milling (classic red-painted Porteus), mashing (again, closed stainless steel mashtun), and fermenting (stainless steel washbacks). In the still room, we saw the other result of the renovations: they removed one of their three stills, and the spirit still is now directly fired (a flame is burning below, heating the still, instead of the usual steam coil inside it). Again, this modification is a step back into the past of whisky production, as direct-fire stills aren’t usually as efficient as steam coils. Their cut is wide, 73% to 63%, which contributes to giving body to the spirit.

This is reflected in the malts that we sipped in the tasting room, back at the visitor centre (after a wee tour in one of the warehouses). The 12y is a solid whisky, but the Founders’ Reserve (NAS) is good too. Similar to last year, the visitor centre offers a choice from their core range, the Renaissance range (a series of four expressions, the youngest 15y and the oldest 18y), the American cask trilogy (single casks sourced in Missouri, Minnesota and Kentucky), the virgin oak finish (a vatting of multiple casks), and a couple of distillery exclusives (see below).

Again, another very interesting visit, to a distillery that made efforts to bring back some features of the original production. We know that, with the re-discovery of flavours in single malts, there’s a question about the effects of each part of production. While most of the flavour has been attributed to casks, now people started exploring the effect of other factors, such as malting and distilling, and doubts about more recent modernisations have arisen. For us nerds and geeks (and generally consumers), this exploration is quite exciting as it brings us a lot of new (or old?) flavours!

Until next time, sláinte!

Glen Grant Tour

Price: £7.50 pp (October 2022), including the Victorian gardens

Duration: 1hr 10min

Tasting: 2 drams, Glen Grant Arboralis (NAS, 40%) and 10y (40%)

Target: Anyone, but geared towards tourists and novices

Value for money: Very good

Highlights: The still room and the rectifiers

Things we did not like: The very limited tasting options…or “option”

Distillery Exclusive: Glen Grant 13y (2008-2021), 56.5%, single cask (NCF, NC) 50cl for £120

Recommended: For the price, definitely yes

Link: https://www.glengrant.com/

Glen Garioch Founder’s Tour

Price: £15.00 pp (October 2022)

Duration: 1hr

Tasting: 2 drams, Founders’ Reserve (NAS, 48%, NC, NCF) and Glen Garioch 12y (48%, NC, NCF)

Target: Anyone, but whisky geeks might appreciate it more

Value for money: Good

Highlights: The new malting floor and the direct-fire stills

Distillery Exclusives: Glen Garioch 1991 (single ex-bourbon cask, 46.4%, NC, NCF, £325) and Sherry Cask 2009 (1^st fill ex-sherry butt, 58.3%, NC, NCF, £130)

Recommended: Yes

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

#23.1 On the run again: Dramathon 2022

Visiting Glenfarclas before a run-y day

TL;DR: Oops we did it again…the Dramathon! After all the fun we had in 2021, back in October 2022 we participated for the second time. This year we both ran the half-marathon, always quite a challenge, but we rewarded ourselves with 3 distillery visits: first off, Glenfarclas!

First of all, Happy New Year! We hope you had a great start of 2023 and that your year will be as good as you wish, full of joy and (possibly) great drams! We just started a 4-week dry January-ish which, after a couple of weeks back in Italy and the New Year celebrations, we both felt was much needed.

Last year was full of drams and great whisky experiences, so for the first post of 2023 we are going back a few months, in mid-October. Following the great experience we had in 2021, last year we decided to run the Dramathon again. However, this time we both decided to run the half-marathon: Gianluigi with the objective of improving his 2021 timing, Teresa with the objective of completing her first long race.

Similarly to the previous year, we left on the Friday morning to sneak in a distillery visit in the afternoon. You know, while in Speyside…Because of our multiple trips, there are no many distilleries left to visit in the area, but we were still missing a very special one: Glenfarclas!

This distillery is famous for a few things: still family owned, it was the one that converted Pip Hills, the Scotch Malt Whisky Society founder, to whisky appreciation, which in turn led to the Society foundation. They mature almost all their stock in ex-sherry casks (a few exceptions in ex-bourbon are mostly for independent bottlers), and all their doors are painted in red (and no, we didn’t want to paint them black).

The drive there was mostly uneventful. We only realised too late that on the road from the A9 exit to the distillery, the main Speyside road, there are very few places where you can get a warm meal. Fortunately, another distillery came to our help: the Lagmore Cafè at Ballindalloch was open, and it was a very nice one too: lovely staff, good food and reasonable prices (we’ll be back!).

Unfortunately, the distillery is open to visitors only during weekdays, so it’ll have to wait (and tours are a bit pricey too). After lunch, we arrived at the distillery and checked in. We were a bit early, so we had time to scout the shop: we were glad to see that they are maintaining reasonable prices (in spite of the increase of their 25y from £125 to £220) and that they are quite competitive compared to the speciality shops prices.

First distillery visit of the weekend, yay! (Yes, one of us needs a haircut.)

The guide of the day, Rosie, started the tour in the milling room, where barley is grinded into grist (with a usual component of 10% of flour and 20% of husk), in this case by Milly the mill, a more modern looking machine than the usual Porteus ones.

We proceeded to the closed mash tun and the 12 wooden washbacks. The temperature rose substantially as we walked into the huge still room, where some of the 6 bulged directly fired stills were working. Rosie explained that their cut for the distillation “heart” (i.e. the middle part of the run that will be effectively casked) is 74% to 54%, quite large compared to other distilleries we visited.

We then moved towards the warehouses, with the signature red doors. At the visitor centre, our tasting was ready with two very well-known drams: their 10y, still today one of the few whiskies bottled at 40% that, in our opinion, still hold, and the 15y, probably the yummiest of their core range, together with the 105…which of course is not 105 years old, the number refers to the imperial proof (corresponding to 60%abv). Because of the race the next day, we didn’t drink them right away, we put them in our sample bottles brought from home (always with us!) and we went to the shop. There were many of their celebrated “family cask” expressions on display, with vintages of every year and bottled at cask strength. Even for recent vintages the prices are a bit steep, but the selection is very big…A pity we couldn’t try any!

After the visit, we drove to Dufftown, to register for the run and check in at our accommodation, the Commercial Hotel. We decided to have dinner at the hotel (not before a short warm-up run for Gianluigi). In spite of us booking about 9 months in advance (and paying 90 quid per night!!!), we were given the ‘cursed room’, room number 5. No, it’s not the plot of a horror B-movie, and no ancient burial ground was involved: it’s just the room directly above the pub, including their juke-box machine with questionable music selection and no soundproofing whatsoever. That meant that until the bar closed (11pm), we couldn’t sleep. The music wasn’t that loud in the corridor, and in fact in one of the bartenders accused us to be the first complaining…well, not according to other reviews on Booking.com, but we appreciated that the issue might be for this room only.

Finally, race day! As we reached the buses that would have brought us to the starting point (the Tamdhu station), it started pouring rain, so we mentally prepared for a wet run.

However, as soon as we got there, the rain stopped, and the run was quite pleasant. We both reached our goals, Teresa finishing her first (hopefully not last) half-marathon, and Gianluigi shaving a couple of minutes from his 2021 timing (not getting below 1h and 20m though, one of his goals).

After the run we had a well-deserved early dinner at the local French restaurant, the Seven Stills: it was truly great, yummy food and delicious wine. As a dessert, Gianluigi had a crème brulée, with the French chef coming to the table to light it on: bravo!

We went back to the Commercial hotel for some drams…Teresa was falling asleep in the pub, so we went to bed. The issue of the night before was still there, but Gianluigi decided to go put a few bucks in the juke-box: “if I have to stay awake listening to some sh*t, I want to listen to my sh*t!”. Probably some people felt puzzled when Slipknot, Nirvana and Tool started to play, so whoever walloper was in charge decided to skip the rest of the selection (Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, Pearl Jam) only saving No One Knows by the QOTSA. Not cool at all. In the morning we complained with the manager about the noise (not about the skipped songs), who agreed to discounting 15 quid per night. It was nice but still not ideal, so we won’t be back unless we really have to, in which case we will ask not to be put in room 5.

Anyway, going back to the tour at Glenfarclas, we had selected the basic one because we knew in advance we wouldn’t drink. It was excellent, but we are both very keen to go back and do an experience with a more comprehensive tasting. Slainte!

Glenfarclas Tour

Price: £7.50 pp (October 2022)

Duration: 1hr 15m

Tasting: 2 drams, Glenfarclas 10y (40%) and 15y (46%)

Target: Anyone

Value for money: Very good

Highlights: One of the prettiest we’ve seen

Distillery Exclusive: Several bottlings of the family cask range, depending on which is available

Recommended: Definitely!

Link: https://glenfarclas.com/our-home/

#22 Goodbye 2022, see you soon 2023

A very dramming year

TL;DR: As usual this period gives us a chance to reflect on the year about to end. It has been an intense one for us, particularly the second half. Whisky-wise, we had some very fantastic experiences, some disappointing, and a few average ones. While we are looking forward to “dramming around” in 2023, here our 2022 highlights.

Aaaand…It’s December, and we are finally on holidays. By the time you will be reading this, another Christmas will have just passed, we hope you had a great day of celebrations with your loved ones, and that you are now bloated and relaxing on Boxing Day (or St. Stephen, as it is known in Italy).

Because of our jobs, we both arrived at the end of the year very tired. However, it was also a year full of fantastic whisky experiences, that we hope to repeat next year. In 2022, we visited 19 (Gianluigi) and 20 (Teresa) new distilleries (17 in Scotland and one in England together, Gianluigi visited one in Canada, Teresa one in Ireland and one in England). We also had the chance to revisit some good old acquaintances, like GlenAllachie and Deanston (amongst our favourites). We were able to go to Orkney (hurray!) to catch up with both Scapa (aye!) and Highland Park (nay!).

And, finally (FINALLY), we visited Islay for the first time, after our March 2020 trip was cancelled by you-know-what. What a crazy holiday that one, our rented campervan broke down on day 1, half-hour away from the ferry terminal. Although we had to get last-minute accommodations and move around by taxi, we managed anyway! And what a visit, we have to say that whisky tourism on Islay is something really different. Take the Laphroaig tour for example, the token system to pick the drams for your tasting at the end makes it much more flexible than most of the other tours, so that can be enjoyed by both novices and experts. Moreover, Bunnahabhain (best warehouse tasting ever…just the bottling prices a bit too steep), Lagavulin, and Kilchoman rewarded us travelling there by including no-core range drams, all limited ones, which made the experience truly special. We wished other distilleries on far-away islands would do the same… We can’t wait to go back to Islay, to catch up with the other distilleries, and revisit some.

Moments before the best warehouse tasting ever.

Other than Islay we had some incredible whisky experiences, like the Deanston Winter Fest (coming up soon in the blog), or the GlenAllachie tour during the “Speycation” (coming up soon too).

Deanston WinterFest: that’s happiness after three tastings.

This word was brilliantly created by our friend Cath, and greatly implemented by Justine (Kask Whisky): over the weekend we visited 5 distilleries (+ 1 being built) and did a few tastings, including one in the now closed Coleburn distillery, and one in the Strathisla’s warehouse. A couple of weeks earlier, we were again in Speyside for the Dramathon, and of course we visited (or revisited) a few distilleries: Glenfarclas (new visit), Glen Grant and Glen Garioch on the way back (both revisits).

The direct-fired Glen Garioch spirit still.

Some of the tours we did were OK, a bit standard but nothing to complain about: we’d say that usually you get what you pay for. Disappointments came from distillery-exclusive bottling prices. In some cases, instead of rewarding you for visiting the distillery (and already paying for a tasting or a tour), they put a 20-30 quid premium on those. Not nice. The only distillery experience that was really a disappointment and we regret paying for was Highland Park. Despite avoiding the basic tour (£30, already not cheap) we opted for the improved one (£75, the most expensive tour we did so far) to be denied any dram of distillery exclusives or other limited bottlings, and just taste the core range which we could have done in Edinburgh anytime. An expensive tourist trap, we won’t go back there (sorry James, you were a superstar guide though!).

A nice but waaaaay to pricey Blair Athol (£120!!!).

With the Covid19 restrictions behind our back, we could attend our very first whisky festivals, the Fife whisky festival in March and the Whisky Fringe in August – we had a lot of fun, let’s see if it’ll be the same with bigger events.

Enjoying a break between the two Fife Whisky Festival sessions.

In-person tastings came back too. We did a few organised by our friend Justine, of course, as well as others by Mark, Murray (both at Kilderkin) and Colin at Tipsy Midgie. We had some cracking drams, including a 20y Dutch single malt from Zuidam, a fantastic Doorly’s rum (from Foursquare distillery) and some cracking Daftmill-s and Bruichladdich-s. Also, SMWS events came back, including our favourites: Outturns and Distillery Visits (an event where you can taste whiskies brought by a distillery representative together with some provided by the SMWS). This year we did the Glen Moray distillery visit with Iain Allan connected remotely and the Distell one (Deanston/Tobermory) with the very funny Brendan McCarron: both cracking events with awesome whiskies! Gianluigi also decided to become an Aqvavite Youtube Channel Patreon: Roy’s content and entertainment are really priceless, and this was long overdue. We also attended a very funny blind tasting in Glasgow where we finally met all those whisky folks we’d only seen on screen until then.

By writing this up, we realised 2022 was intense not only because of work, but because of whisky too! We hope to bag more distilleries in 2023, although we’ll probably try to be more selective when picking tours and experiences. We are also starting to organise whisky tastings: the first will be towards the end February and will be Port-cask related (we got the idea during our fantastic trip in Portugal…tickets here), but the following ones will involve bottles we picked up in our travels, not necessarily at distilleries, eheh…Stay tuned! Overall, it’s still a very long way to become whisky geeks, but we’ve learned a lot this year and we hope to continue the trend!

Not just whisky for us…coming to a tasting soon!

Happy holidays and see you next year! Slainte!

Shut it, badger!

To the mill on the hill

The one when we made it to 70 distilleries

Out of Speyside and back: Elgin-Huntly-Keith

From Glenallachie to the blend of Doom

Single casks tasting vs. warehouse tasting

Dramming in Elgin

Back to the Glens (Grant and Garioch)

Visiting Glenfarclas before a run-y day

A very dramming year

Out of Speyside and back:
Elgin-Huntly-Keith

From Glenallachie to the
blend of Doom

Back to the Glens
(Grant and Garioch)