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)

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.)

Tag: aberlour distillery

#27.2 Speycation

Single casks tasting vs. warehouse tasting

#17.1 A first taste of Speyside

A birthday surprise