#31.5 Spirit of Speyside 2023

To Forres and back to Rothes: Benromach & Forsyths

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

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

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

You could say we needed more coffee.

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

A cute distillery…

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

…with a sizeable warehouse.

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

The wee tasting at the end.

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

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

The hard job of judging whiskies.

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

Gianluigi meets a condenser (we think)…

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

…and almost complete ones.

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

That’s Scotland in spring for you.

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

The Benromach Distillery Tour (Spirit of Speyside)

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

Duration: 1hr

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

Target: whisky curious and tourists

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

Highlights: the manual settings

Recommended: yes!

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

#20.3 Feast on the East

Back to a traditional experience: Cragganmore

TL;DR: The last distillery in this trip was Cragganmore, producing a malt we were not too familiar with. It was the most traditional whisky experience of the weekend, of course in a good way. We just wish they’d improve the whisky presentation and move away from the 40% and chill-filtering, to allow this good dram to fully express!

(missed Part 1/Part 2?)

After the visit to Macallan, we were almost bamboozled by being back in the daylight. We drove to Aberlour and had a soup and a coffee at the Gather’n Cafe, officially our go-to place when we are in the area. We also sneaked in the Walker’s cookies shop a few meters down the road, another one of our must-go in the village.

Back to the car, we drove directly to Cragganmore distillery, in Ballindalloch. Unlike Tormore, or the new Cairns (which we spotted several times just driving around Speyside), Cragganmore is quite hidden in a narrow valley…you really want to be there to see it (well, not as much as Nc’Nean!). It does make sense, however, that so many distilleries in Speyside popped up in such hidden places, given the history of distilling in the region, in particular pre-1823 (date of the Excise Act, for more info check out the dedicated episode of the Liquid Antiquarian on YouTube).

Second distillery of the day, of course we’re happy!

We didn’t know what to expect: Cragganmore is one of those many drams we came in contact with after the beginning of our whisk(e)y journey, when we were already members of the SMWS and had already visited a few distilleries. Because of this, and because of its 40% presentation (and it’s probably artificially coloured and chill-filtered) we never got into it, we had just tried it once or maybe twice in bars. Well, it’s kind of nice to discover a new whisky, isn’t it?

We arrived at the distillery 10 minutes before the tour start, so we took a look around to admire old-style buildings. The visitor centre didn’t go through much renovation (unlike other Diageo’s distilleries, like this and these two), just enough to make it pretty.

Albeit much smaller, it reminded us a bit of Lagavulin’s one, as it mainly consists of a shop and a very cozy tasting room, with a fireplace, sofas and chairs. The tour we had booked is “A Taste of Speyside”, and it is still the only available one (for the very reasonable price of £16, still at the time of writing). Our guide for the day was Gary, a former firefighter which instead of dully retiring, decided to work part-time at the visitor centre (something we observed a few times around distilleries). Anyway, we started the tour by gathering at the centre of the courtyard, and after the usual health and safety instructions, we moved to the production area.

As usual, we started from the milling room with its red Porteus mill (and as usual, we got told the story of Porteus company running out of business because their machines were too robust and never broke… maybe at the time the evil programmed obsolescence was not a thing). We rapidly moved on to the copper-lidded mashtun and the washbacks, where the distiller on shift “fished” a sample of fermented wash for us to see and smell (not drink, fortunately).

Before moving to the stillroom we could spot from the window the box containing the worm-tub condenser, one of the features of the distillery. The distiller came with us to the whisky safe, where the spirit from the 4 stills goes through and gets checked. There, he gave us a very detailed explanation of the distillation process. Although it is computerised now, the lever to start collecting the second distillation heart (from 68% to 62%, much lower than Macallan!) is still manual…Interesting! We then moved outside to check the warehouse, only from the outside, unfortunately.

Partial (very partial) view of the still room.

In the tasting room, three drams were already waiting for us, poured in tiny glasses: their flagship, Cragganmore 12, the Distillers Edition (commonly across Diageo’s distillery, this is the same age of the main core release but finished in a different cask, ex-Port cask for Cragganmore), and the Distillery Edition (a more recent release quite common across all Diageo distilleries, usually a batch of few-thousand bottles non-age stated, bottled at 48% and priced between 85 and 100 quid, a bit pricey, but apparently casks are selected by the distillery personnel). The drams were quite nice, despite the watery presentations (in our opinion): a shame for such a potentially robust and rich of flavour malt. We even got something to include in a future tasting…we won’t say anything else, but stay tuned in 2023 for more!

Overall, it was a pleasant visit, and Gary was super nice as a tour guide, and of course him involving the distiller on shift was the cherry on top. Compared to the other distilleries we visited during the same trip this was the most traditional one, what probably you’d expect when thinking of Scottish single malt distilleries. It was a very interesting comparison though, with Fettercairn being still old-style at core, but with a more modern visitor centre, and Arbikie and Macallan being definitely among the most modern we visited. We believe that this is reflected in the philosophy of the whisky production, and indeed Cragganmore feels very traditional, in every sense.

Until the next time, Slainte!

Cragganmore: A Taste of Speyside

Price: £16.00 pp (September 2022)

Duration: 1h

Tasting: 3 drams, Cragganmore 12y (40%), Distillers Edition (40%), Distillery Exclusive (NAS, 48%)

Value for money: good (10% off on anything in the shop if you attended the tour)

Highlights: the old-style distillery atmosphere

Target: anyone

Recommended: yes

Things we did not like: samples are super tiny (10ml? Definitely no more than 15)

Distillery only expressions: Distillery Exclusive (NAS, 48%), £85

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

#17.1 A first taste of Speyside

A birthday surprise

TL;DR: in December 2019 Teresa organised a surprise weekend for Gianluigi’s birthday, so we travelled to Speyside for the first time. One of the few times we travelled by train, it wasn’t easy to reach all the places we wanted. Nevertheless, in the first couple of days, we managed to visit four distilleries in Elgin, Aberlour and Dufftown.

2019 was a weird year for us. Because of an intense period at work, Gianluigi could take very few leave days throughout the year. But it was also the year where something changed for us about whisky: we became members of the Scotch Malt Whisky Society, we started listening to whisky podcasts, reading books, and visiting distilleries more often. So, when December arrived, going off on a wee whisky holiday was a very easy decision to take. It was also Teresa’s gift to Gianluigi for his birthday…so for him the destination was a surprise!

In the morning, first train to Aberdeen, then another one to Elgin, so Speyside, which we’d never been before! This is home to over 50 distilleries, without doubts the biggest producing single malt whisky region. Although not all of them are open to visitors, a good bunch are. Which ones then? Still a mystery to Gianluigi.

Happy faces, and we were not even drunk!

The first distillery was only a 20-minute walk from Elgin train station: Glen Moray. We are now very fond of this one, probably underrated because of their entry-level expressions available in supermarkets. Thanks to a few very tasty SMWS bottlings, however, at the time we had already started to appreciate it, so Gianluigi was very happy! Because of time constraints we only did a tutored tasting at the distillery’s café. We chose different flights, the travel retail (with the Elgin Heritage NAS, 12y and 15y, but all bottled at 48% and not chill-filtered) and the distillery casks (2008 ex-rye cask finish, 2001 2nd fill ex-oloroso, 2014 peated ex-gamay cask). We loved these expressions, in particular the 12y in the travel retail range and the 2008 Rye cask finish, but we felt it was too early in our trip to buy anything (much regretted decision).

From there, we took a cab to another distillery, completely unknown to us: Benriach. Together with its sisters GlenDronach and Glenglassaugh, it had been recently sold to Brown-Foreman (aka Jack Daniel’s).

After seeing a malting floor for the first time.

At the time the visitor centre was just a small room with a couple of sofas, table and chairs, and a small shop. The tour was intimate (only 6) and quite in depth. We were guided throughout production, including their malting floor (first time we visited one), and we tasted the wash (someone said: “like a bland and watery beer, basically an English ale”). It was before the revamp of their core range, so we tried their 10y, 10y peated (Curiositas), the magnificent 12y triple-sherry cask, and the travel retail 10y triple distilled (of which we were able to grab a bottle only a few months ago), and another couple of older distillery exclusive expressions, including a peated ex-port cask. Truly a great tasting!

By the end of the tasting, it was dark outside (December…), and we almost missed the last bus to go to our final destination for the day. Fortunately the driver saw us waving at him in the dark. We arrived in Dufftown, where we stayed at the Conval House, a lovely B&B run by the very kind Linda. After the check-in, we had dinner at the Stuart Arms (not open anymore) and a couple of final drams at the Seven Stills.

The next day we woke up a bit dizzy, how so? (wink, wink). This didn’t prevent us to move on with our mission, and after breakfast, Linda generously drove us to the next distillery: Aberlour, in the near village of… Aberlour!

It was just us on the tour, definitely not high season for them. The guide gave us a dram straight away (the 12y), which we enjoyed before another really in depth tour. The distillery sits in a marvellous location, surrounded by woods and near the Linn Falls waterfall.

Again, the final tasting was quite generous, with samples of the newmake spirit, the 16y, the Casg Annamh, and two 14y single cask, one from an ex-bourbon barrel and another from an ex-sherry butt. Unfortunately the A’Bunadh, which we hadn’t tried yet, was not in the line-up, but we would have caught up later that day.

After a quick stop at the Walker’s cookies shop in Aberlour, we caught the bus, next stop: the Speyside Cooperage. It was a very cool experience, and very different from a distillery. To be honest, the guide did not say much (a bit shy?), but was available to reply any questions. However, as whisky novices we didn’t have that many. The walk in the production area was very interesting: we could admire the toasting process and the coopers doing their magic rebuilding the casks.

The sky is blue above the Speyside Cooperage.

Finally, the last stop for the day: the Glenfiddich distillery. This is a massive operation with a capacity of over 22 million litres of alcohol per year. The tour started with an introduction video. After that, we parted from another quite large group of people, as only the two of us went for the in-depth tour. It was the first time we visited a distillery of that size: the two huge lines of stills striked us!

At the end of the tour and after a wee look at the bottling line, we were ready for thetasting. We had the 12y, the 15y, the Project XX (the best of the bunch, in our opinion), the Fire and Cane, the 18y and finally the 21y rum finish. When we visited the warehouses we could try a tiny sip of the 15y cask strength form one of their huge solera-style vatting tubs – very tasty but pricey (at the time 120 quids at the visitor centre).

Our day ended with a nice dinner at A Taste of Speyside restaurant (now unfortunately closed), and another dram, only one this time (the Aberlour A’Bunadh) at the Seven Stills. What an intense day!

Distillery (tours) links

https://www.glenmoray.com/our-distillery
https://www.benriachdistillery.com/en-gb/distillery-tours/
https://www.maltwhiskydistilleries.com/aberlour/
https://www.glenfiddich.com/en-gb/distillery

Speyside cooperage
https://www.speysidecooperage.co.uk/tours.php

(Because this trip happened almost 3 years ago, we are not compiling the distillery visit evaluation box.)

#2.2 A very Scottish summer holiday

A trip to Orkney Speyside et al.

(day 2)

Busy day (fortunately, given the weather…): we officially entered Speyside and visited a couple of Glens, Glenlivet and GlenAllachie!

(Forward to Day 10 / Days 7-8-9 / Days 5-6 / Day 4 / Day 3 or back to Day 1)

Unfortunately, our first night ever sleeping in a campervan was not particularly resting, aided by an incessant rain pounding on the van’s top. Teresa waked up particularly nervous because this day was going to be the first time she drove on the left side of the road. However, we jumped in the van and the drive was (surprisingly) smooth until, just round a single-track corner, a behemoth of a distillery appeared: and here we are at Glenlivet!

Here, the tasting guide Andrew welcomed us very kindly, leading us to the newly built visitor centre and bringing us a nice coffee. The room is quite nice, with a very relaxing and cosy atmosphere, almost like a chalet on the Alps. It has a cocktail bar and comfortable chairs. That brings us to the tasting room, with soft lights and themed to look like an 1800s whisky cellar.

For that day we chose the “Single Casks” tasting, where we were given four samples of the big range of single cask bottlings available at the distillery, all cask strength. Andrew was extremely knowledgeable and passionate; we could listen to him talking about whisky and whisky making all day! As a first dram, he picked a 12y aged in an ex-oloroso butt, very dark in colour and a typical sherry bomb style. Second and third a pair of 16y, one golden coloured, almost like a wheat field in June, and the other again deep amber. Of course, this was to show us the difference between maturation in ex-bourbon barrels and ex-sherry casks. Finally, a real gem: an 18y matured in a refill sherry cask, lighter in colour than the previous sherry matured drams, but more delicate and nuanced. Overall, a great experience.

The Single Cask bottles at the shop were a bit expensive (among the ones we tried, the cheapest was £85 for a half-litre bottle), so we decided to buy a “bottle your own” expression. They had three, all cask strength but not single casks: a 12y (£55 for a 70cl bottle), a 15y (£70 for 70cl) and an 18y (£110 we think, but we might not remember correctly); we chose the 15y, whose cask make-up reminds a lot the one of their 15y core range, although this one is not chill-filtered. To note the impressive collection of Glenlivet expressions available at the shop, as well as whisky from other Pernod-Ricard distilleries (these ones in the single casks range).

Of course one of us could not taste these beauties right away, and today Teresa picked the shortest straw. Back in the van, we drove towards the village of Aberlour, where we had booked a pitch at a lovely camping. The second and last distillery of the day is one producing a whisky we both really enjoyed so far, so we were very hyped up and we didn’t want either of us to miss the tasting. So, after checking in at the camping, we walked towards the distillery on a nice trail, and 50 minutes after (someone miscalculated and thought there were only 20 minutes…ehm, Gianluigi for once) we arrived at GlenAllachie!

Here as well, tours were not available, so the experience offered to us was a video tour and a tasting. The video was very entertaining and one of the best substitutes for a walk into a distillery that we have experienced. The guide Graham interrupted the video a few times to give us the opportunity to taste the delicious drams (although with a very tiny version of a Glencairn glass, almost could not stick our noses into it!). These were: a GlenAllachie 15y, two of their distillery single casks (2009 Grattamacco finish and 2006 ex-oloroso full maturation, both cask strength, priced £100 and above) and finally a 21y McNair Lum Reek (46%). He also gave us a taste of theMcNair upcoming rums, two 7y (one finished in an ex-peated whisky…very interesting!) and a 15y. Gianluigi in particular appreciated this, as he is starting getting more and more into rum as well (oh noooo).

Something that we both always experienced, since the beginning of our whisky journey, is a connection with the red wine finished whiskies. We grew up in different parts of Italy, but both our families come from the countryside. There, red wine is almost always the drink of choice during meals. All this to say that the Grattamacco had to come home with us (nice excuse, isn’t it?), together with a miniature of the mighty 10y cask strength, a dram now very hard to get hold of when a new batch is released. After we left GlenAllachie we walked back to Aberlour through a wood, near the Linn Falls and along the Aberlour distillery (…no worries, just walking past it, we already visited it in December 2019, but it’s a story for another time).

The quality of pictures decreases after two tastings…

We had a quick pint and a warm soup in a pub before heading back to the camping, tired but happy. Our first attempt to grill failed miserably as the charcoal was too humid after all the rain of the night before. So, we sadly cooked the meat on the portable cooker, and we quickly went to bed, to get ready for another adventure!

Glenlivet The Single Casks Tasting

Price: £30.00 pp (July 2021)

Tasting: 4 drams from the Glenlivet single casks bottlings (for us 12y 1^st fill ex-sherry butt, 16y 1^st fill ex-bourbon barrel, 16y 1^st fill ex-sherry butt, 18y 2^nd fill ex-sherry butt, all cask strength)

Target: whisky enthusiasts and geeks

Value for money: Good

Highlights: the drams and the renovated visitor centre

Things we did not like: the single casks bottling prices

Link: https://www.theglenlivet.com/en-UK

GlenAllachie Premium Experience

Price: £30.00 pp (July 2021)

Tasting: 4x20ml drams, GlenAllachie 15y, two distillery exclusive single casks 2006 ex-oloroso hhd and 2009 Grattamacco finish, MacNair Lum Reek Blended Malt 21y. Complimentary mini glencairn.

Target: whisky enthusiasts and geeks

Value for money: Good

Highlights: the drams and the video distillery tour

Things we did not like: nothing really

Link: https://theglenallachie.com/