#67 Bonnington distillery

A distillery next door

TL; DR: Back in October, and thanks to our pal Graham, we visited a distillery that is less than one km from our door: not the one you are probably thinking, rather Bonnington distillery. The manager Gregor welcomed and showed us around the premise. A very interesting project, and a surprisingly maritime single malt.

Our first contact with the distillery we’re talking about in this blog post was in April 2024, during the Biscuit Factory Beverage Festival (one of the many ‘drinks’ events in vibrant Leith), when other than the main festival, we attended a Bonnington & Crabbie tasting, in collaboration with Justine from Kask Whisky. There, we met their responsible for marketing, whom we shared contacts with, hoping for an informal tour of the Bonnington distillery. While we lost contact, our whisky pal Graham Fraser managed to keep in touch, got the details of the distillery manager, Gregor, and arranged a visit for early October this year. Persevere.

We run close to these casks almost every week!

Bonnington can be considered our “local” distillery, it’s really not even one km for our place, and it’s next to the Water of Leith Walk, so we often run just next to it. A few times we even smelled either the mash or the wash, which is nice but not a great incentive for a run, eheh! The distillery belongs to the Halewood Artisanal Spirits, together with a sister distillery in England (Bankhall), and our auld acquaintance Aber Falls, in north Wales. The company also owns the popular Whitley Neill gin, and Crabbie, famous for their green alcoholic ginger beer. John Crabbie is a whisky brand with strong ties to Leith, as the man who carried this name, including the now lost Yardheads distillery. For more of the history though, we’d suggest checking out Justine content, in particular her whisky history blogs on Substack. The group also included a smaller and experimental distillery located not too far away, in Granton, called Chain Pier. It was active only for a little while, from 2018 until January 2020, and so far only a handful of bottlings have been released, including by a few independent bottlers. Back to Bonnington distillery, the current site was chosen because it was the largest available in the EH6 postcode area, generally associated with Leith. The site has some history, as it was built as far back as the early 16^th century, including the Bonnington Manor House, while the area was also involved in the 1560 Siege of Leith. This delayed the operations by about 6 months, for the inevitable archaeological assessments. To note, there used to be an unrelated short-lived previous Bonnington distillery not too far away, near the Biscuit Factory.

You wouldn’t say we’re outside a distillery.

The land was bought in 2017 and construction works started the following year. The distillery was completed in 2019, their first mash in December. They didn’t fill their first cask until the 20^th of March 2020: a notable date, as it was the day before the first COVID-19 lockdown. Before starting, they went through the original purchase records to figure the original style of Crabbie’s whisky, finding out that it was a Highland style of whisky – they decided to reproduce it.

Back to the tour, Gregor started describing production in the courtyard, partly occupied by a few tanks, for draff (sent to anaerobic digestion) and pot ale, and two 30-ton malt silos. They employ 6 operators (out of 11 staff) and run 24/5 with four mashes a day, and each mash uses about 2 tons of malt. The output is about of 750,000 litres of pure alcohol per year, if they were to run 24/7 they could reach about 1.1 million lpa, but that’s not in the plans right now.

Ok, maybe these silos give it away…

The production water is sourced from a 120-meter-deep borehole, while the malt is sourced from either Beard or Crisp, with 3 deliveries every fortnight. When we visited, they’d just finished their peated run, which lasts a month and uses 190 tons of malt peated to 50 ppm. The mill is a modern AR2000, coloured bright red, which produces a grist with approximately the “usual” husk/grit/flour split (20%/70%/10%). They mash in a 2.5-ton semi-lauter mashtun with 3 waters at increasing temperature starting at around 63°C, obtaining a partially cloudy worth. They are equipped with 15 washbacks, 9 of which are in the next part of the building, past the stills, and they were added recently to increase capacity. They use MG+ yeast and, depending on the time of the week, fermentation can last either 150 or 80 hours. Gregor told us that the spirit obtained with the two fermentations is matured separately, and while the long distillation produces more stewed fruit notes, the short one enhances the biscuity notes: very interesting.

All stainless steel here.

A man and the newly added washbacks.

They have two gas boilers to get the steam for distillation, the wash still is 10,500 litres, while the spirit still “only” 7,500. Distillation is fast, to match the same time as mashing and, thus, facilitating the pipeline. The wash is preheated to about 60°C by a heat exchanger used to very cleverly cool down the pot ale in about 25 minutes, saving one hour of distillation time and gas consumption. The wash still produces about 20%abv low wines, which are then mixed with the head and tail of the previous run, which are obtained discarding the liquid above 75% and 62/61.5% abv of the second distillation. From each run, they obtain 1,100-1,200l of newmake spirit, at about 72% abv, which translates into about 130-140 casks per week. These are stored in their warehouses in Kirkaldy, as there isn’t much capacity on site. Casks are stored mainly palletised, as they have limited dunnage space, and are sourced from the Speyside Cooperage, unless they want something more special. Interestingly, they also have a spare gin still, but it hasn’t been used since March 2021, probably to avoid competition with their other gin brands.

Classic picture.

A less classic one. Always nice to see the stills from beneath.

After that, we went to a meeting room underneath the offices, where Gregor gave us a few sips of their products. We tried the John Crabbie and Johnny Cree (both non-age statement, NAS, 40%), which are fully matured in virgin oak and ex-bourbon casks, respectively. The former is not bad at all, just a bit watery due to the low abv. Currently the non-age statement expressions of both brands (the second named after John Crabbie’s business partner) are produced at the distillery, while in the future the aim is also to produced the aged Crabbie (12y and 15y, currently sourced whisky). Then we tried a few Bonnington single malts, a range which is reserved for small batches or single casks: the peated Muscat cask (NAS, 51%) was very tasty, while the unpeated Muscat was good too (NAS, 47%). The other available we didn’t try was the PX casks (NAS, 47%). In general, their whisky has a striking maritime character, which makes sense as we’re not that far away from the Forth, but it is something not usually associated with Lowlands malts.

An interesting selection.

An interesting selection (continued).

After these drams it was time to go back home, so we first greeted Gregor, and once outside the distillery, our pal Graham. It was not our first time visiting a distillery with him, but the first in such an intimate tour: it was good that for once we weren’t the only ones asking for nerdy details, which Gregor patiently explained us with competence and knowledge. He said that, when he has time and if asked nicely, he likes showing people around. But he also said that random showups are a strong ‘nope’: it is still a production plant (something some whisky people don’t quite get…). As we walked home, we passed by the massive bonded warehouses built by the Pattison brothers just before their demise, and subsequently acquired by DCL. We are very happy that the whisky industry is returning to Leith, such a pivotal place for the history of our favourite drink.

Stay tuned for our next trip! Until then, slàinte!

Bonnington Distillery Bespoke Visit

Price: free (October 2025)

Duration: 1hr 30min

Tasting: a few sips from currently bottled single malts (see description above)

Target: anyone

Value for money: well…it was free

Highlights: the location and the compact production

Recommended: yes, but do get in touch with them first!

Link: https://crabbiewhisky.com/bonnington-distillery/

#57 Fife Whisky Festival and Independent Spirits Festival

A tale of two festivals

TL;DR: March has become the month of festivals for us. First, the Fife Whisky Festival, marking our fourth time as volunteers. A couple of weeks later, the first edition of the Independent Spirits Festival. Both of similar size, and both geared towards whisky geeks – two great opportunities to chat with whisky connoisseurs and enthusiasts and have some tasty drams.

As we got deeper into 2025, the festivals’ season started. Last year it had kicked off very early, in January, thanks to Funky Booze, a very fun and lively festival in Edinburgh that this year was on a hiatus. Nonetheless, this year we didn’t have to wait much longer, as on the 1^st of March, taking advantage of a pause in the Six Nations, we were headed to Cupar for the Fife Whisky Festival. This was the fourth time we attended as volunteers, but for the first time we skipped the opening dinner on the Friday, at Lindores Abbey distillery. Feedback from our pals was very good though, and it made us almost regret not going: among the drams that were served, there was a Gianluigi’s favourite, Laphroaig, and a 25y cask sample, wow!

Ready? Ready!

Anyway, we arrived in Cupar on Saturday morning, after picking up our pal Francesco, a Leither like us. After checking in with the festival’s directors, Justine and Karen, we helped the exhibitors set up their stands in the upper and lower halls, and then went out to check tickets and distribute wristbands in advance, so that the attendees wouldn’t lose precious dramming time. Both sessions went well, we met a lot of friendly faces (as in previous years) and had the chance to sip some very tasty drams. This year, against all odds, we managed to use our sampling bottles and take them home for quiet sipping. We did the same with the leftover bottles (kindly donated by the exhibitors) – by taking just samples, we could try way more drams at home, much better than having a half bottle of something, which we really don’t need.

Busy dramming session in Cupar.

Different to the previous year, the following day there was no distillery trip, but a choice between two warehouse tastings by Fife-based independent bottlers: Lady of the Glen, in Dalgety Bay, and The Single Cask, in Glenrothes. Folks could go to both events if they wanted, as Justine and karen organised a bus to transport people between the two locations. We only did the Lady of the Glen tasting though, with no regrets – we had great time and tried some excellent drams with Paul and Gregor. It was a pity we couldn’t visit a distillery this year (after all, that’s our hobby!), but we love warehouse experiences too.

Keeping warm with Lady of the Glen drams.

A couple of weeks later it was time for another festival, a brand new one: the Independent Spirits Festival! It was organised by David Stirk, and conveniently for us, it was held at the Leith Theatre, at crawling distance from our flat. Having been heavily advertised on Roy Aqvavitae Youtube channel, there were many barflies (the channel followers and supporters) from all over Europe and beyond (we think we heard someone coming from New Zealand, impressive!).

Round two of the March festivals.

The event was split into two: first, at noon, there was the screening of Independent Spirits. This is a 4-part documentary series about independent whisky bottlers and their role in the industry. It is directed by Greg Swartz and Guy Satchwell, and produced by the same crew behind the great Water of Life documentary. The series is made of short bits of interviews, that together tell the story of how independent bottlers came to be, what’s their role in the whisky industry, currently and in the future. During the screening, we could enjoy a couple of drams, a sherried Tormore, offered by the Elixir Distillers folks, and a peated dram from Glasgow Distillery, matured in an oloroso cask. Both very delicious.

Hanging out with whisky enthusiasts…

Once the screening and Q&A session ended, we had about one hour to grab some food. We picked one of our favourite spots in the neighbourhood: Peter’s Food Hub, a multi-cuisine take out. The festival session started at 4pm, although people who had attended the screening could get in a whole 15 minutes before others (but no drams served). Now, as the name suggests, of course the festival was focused on independent bottlers, and there were many, many, many of them. Basically, most of the ones you can think of (with one exception, one of the oldest, owning a distillery near Pitlochry…iykyk). For whisky nerds like us, it was like being a kid in a candy shop – the range of drams was impressive, from a young blended scotch called Peatsmoke on Gorgie, by the Campbeltown-based Watt Whisky, to a 25y Bowmore from Tri Carragh. And so many others: Woodrow’s, Fragrant Drops (with a new line of small batches whisky called Elevenses), obviously the SMWS, Cadenheads, Elixir Distillers, Thompson Brothers, the small but great Whisky Concerto, Lady of the Glen…you name it! It was a great session, not too crowded and we had a lot of fun. We didn’t know at the time, but we know now, that there is going to be a second one in 2026, hurray!

…more whisky enthusiasts…

…and more!

Overall we loved both of those festivals, we feel that are the perfect size for us: not too big, not too overwhelming, but with all of the whisky we want to sip. But mostly, with the right people: in the crowd, behind the stands and among the staff. Getting to chat with friends and other whisky enthusiasts like us, exchanging drams’ suggestions and having a laugh is really what makes these occasions special. What to say more? Just that we are looking forward to next year editions!

Until next time, slainte!

Links

Fife Whisky Festival: https://www.fifewhiskyfestival.com/

Independent Spirits Festival: https://www.independentspirits.co.uk/

#43 Cask finish DIY

Diary of an experiment

TL; DR: Have you tried to finish your own whisky in a wine cask? Well, we did, and although we already knew, we could see how hard it is. While the result was not great, we definitely learned a few things.

This post is going to be different from others, as we won’t tell you about a distillery visit, nor a trip, nor a tasting. We’ll talk about an experiment we did recently – still a journey, if you wish.

The idea came after some thoughts on whisky maturation in casks that previously held wine. It took a while to us to realise this is a controversial topic. At first, we didn’t give it much thought as it felt it was just part of the broader “wine” category (including Sherry, Port, Madeira, etc.), but then we noticed many whisky enthusiasts think wine cask maturation is a separate thing, often perceived as bad… so what’s the deal with red/white wines? We had amazing drams matured in wine casks (Arran Amarone, to name a popular one, but also a stunning Glen Garioch 19y fully matured in an ex-Bordeaux cask tried at the distillery, or the Glen Moray 10 Elgin Limited Edition, finished in ex-Chardonnay casks). Let alone the STR (shaved/toasted/re-charred) casks made popular by the late Jim Swan: some can deliver a lot of flavour in a short time, which is particulatly crucial for new distilleries. However, we also had some very “meh” wine-matured whiskies (we won’t name names here), dull at best, so we totally get the scepticism of some.

A taste of Gianluigi’s home, Gutturnio wine.

Probably our Italian upbringings sparked further curiosity on the topic, so we did a bit of research and noticed that while maturation in casks such as Amarone, Barolo and Cabernet-Sauvignon is fairly common nowadays, lesser known red wines aren’t a thing (yet). One wine in particular seems to be overlooked: Gutturnio. Typical from Piacenza’s province (Gianluigi’s hometown), it is a mix of Barbera and Bonarda grapes, and comes either fizzy or still (“superiore”). A thick red wine, that goes well with the greasy local cuisine, quality-wise you can find the cheapos from supermarkets, up to several tenths-of-euros per bottle. We wondered for a while, then, after a conversation with Woody and Megan from Woodrow’s of Edinburgh, we decided to give it a try and start an experiment.

We asked some friends about to visit us to bring over a bottle of Gutturnio, Gutturnio Zerioli Riserva (later on Gianluigi’s brother would challenge this choice as not great, but hey ho) and then we bought a 1-litre virgin oak cask (American oak, Q. alba) from Master of Malt (where it was cheaper, if you exclude some suspicious vendors on Ebay). On the 26^th of August 2023 we filled the wee cask with 75cl of wine, and left it in there for a bit over 3 months.

A nice dram, before we destroyed it.

While the cask was seasoning hidden away in a cupboard (turning it from time to time), we chose our dram. We wanted something without much cask influence, so we aimed for second-fill (or more) ex-bourbon casks. Living in Edinburgh made things easier, as we could access the two Scotch Malt Whisky Society venues, although it wasn’t easy to find a whisky available both to try and purchase. We still managed to taste 6 or 7 bottlings from various distilleries, and the final choice fell on a 12-year-old Dufftown (distillery that we had the chance to walk past in our first trip to Speyside, but never properly visited), called Biting on a Bung (91.34), distilled on the 7^th of July 2009 and bottled at 59.0% abv.

On the 5^th of December, we disgorged the wine. To our surprise the cask was soaked – of the 75cl of wine we’d put in, only 35cl came out! We knew that some absorption would happen, but not to this extent!

On the same day, we filled the cask with the whisky while leaving 20cl to ourselves, in case we messed things up (spoiler alert, we did). We didn’t have a timeline in mind, we just wanted to try the whisky at different times, but here one miscalculation: we went back to Italy two weeks for Christmas, leaving it unchecked for probably too long. When we came back, we took a sample right away: a lot of colour (copper red), some typical red-wine notes on the nose (tannins and red berries), but very metallic on the palate. We hoped these metallic notes would disappear with some more time in the wood, but they didn’t, so in early March, exactly 3 months after filling the cask, we disgorged it and, again, only 30cl of whisky came out (another 20cl of liquid absorbed) – 30cl of ‘metallic liquid’, clearly not a success.

Filling the cask with whisky…and hope.

It only took three months for the colour to change!

We followed up the experiment, this time not with a proper whisky but with spirit from our infinity bottle: despite leaving it in the wee cask for only a couple of weeks, the same unpleasant notes re-appeared (although not so much absorption this time). Oh well.

So, what did we learn out of this experiment? How to waste a good half-litre of whisky? Definitely, but not only that. We already thought it must be hard to properly finish a whisky in the right cask for the right amount of time, but we were surprised by how easy it is to mess up (well, probably the small size just accelerated the process)!

You really don’t want to taste the end product …Maybe next time is going to to be better?

We made a list of variables to consider:

The cask! After so many distillery visits, we know wood quality is key (but tbh we didn’t feel like investing big for our random experiment)
Time to season the cask with wine (maybe too much?)
Time to finish the whisky (again, too much?)
Climate conditions (our flat is very very dry, but there’s not much we can do…)
Whisky robustness (maybe it was a too delicate one for this kind of experiment?)
Quality of the wine…or even the type of wine?

So many variables…it’s really hard to wrap our heads around it, although we could sum up all these variables into one: experience, i.e. really knowing what you’re doing. We clearly didn’t, but thankfully this is not what we’re doing for a living. Nonetheless, it was fun! What’s next? Currently the cask is empty, but we’ll try to fill it soon to avoid it to dry too much…with, maybe, rum? Another wine? Let us know if you have any ideas!

Until next time, slainte.

#35 A(nother) distillery next door

Exploring Port of Leith

TL; DR: This last October we were supposed to run the Wee dram (10k) at the Dramathon, but because of adverse weather conditions we had to cancel our weekend. Weekend in Speyside gone, we made it up with local attractions, in particular our first visit to the brand-new Port of Leith distillery!

Finally, it came that period of the year again, towards August, where we start training a bit more seriously to prepare for the Dramathon. This year, however, we had decided to run the 10k only, for two reasons: too much stuff going on at work so not a lot of time to train for a half marathon, and because last year we ended up very tired. Another difference, Gianluigi’s brother would come from Italy to join us for the 10k. Because of that, the following day we had planned to visit one of our favourite distilleries in the area: Glenallachie!

Well, things didn’t exactly go as planned, as a storm of (not only) bad luck hit us. First, a couple of weeks before the run, we found out that the original accommodation we booked for Gianluigi’s brother and his girlfriend had ceased activity, but neither they (in spite a few emails from us to inform of late check-in) nor Booking.com told us. Then, during the week before the race we both got Covid. Being the third time, it wasn’t that bad…so we just rested for a few days. But then, the straw that breaks the camel’s back: storm Babet. The area of the race was deemed safe at first, until the late evening before the event: the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency communicated a red alert for flood of the river Spey in Aberlour. This was not only where the 10k was starting and all the other races were supposed to run through, but also where the alternative accommodation was located (less than 150 metres from the river…). So, at that stage we could only give up. Bummer!

Not bad as a plan B.

In the morning, we cheered ourselves up with a big breakfast at the Up the Junction cafe, in Leith (one of our favourites). As a back-up plan, we took advantage of the emptied day to go visit our brand-new local distillery: Port of Leith! It is actually not the first distillery in the neighbourhood, as the Bonnington distillery (owned by Crabbie’s) is not far from our flat. It is very close to the Water of Leith walkway, our usual running ground, so it’s not uncommon for us to smell some mashing or fermenting while running. The distillery is closed to visitors, so smelling is indeed the closest thing we can do.

Warm-up tasting before the tour.

Around midday, we walked towards Ocean Terminal and then to the Port of Leith distillery, where our friends from the Edinburgh Whisky Group were celebrating one of our pals’ birthday. As we joined the jolly bunch in the rooftop bar, we realised how beautiful this place is, with an amazing view of our lovely neighbourhood, including the docks, and the rest of Edinburgh! We ordered a flight with their “creations”: the Table Whisky (a blended grain), the Perpetuity blend Batch 1 and 2, and a dram from Woven, a local small blending company. All decent drams, the Perpetuity Batch 2 won for all the three of us. We then joined the 1pm distillery tour: btw, we were surprised by the number of tours available!

The tour started on a lower floor, where the guide Ellie told us the history of the company, born from the vision of Ian and Paddy, who started experimenting with a small Portuguese copper still (now on display) in their back garden. Their pursue of flavour, in particular the effect of yeast and barley strains, led them to partner with the International Centre for Brewing and Distilling, at the Herriot Watt University. After some stop-and-go that saw them losing the original plot where the distillery was supposed to be, they started Lind and Lime gin production, but then their vision finally came to life when they built the first vertical distillery in Scotland, and the highest in the world (42m, vs, Sweden’s Mackmyra 37m).

A very shiny mashtun.

In the production area, everything is brand new: in fact at the time of our visit they hadn’t started distilling yet. The mill is on the floor right below the hospitality ones, while the mashtun (semi-lauter) and seven 7,500 litres washbacks are located on the one just below. Ellie explained us that they use water from both Edinburgh tap and from a 132m deep borehole. They aim for a 1.5 hour mash, and a fermentation between 42 and 72 hours, and with of course lot of yeast experimentation. Further down, the two stills for the double distillation, behind a big window facing Newhaven. The spirit safe, conversely to many other distilleries (old and new) is made of stainless steel, and looks completely manual.

The still room from above.

The new-generation safe.

We finished the tour with a tasting, as usual. We got served two newmake spirits they did in collaboration with the Glasgow Distillery, made with two different yeasts, one was a Norwegian ale yeast. Then we had a sip of their Oloroso Sherry and Twany Port, which they bottle in Spain and Portugal (a good introduction to these fortified wines, but not great compared to other brands) and finally a dram of Bruichladdich Classic Laddie. Given that they have their range of blended whiskies, we felt this was an odd choice: in our understanding it is because of their admiration for the popular Islay distillery ethos… although we hope they won’t follow the “ethos” in pricing as well (wink wink!).

Getting ready for the tasting.

The tour ended in the shop, but not before bottling a 5cl of 40% newmake spirit to take home: a nice touch. Our afternoon continued with another couple of drams at the bar with our friends, before going home and then to watch the Rugby World Cup semi-final at the Dukes, which used to be our favourite fried chicken burger place in Leith (now they don’t do burgers anymore).

Not a bad view!

Overall, it was a nice tour in a spectacular building, although similarly to Penderyn Swansea, it was a bit weird to visit a distillery that has not started production yet: no mash and wash smell, no liquid flowing through the safe (well, the latter can happen also when visiting distilleries in the weekend, to be fair)… Hopefully they will be distilling soon, so all their experience and research can be finally put into practice!

Until next time, slainte!

Port of Leith Distillery Tour

Price: £26.00 pp (October 2023)

Duration: 1hr 15min

Tasting: two new make spirits with different yeast (produced at Glasgow distillery), Port of Leith Oloroso Sherry and Tawny Port, Bruichladdich Classic Laddie (and 5cl of newmake spirit to take home)

Target: everyone

Value for money: good

Highlights: the vertical production and the rooftop bar

Recommended: once they’ll start production, yes

Link: https://www.leithdistillery.com/

#18 Two festivals adventures

Festival!

TL;DR: With the relaxation of Covid restrictions (thanks vaccines!), public events started coming back, including whisky festivals! In 2022 we attended a couple of wee ones, the Fife Whisky Festival in March and the Whisky Fringe in August. In both cases, we are already looking forward to the next editions!

Until a few years ago, the word “festival” meant a very specific situation to us: (mostly) summer, a few thousand people around, and music blasting your ears. Northern Italy wasn’t short of these events, so during our teenage and 20s we indulged in what the national and international rock scene offered. Fast forward a few years, we are still going to concerts, even to international festivals, despite the older age making it more difficult: sleeping in a tent in our mid-20s was feasible, doing it in our mid-30s, it just won’t happen again (thanks a lot, Bluetooth speakers!).

Us going to festivals before getting into whisky!

In the meantime, we collected a new hobby: whisky! As you probably know if you read this blog, we started by visiting distilleries around US and Scotland. We have been enjoying the usually remote location of many distilleries, and the often intimate type of experience. That’s why, when first heard about whisky festivals, we weren’t too convinced. This changed in 2019, when we learned about a couple of them that seemed a great opportunity to know more about our beloved amber liquid.

After missing out on a couple of events in 2019 (Whisky Fringe was already sold-out when we learned about it) and 2020 (we only managed to attend a Fife Whisky Festival side-event at Kingsbarns distillery), the time of our first whisky festival finally arrived, in March 2022: the Fife Whisky Festival, for real! Because of our friendship with one of the organizers (Kask Whisky Justine), we were recruited as volunteers to help out during the day. The festival actually started the evening before, with a dinner at the Lindores Abbey distillery.

Welcome cocktails on the way at Lindores Abbey…

A very tasty 3-course dinner, entertained by the radio host Vic Galloway (to note, he’s curating a very interesting podcast for the Scotch Malt Whisky Society, tasting drams with guests from the Scottish artist scene and pairing them with music). The dinner was accompanied by four tasty drams: a wine-matured Lindores, the Glen Scotia Victoriana, a 25y Glenfarclas, and finally a peated Kilchoman, UK exclusive batch 3, each one presented by one of the respective distillery ambassadors.

Archived the dinner, the day of the festival arrived, at the Corn Exchange in Cupar. We were given aprons and instructions: we were going to be at the door, Gianluigi scanning tickets (with Kath, a friend from the Edinburgh Whisky Group) and Teresa putting bracelets and giving away scratch cards (with Kath’s partner, Craig) to get the chance to buy one of the festival bottles, a single cask Lindores Abbey and a highly sought-after single cask Daftmill. The scratch card was actually a very smart move by the organisers, because it avoided tons of chancers going straight to the shop and buying a limited edition bottle to be put on auctions. Of course, someone complained, but there is no remedy against self-entitlement and selfishness…or is there?

After the entrance operation, our task was to set up the room for the two masterclasses, Mackmyra and Loch Lomond. During these, we could do little breaks, which we exploited to taste a couple of drams each. We spent the rest of the session walking around the stands assisting brand ambassadors and chatting with friends.

At the end of the first session, we and the other volunteers quickly cleaned everything up, and had a little lunch break. This is when Justine brought in the mystical fudge donuts: a beast of a dessert, probably hundreds of Kcal per bite. After checking that everyone had one, Gianluigi decided to show his true animal nature and ate a second one.

The second session went almost as smoothly as the first one: a few more drunken fellas, but fortunately no one outrageously pished. Overall we loved the atmosphere, so relaxed and friendly, it was a great day that we are looking forward to repeating.

A few months went by, until we got to the middle of August. Gianluigi had just come back from a conference in Canada (and a distillery trip he managed to sneak in, wink wink), just in time to attend the Whisky Fringe. “Just”: his flight from Toronto landed in Edinburgh around 9am. Fortunately, the festival location, the beautiful Mansfield Traquair, is only about 30 minutes walking from Leith, and the festival was starting at 2pm. After an abundant brunch and a bit of unpacking, we were on our way to the festival.

The number of participants for each session was limited to 500, which seems a lot, but because of the festival layout on different floors, and the space around, never really felt very crowded. The first stand we hit was the Uncle Nearest one. We were already aware of their fascinating history (Green Nearest was the person, at the time enslaved, who taught Jack Daniels how to distill). We tried two of their Tennessee whiskies, both quite delicious. We then went to say hi to our friends at Ardnamurchan (Gianluigi is part of their AD/Ventures club), and to taste one of their fabulous drams. We met several friends, some from the Edinburgh Whisky Group, some from past tastings, some just friends. Feature of the festival, a half-time dram: at 4pm, each person could choose a special dram from one of the stands. Gianluigi went for a 16y Port Charlotte from Thompson Brothers, Teresa for an old Glen Moray, both very tasty!

Blurred picture (ooops) of Uncle Nearest whiskeys.

Choosing what to buy with our 10-quid voucher was hard, of course you can’t get all the delicious Thompson Brothers’, Glenallachie’s, Springbank’s/Kilkerran’s, Ardnamurchan’s at once. We finally opted for a bottle of White Heather 15, a stunning blended scotch from the Glenallachie company, very different from most whiskies we tried, and which we had been after for a while. The night ended with a meal with some friends at the Leith Depot, and a last dram at Nauticus.

Both experiences challenged our prejudice of whisky festivals being messy and noisy. They were both quite relaxed, lively experiences, where we could enjoy some delicious drams (well, not so many at the Fife Whisky Festival, as we were helping out) without spending lot of time queuing. We already signed up to help at the 2023 Fife Whisky Festival, and we will keep an eye on the Whisky Fringe tickets. Are we ready for bigger events? Not really sure, but who knows.

Until next time, slainte!

Whisky Festivals Links

https://www.fifewhiskyfestival.com/
https://www.royalmilewhiskies.com/whisky-fringe/

#10.1 Whisky in Edinburgh and beyond

Dramming in the Capital

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

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

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

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

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

Gianluigi under the famous Pencaitland sun.

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

Gianluigi showing off one of the Whisky Experience gifts!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The unbelievable whiskybcollection at the new Tipsy Midgie bar!

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

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

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

#8 Dramming at home

Whisky in the time of coronavirus

For a few doors closing, a number of tasting packs opened.

Our last story was about how we stumbled into whisk(e)y during a road-trip in the USA in 2016, and our trip back to Kentucky a few months later. Fast forward a few years, we now live in Edinburgh, and we (slowly) started visiting distilleries across Scotland, with trips to Campbeltown, the West Highlands, Arran and Speyside (all stories for future posts, don’t worry!). It was precisely on our way back from Keith that we decided to start sharing our whisky adventures on a blog. That was December 2019, and what we did not know was that as we were on that train, happy and with our fair share of bottles in the bag, a few strange pneumonia cases were emerging in some areas of China.

In early 2020, we started preparing for the launch (domain, social media, learning WordPress, first drafts), planned for mid-March. That was because we wanted to start with a bang: an imminent 12-day trip to Islay and Jura! We had carefully planned everything: campervan, ferries, 11 distilleries (8 on Islay, Caol Ila was and is still closed, Jura, two on the way). But then…you know how the story ends, don’t you?

Instead of preparing our trip to Islay, we spent weeks frantically calling off all reservations. But the lockdown prompted us to open a few bottles we had bought previously, and to start doing some “homemade” whisky tastings, including comparing different cask finishes or Old-Fashioned cocktails made with different whiskies (Bourbon, Rye, Auchentoshan American Oak, and a blended scotch…the Rye won).

Homemade tasting nr. 1 (cask finishes madness).

Homemade tasting nr. 2 (Old Fashioned extravaganza).

We soon realised that this wasn’t enough, but then online tastings came to save us. We had never done one before, but the format was very simple: you order your tasting pack, which arrives at home by mail, and you just show up on this (at the time) new platform: Zoom! Easy-peasy!

Our very first online tasting was towards the end of April, and was organised by Frederick of East Coast Whisky: it included a few quite old and delicious drams from his awesome collection and was very very interesting!

The first of many online tastings: East Coast Whisky.

However, we thought it was a bit too advanced for novices like us, in our mind it floated the question: “is our palate developed enough to fully appreciate a 29-year old Clynelish?” At the same time, we realised there was a plethora of possibilities, so we decided to go back to basics.

It is around this time that we joined the Edinburgh Whisky Group (EWG, on Facebook) and met Justine of Kask Whisky. We became regulars of the EWG tastings, organised about every other week. Although less frequently, these events are still going on today. The first tastings were provided by the guys at Jeffrey St Whisky, and included some Douglas Laing, Lady of the Glen, AD Rattray and an Octomore! Thanks to Justine’s contacts, in the coming months we did Boutique-y tastings, Dram Mor, Dramfool, Glen Scotia vertical, and many more!

Over time, this became so much more than a tasting group – we’re now a fun bunch of whisky friends! In late 2020 we even purchased a cask from Holyrood, and after we were able to finally meet in person, we organised a quite successful (not according to our livers) trip to Campbeltown in October 2021 (you can read about it here, here, and here). From this, it also branched out one of Justine’s projects, the Quarter Gill Club. This is subscription-based, you pay a fee but the amount of advantages is ludicrous, including a monthly hybrid (online and in person) whisky tasting which is based on a theme: Single Grain, Blended Malt, Sauternes finished/matured, new releases, new distilleries, etc.

Quarter Gill Club tasting: exploring blended malts!

With the EWG we organised two tastings ourselves. The first, in April 2021, was a comparison between three basic blended scotch whiskies with the counterparts from the 70s we’d bought at auction: Antiquary, Teacher’s Highland Cream and Bell’s (all non-age statements except the 70’s Bell’s which was an 8y, the modern ones all 40%, while the 70’s Bell’s and Teacher’s were 43%). It was a very interesting comparison, and we concluded that the current versions are definitely younger and, very likely, the amount of grain whisky in the blend increased. In the modern Teacher’s the peat was way more prominent, probably to satisfy the palate of modern whisky drinkers since peat has become more fashionable in recent times. And talking about peat…there were a bonus couple of drams in this tasting, kindly donated by one of the EWG members. This was a Laphroaig 10, both current and 70’s version (the latter bottled at 43%) – the icing on the cake!

The second tasting we organised was just a few weeks ago: a vertical Kilkerran tasting! We collected a few bottles during the pandemic (12y, 16y first release in 2020, 8y cask strength sherry, and the heavily peated batch 4) that, except for the 12y, were still unopened in mid-2021. So we thought that it might have been great to use them for a tasting. We got the 5th bottle during our Campbeltown trip (the bottle-your-own, which is a marriage of different casks in a big jar they have at the visitor centre) and an EWG friend kindly donated the 6th one: the Virtual Open Day 2020, 14y, triple distilled and matured 100% in refill ex-bourbon cask (which was quite spectacular). It was really good to share all these excellent drams with friends instead of keeping the bottles to ourselves (and taking ages to drink them all).

Going back to 2020, in spring it was already impossible to keep up with all the online tastings from shops, distilleries, indy bottlers, or other outlets. However, this was not enough to satisfy our eagerness of whisky knowledge. Prompted by an article on the SMWS magazine Unfiltered, we learned about the whisky-tube: Roy, Ralfy and all the other youtubers and reviewers (including the newly released Dramface website, a great information source). We’re far from being experts, but we definitely know way more about whisky now than in early 2020, and thanks to the tastings we have developed our taste buds (we are almost ashamed about our early tasting notes or comments…), making it easier to spot aromas and flavours not only in whisky, but also more generally in other drinks and food.

Overall, in spite of the abnormal times we lived through (and still living in), we found a great community of people with the passion of whisky, thanks to online outlets. This made our journey more enjoyable and fulfilling, even when the furthest we could travel was to the couch. Slainte!

Useful Links

The Quarter Gill Club

YouTube channels (some)
Aqvavitae
Ralfy
Malt Box
The Liquid Antiquarian

Shops/others organising (more or less) regular tastings
East Coast Whisky
Inverurie Whisky Shop
Jeffrey St. Whisky and Tobacco
The Spirits Embassy
Royal Mile Whiskies
The Grail
The Ensign Ewart
Woodwinters

Some websites and blogs
Kask Whisky
Dramface
Whiskybase
Islay Whisky Academy