#60.5 Another Spirit of Speyside

About to be re-awakened:
Dallas Dhu

TL; DR: On our final day at the Spirit of Speyside, we visited a gem about to be re-awakened: Dallas Dhu! Closed in 1983, it became a museum, but thanks to Murray McDavid, it will restart production in the coming years. A few days before we also attended the Drams under the Star event, organised by the same folks, another must-do of the festival.

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

And finally, it was Sunday, the final day at the Spirit of Speyside 2025 festival. We took the morning very slow: a shower at the campsite, a small breakfast and some tidy-up of the campervan. The weather was slightly better than the night before, but still not great, so we didn’t risk a hike. Instead, after a quick stop at Glenallachie, we slowly drove to the location of our final event, the village of Forres. At noon, we got into the White Hart Restaurant, just off High St – Gianluigi had discovered the place on a work trip in the area. While the lower floor looks like a pretty standard pub, the upper floor is a restaurant serving fantastic Latvian dishes and beers: a hidden treasure!

At 1pm, we were at Dallas Dhu distillery, on the outskirt of the village. While we drove Mr Vantastic into the large adjacent parking lot, we admired how beautiful the distillery is, and how you couldn’t mistake it for anything else. We will learn later that Charles Doig himself was involved in the building drawing. We were warmly welcomed by Dean from Murray McDavid, the independent bottler which recently took over the distillery.

Dallas Dhu distillery under a finally blue sky.

A little detour here: we’d already met Dean on the Friday evening, after the David Stirk tasting in Dufftown, at the Drams Under the Stars tasting. It was obviously organised by Murray McDavid, and it was quite convenient for us, as for an extra fiver we could reserve a spot for either a tent or a campervan (£50.00pp w/o camping, £55pp with camping, plus the usual SoS fees).

Not a bad spot for the night!

The event was just outside Dufftown, about 5 minutes driving, near an abandoned and ruined bothy. They set up a big bonfire in the middle of a clearing and set benches with canopies. At the bothy, a gazebo was placed with a pop-up bar underneath. We arrived when it was still light, and at first it was hard to decide where to sit: we found spots with either the wind blowing in our back, or with the very same wind blowing smoke in our face. However, as drams were poured, we and most people just stood up by the fire and enjoyed the evening. We were pleasantly surprised by the informal, chilled out atmosphere, where everybody could enjoy the drams in their own time, with Dean serving them and chatting to each small group of people (about whisky or not).

Picturesque set up for a tasting…

…A pity it was just a tad cold.

The first dram was The Bothy, specifically bottled (in 20cl bottles) for the event: a young sherried Speyside single malt (46% abv). The other drams were a 15y Blair Athol (54.2%, finished in Koval ex-bourbon casks), a 14y Glen Garioch (51.6%, ex-PX cask finish), a 10y Caol Ila (53.1%, ex-Amarone and PX Sherry cask finish) and finally the MMcD Spirit of Speyside 2025 release (Dailuaine, 7y, ex-Oloroso cask, 57.8%). Overall, a great, chilled out event that we’d definitely like to repeat.

The drams we had under the stars.

Back at Dallas Dhu: the Saturday was their open day, so the staff were understandably a bit tired on the Sunday. Nevertheless, Dean gave us a great and very detailed tour, which lasted longer than the scheduled time. The distillery was founded in 1898 by Alexander Edward and started production in 1899, originally as Dallasmore (later changed to Dallas Dhu to avoid confusion with other brands). It closed during WWI, and again in 1930 for 6 years. In 1939 it was partially destroyed by a fire, and it resumed production only in 1947, until 1983 when it was closed. In-house malting was stopped before then, in 1958, although the current steeping tank was only fitted in the 1950s, around the time also electricity was fitted in. The distillery was finally sold to Historic Environment Scotland in 1986, which turned it into a museum. Because this happened shortly after ceasing production, the distillery is incredibly well preserved, and it looks like it could resume production anytime (which it couldn’t, of course). In recent years, Murray McDavid bought it. This was after an initial attempt to buy Parkmore, which failed because of the non-availability of the nearby warehouses. They are now in the process of finalising the deal with Diageo (which still owns the Dallas Dhu brand), and to get ready to restart production (although works haven’t started yet).

The old malting floor.

As we walked through the building, from the malting floor to the mill room (one of the last Bobby mills ever produced, apparently), and then to the copper-lidded mashtun, the washback and still room, we could see how everything is really in a great state.

A perfect mashtun.

A well maintained washback.

The six 14,000-litre wooden washbacks have been constantly filled and emptied with water to preserve the wood, and in the still rom an ancient fire-engine found also home (probably it will be moved), next to the massive boiler. The distillery has only two stills, but at full regime it can produce about 800,000 litres of alcohol per year, similar size as Glen Scotia, to give you an idea.

That’s a big boiler.

An old fire engine, never seen before!

And all in a charming still room.

The tour finished in the shop, where we had a dram Murray McDavid created for the occasion: a 14y blended scotch named “A New Era”. We were told that among the components there are Port Dundas and Cameronbridge as grain whiskies, and Glenrothes, Glengoyne, Tamdhu and a tad of Bunnahabhain for the malts. It’s a pleasant dram, a bit thin as it is bottled at 40%. After that, we could get sips of other bottlings available for purchase – so good to find places where ‘try before you buy’ is actually possible!

Filling store

A celebratory dram.

Overall an excellent afternoon at Dallas Dhu; the enthusiasm of Dean and the rest of the team for this new beginning was contagious. This was definitely a great ending to another great Spirit of Speyside, and we cannot wait for this beauty of a distillery to officially reopen.

And after this, we’ll take a couple of weeks off! Until next post, slainte!

A New Era: The Dallas Dhu Distillery Tour (Spirit of Speyside 2025)

Price: £15.00 pp (+ SoS fees)

Duration: 1hr 10min (45min on paper)

Tasting: 1 dram, A New Era blended scotch whisky (14y, 40%)

Target: whisky and history geeks

Value for money: good

Highlights: the whole distillery is absolutely stunning

Recommended: yes

Link: https://www.spiritofspeyside.com

#60.4 Another Spirit of Speyside

Another distillery visit in Dufftown: Glendullan

TL; DR: A visit to another massive Diageo distillery, this time in the well-known village of Dufftown. Glendullan produces some very light spirit, in contrast to the very industrial-looking production plant from the 1960s-70s. A very good tour (followed by an again small tasting at the end), but the highlight of the day was definitely the Whisky Fair: a cosy mini-festival in the middle of Dufftown. Unmissable!

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

The morning was cloudy, wet, under a dark and overcast sky. Because we had parked next to other vans, we quickly left and postponed breakfast for later, to avoid disturbing our neighbours. The night before, after dinner, we’d attended “Drams under the Stars”, a Murray&McDavid event at a bothy near Dufftown, but we will write about this in the next post, where it will become clear why. Back to our morning, we left the car park and went to Dufftown for a wee bite. Soon after we tried to check in at the Parkmore Campsite. The idea was to drop the van there and just walk back to Dufftown. Our spot was still occupied, so we drove instead: maybe for the best, as this saved us from being soaking wet, since in the meanwhile a heavy rain started.

Not so charming outside.

Our first event was the distillery visit at Glendullan. Similar to Inchgower, the event was called “Glendullan through the Decades”. The distillery is along the river Fiddich, and it is another one of the big producing plants owned by Diageo. We walked past it during our walk around the “9” distilleries of the village, back in December 2019. Their single malt is sold under the Singleton label (brand name originally assigned to Auchroisk, because it was too difficult to pronounce), together with the neighbouring Dufftown distillery (the only one in town we haven’t visited yet) and Glen Ord, in the Highlands. These three single malts, however, are destined to different markets: Glen Ord to Asia, Dufftown to UK and Europe, and Glendullan to America and travel retail.

As we got off the van we were “welcomed” by a very pungent smell, we found out later that it is a bio-energy plant located just next to the distillery. Fortunately, the staff let us in right away: they were Izac, coming for help from Dalwhinnie, Jackie, the distillery manager, and Kirsty, the apprentice (who we’d already met when she was a tour guide at Glen Grant). We sat at the table while the staff introduced themselves and the distillery. Glendullan was founded in 1897 and went under renovation in 1962, but only 10 years later a new site was built. The two sites ran together until the mid-80s, when the old one was shut off (the building is still there though), while in-house malting stopped even earlier, in 1970. At that point, they gave us the first dram: a Singleton Glendullan from the Diageo Special Release 2021 (19y, 54.6% abv) matured in bourbon cask but then finished in American oak casks, seasoned with Cognac (in our understanding different to casks used for Cognac maturation).

All ready to start the visit.

As we got into production, we could clearly see how the distillery was built for a big production – a typical 1960s-70s feeling to it, with a big window in the still room. They get the malt from Buckie, now mostly Lauriet variety, in 28ton deliveries. The mashtun, replaced in 2010, gets filled with 12.4ton of grits, which is milled by a Porteus mill with the usual husk/grit/flour ratio (20/70/10). They do three mashes per day, using one water only, but with continuous sparging, starting at 64°C. They aim for a clear wort, but not by filtering, just by letting it rest. Fermentation is carried out in one of the 10 washbacks, eight wooden and two stainless steel (which are outside), for 75 hours.

Wooden washbacks.

Finally, distillation happens in one of the three pairs of stills – 3.5-4 hours for the first run, while for the second distillation they usually start collecting the spirit after 30 minutes of foreshots, for again 3.5-4 hours. Apparently, they don’t have specific cut points, but the average abv of the distillate is about 68.7%, with a green and grassy character.

Loving a still room with big windows.

There is no filling store at the distillery, as all the spirit is filled into tankers and sent to be put in casks elsewhere, mostly (80-90%) in ex-bourbon barrels, the remaining in sherry casks. However, there is a small warehouse with the capacity for about 4,000 casks, which we didn’t visit. Instead, we headed back to the office to continue with the tasting. The second dram was a 1989 cask sample from a (if we recall correctly) hogshead (34y, 52.3%), followed by a 1993 sample again from a very active hogshead (31y, diluted to 49.8%) and finally a 2003 matured in a PX cask, very dark and chocolaty (21y, 56.0%). Fortunately, this time the measures were a bit more generous, around 15ml each (maybe some a bit more, even), but four drams for a £100 tour and tasting is still quite stingy. To their credit, these drams were truly delicious, and we could see how some effort was put into coming up with this line-up. The contrast with the more meaty and heavy spirit from Inchgower was quite obvious, as Glendullan was light and delicate to our palate, even the one in the PX cask. In general, the tour was another good one, it was great to get to know the staff, get a glimpse of their knowledge, and witness their enthusiasm for making whisky!

A trio of wee, excellent drams.

Once we left the distillery, we drove again to the campsite, this time we left the van there and, after a quick meal, we left on foot to get back to Dufftown. The waterproof gear ready to be deployed, too. We thought it would take more, but thanks to a shortcut into the woods (from which we had a great view of Glendullan distillery) it only took 25 minutes to walk to the Mortlach Memorial Hall, where the Whisky Fair was about to start (ticket was £30pp + SoS fees, including a glass and a voucher for a hot beverage and some food). This was our second year to this event, a sort of small festival, with the money collected for charity. As we arrived, we spotted the van of our pals Megan and Woody of Woodrow’s of Edinburgh parked in front of the hall: some un-pishy drams were about to be tasted! Overall, it’s a great and cosy event, and it was great to catch up with so many whisky pals, in particular with Sue and Gordon, who are among the organisers.

Happy to be at the Whisky Fair…

…with whisky friends!

After the fair, we slowly walked back to the campsite, definitely very happy. Unfortunately our evening was much colder than prevented, and we could barely cook dinner on a disposable grill: two massive super greasy but delicious burgers (form Hellbent, some rugby connections as well). We soon went to bed, tired but happy.

Stay tuned our final Spirit of Speyside post! Until next week, slainte!

Glendullan Through the Decades Distillery Tour (Spirit of Speyside 2025)

Price: £100.00 pp (+ SoS fee)

Duration: 2hr

Tasting: 4 drams, Glendullan 19y (54.6%), Diageo Special Release 2021; cask sample 1989 (34y, 52.3%, refill cask); and 1993 (31y, 49.8%, hogshead cask-very active), cask samples 2003 (21, 56.0%, Pedro Ximenez sherry cask)

Target: whisky enthusiasts and geeks

Value for money: not great

Highlights: the tasting was small but good

Recommended: only if you’re a massive Singleton fan

Link: https://www.spiritofspeyside.com

#60.3 Another Spirit of Speyside

A workhorse in Buckie: Inchgower distillery

TL; DR: Another festival day, with a morning visit to another Diageo’s workhorse, Inchgower in Buckie. The distillery tour was good but, with only four tiny drams at the end, we cannot say it was good value for money. We then continued the day with a relaxing walk in Spey Bay and an independent bottlers’ tasting in Dufftown.

(missed Part 2/Part 1?)

On the seafront near Portgordon, where we slept, the morning was cosy and sunny. We felt quite rested, thanks to the quietness of the place: only a few dog walkers showed up while we had a small breakfast and got ready for the day. Disappointingly, we didn’t spot any seals…Hopefully next time. Anyway, we were soon on our way to Buckie, another village on the Moray coast, on a hunt for a coffee and a scone. It took us some time to find a place open early, but then we landed at Pozzi on High Street.

The reason why we needed something open early was that we had to be at Inchgower distillery at 10 am, for our first whisky activity (or “experience”, if you want more exclusivity). The distillery is just outside Buckie, on the A98, the road that stretches from Fochabers all the way to Fraserburgh. The distillery sits on a big complex, with a lot of warehouses around (we’ll learn later that they can hold up to 36,000 casks). As we drove to the visitors parking lot, we noticed the numerous houses (some of which still owned by Diageo) originally built for the workers: it was obvious which one was the distillery manager’s. We also noticed the stonework, quite dark, possibly because of the Baudoinia fungus, that digests the alcohol in the air.

Cute distillery cottages.

We were really tight with time, so when we entered the offices, most of the other visitors were already seated around a large table, including our pals John and Jeeves. The staff offered us a coffee, which is always a nice touch. We said “office” and not “visitor centre” because this distillery doesn’t have one, as it is generally closed to the public. They are owned by Diageo, and needless to say, they are one of their hidden workhorses, and other than their Flora and Fauna release, we only know it thanks to independent bottlers.

As the last people came in, we started our visit with the distillery manager, Gary, who introduced himself. He is fairly new, as he came in a couple of years ago when the distillery was reopened, after some years of refurbishment. The distillery was founded in 1871, using the equipment from another one, Tochineal distillery. The first notable event we were told of is the acquisition of the distillery by Buckie council in 1936 after the founders, Alexander Wilson & Co, went bankrupt. It was then bought by Arthur Bell & Sons in 1938, and in 1966 it doubled capacity. Guinness took over Bell’s in 1985, and eventually the company became Diageo.

After this introduction, Gary and his team walked us outside, and because it was a decent day (cloudy but not rainy, yet), we climbed the malt bins stairs to have almost an aerial visual of the big distillery. The three silos can contain up to 60 tons of malt, enough for nine days of production.

Yes, we climbed those stairs…

…definitely worth it.

We then moved inside the production building, where we saw a Bobby mill, according to them one of the oldest around (although they couldn’t tell us a precise date). The malt currently used is Diablo, for a fully unpeated production. The 8.36 tons leuter mashtun is one of those big stainless-steel ones, where mashing is done with the usual three waters at increasing temperature, for about 7-7.5 hours. Fermentation, activated by liquid distiller’s yeast, usually lasts about 46-48 hours, but can range from 40 to 100 (they work five days, so the longer ones are the ones going over the weekend). All this happens in wooden washbacks that can contain 37,000 litres.

Hello, Bobby.

They have two wash stills and two spirit stills, and from the latter they take a large spirit’s cut (the “heart”) from 72% to 55%. As usual, they discard the foreshots (or “head”) coming before, and the feints (or “tail”) coming after, and they mix it together with the low wines from the first distillation, to eventually redistill it. The newmake spirit is usually around 65-68% abv, and it is filled in tankers and sent to one of Diageo’s “casking” facilities.

A good looking pair.

After production, we visited one of the warehouses, located in front of the row of houses for the tasting. The drams were on top of four casks lined up in front of us. We obviously started with the Flora and Fauna 14y (43%), as it is their flagship dram. The other three were cask samples: a 15y (vintage 2009, 56.6%) from an ex-bourbon cask, a more interesting version of the 14y we could say. The other two were a 35y (from 1989, 44.1%) from a refill cask, and a 28y (from 1996, 53.7%) from a sherry cask, which was obvious by looking at the colour. It was a good showcase of the distillery’s malt, where we could appreciate the heavy and meaty character of this whisky, which worked well with both cask types. At that point the tour was finished, we went back to the offices to pick up our bags and our gifts (one Cardhu branded highball glass and one cookie stamp each…no comment) and leave.

A great space for a tasting.

Nice to bump into whisky friends!

We had a few hours before the next event, so we drove to Spey Bay to check out the Scottish Dolphin Centre (spoiler: zero spotted dolphins). There, we had a nice walk around the mouth of the river Spey, and a tasty soup at the cafè/visitor centre.

An icon of Speyside.

After that, we drove to Dufftown, as our next event was starting soon. It was the Independent Scotch tasting, hosted by David Stirk (for £30pp + Spirit of Speyside fee), at the Whisky Capital Inn: a great whisky bar and restaurant (and hotel as well) right in the centre of the small town. The tasting went through a bit of history as well, so we started with an old blend. It made sense, as if you think of it, blenders used to be the original “indy bottlers”. The blend was an Italian import D&L Deluxe Special Reserve (not telling much), bottled at 40% by a company called Block Grey & Block. Then, we moved on to a Berry Bros & Rudd Glen Elgin (2008, 53.4%, hogshead), followed by a Stirk Brothers Linkwood (2010, 13y, 50.0%) and a James Eadie Strathmill (2011, 13y, 55.6%, finished for 20 months in a 1^st fill Malaga hogshead). Finally, a Little Brown Dog Highland Park (2014, 10y, 60.1%, from a random barrique), for the usual peated ending. Overall an interesting line-up, showcasing different cask types. After the tasting, we stayed at the Whisky Capital Inn for a delicious venison burger, before heading off.

Independent Scotch tasting – a varied line-up.

Another good whisky day, with some good drams and some great banter! Unfortunately, the Inchgower tour, while very interesting and hosted by enthusiastic and passionate staff, was not good value for money: for £100, we expected at least 6 drams instead of four (although well aged, definitely better than the Johnny Walker that was served in previous Diageo’s Spirit of Speyside tours). What was even more awkward was the size of the drams: when Teresa filled her driver’s pack, we realised some of the drams filled less than a half of a 20ml sample bottle. Not very well played from Diageo.

Anyway, stay tuned for more Spirit of Speyside action! Until next week, slainte!

Inchgower Through the Decades Distillery Tour (Spirit of Speyside 2025)

Price: £100.00 pp + SoS transaction fee

Duration: 2hr

Tasting: 4 drams, Inchgower “Flora and Fauna” 14y (43%); cask samples 2009 (15, 56.6%, ex-bourbon cask; cask sample 1989 (35y, 44.1%, refill cask); and 1996 (28y, 53.7%, sherry cask)

Target: whisky geeks (and people trying to visit as many distilleries as possible)

Value for money: not great

Highlights: the climb to the malt silos

Recommended: only if you’re a massive Inchgower fan

Link: https://www.spiritofspeyside.com

#44.5 Spirited in Speyside

Aucht… Actrh…. Aucr… Auchroisk!

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

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

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

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

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

Wee distilleries at the Whisky Fair…Moffat!

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

Ready? Ready.

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

“Only” 50 years old.

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

That’s a big still room.

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

Part of production we don’t see very often.

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

This is old…said the old lady.

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

A tasty but stingy tasting.

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

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

Until next time, slainte!

Auchroisk Tour and Tasting

Price: £80.00 pp (Spirit of Speyside 2024)

Duration: 2hr

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

Target: whisky geeks

Value for money: just OK

Highlights: the filling facility and the warehouse

Recommended: yes if you’re a whisky nerd

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

#44.4 Spirited in Speyside

A day at Tormore, a night at Glen Moray

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

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

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

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

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

Gloomy day, still happy day.

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

Whisky and friends!

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

Delicious drams.

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

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

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

Grogu is ready…are we?

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

Scary and exciting at the same time.

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

First part of the tasting, a very interesting start.

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

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

Grogu enjoying his visit at Glen Moray

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

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

Perfecting the Pearl Masterclass

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

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

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

Target: whisky geeks

Value for money: very good!

Highlights: the still room

Recommended: yes

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

#37 Farewell to 2023

A year full of whisky trips… and more!

TL; DR: It’s December, perfect time for some reflections on the year that’s about to end. Another year full of awesome whisky trips, not only in Scotland: 31 distillery visits, of which 27 seen for the first time!

We are quickly approaching the end of the year, so it’s the perfect time to reflect on the year that has been, of course whisky-wise. As we’re writing, we already travelled back to Italy to celebrate Christmas with our families. It’s around 15 degrees Celsius here, so the atmosphere doesn’t quite call for a dram by the fire, but we’ll try to make the best of it anyway, eheh.

Even more than in 2022, this year we felt like the pandemic was a gone memory (despite Covid is still among us, and it will be for long): travels resumed in full force, Edinburgh is busier than ever, and so it was travelling around Scotland. The big novelty in our life was the campervan, Mr Vantastic, which allowed us to travel a bit more on the wild side, without worrying about reserving accommodations (which in the meantime became quite expensive) or planning too much in advance.

Mr Vantastic, yay!

For our summer holidays we went on a big road trip down to Wales, to discover this beautiful country and its whisky scene. Except for a couple of producers, with Penderyn being the main one, the Welsh whisky industry is still in its infancy and mostly populated by craft distillers, but it’s nonetheless promising. While travelling to Wales, we also stopped by a couple of English distilleries – White Peaks stood out, definitely a hidden gem.

A hidden gem in Derbyshire, White Peaks.

Also, we couldn’t help but going to Speyside again, this time for the Spirit of Speyside festival, a different experience (not in a bad way) compared to our beloved Fife Whisky Festival and Whisky Fringe (which we attended this year too). We had great time, and visited a number of distilleries that are usually closed to the public.

A highlight of the Spirit of Speyside.

Mortlach, Linkwood and Dailuaine were fantastic, in spite of the entry price, and so it was Speyburn, but good news: the latter is now open to the public! Now every whisky enthusiast can visit and check out their old drum maltings: a piece of industrial history! We briefly stopped in Speyside again later in the year on our way to the Highlands, to visit a couple of new distilleries: Ballindalloch and Dunphail. The first one had just released their first single malt, while the latter had just filled their first batch of casks…History in the making!

Even Grogu is excited to visit Dunphail!

The Highlands were the destination of the Edinburgh Whisky Group annual trip. In Dornoch, Phil from Thompson Brothers gave us a quick tour of their craft distillery. Then, we visited other local distilleries, two for the first time (Glenmorangie and Balblair), and Clynelish for the second time (blog posts about all this coming soon). This was not the only one we visited for a second time this year. In early February we had a very wet trip to the West Highlands to revisit Ardnamurchan and Tobermory. Moreover, in August we did a Warehouse Tasting at Deanston with a couple of friends from Italy. Gianluigi even went on a solo trip to Campbeltown in December, to use a couple of remaining leave days from work and take advantage of his Cadenhead Club membership by getting a free warehouse tasting: a string of awesome drams, including a spectacular 9y old Staoisha (Bunnahabhain) finished in an ex-Amontillado sherry cask.

Two things we love in one picture.

We did a lot of things, but also missed a few opportunities: first, we wanted to go back to Islay, but we couldn’t make it, too busy with work. Then we missed the Dramathon due to a flood risk in Aberlour (this year we were supposed to run the 10k only), as well as the Roy Aqvavitae Blind Challenge, this time because of a terrible cold we’d caught.

Leaving whisky trips on a side, it seemed to us that the number of tastings happening around Edinburgh has grown exponentially. We had great fun with Justine from Kask Whisky, now doing her monthly tastings at the Lind and Lime gin distillery, conveniently near home. One of the highlights of this year was definitely the Glen Mhor tasting, on the 40^th anniversary of its closing, organised by Jason and Mark/Jolly Toper. Other great ones were the Woodrow’s of Edinburgh tasting at the Palmerston, organised by our pal Murray, and some tastings at Kilderkin and at Bacco Wine.

On the bad side, we noticed the sharp increase in bottle prices. It was interesting to follow a recent vPub from Roy, where he showed that for some products the growth was mostly in line with inflation. However, this was for core/standard releases. We still feel that, instead, some independent bottlers and some producers are “taking the piss”, for a lack of a better term, particularly in relation to single cask and limited releases. Among these, the Scotch Malt Whisky Society bottle prices increased substantially, which resulted in us buying almost zero bottles and going only a few times to the venues compared to previous years. We have to say, though, that food at Queen St is still awesome, and the renovated Vaults look great.

Cask experiment 1.0.

One of the few bottles we bought from the SMWS was for our cask experiment: we got a 1-litre American Oak cask (virgin), which we seasoned with Gutturnio red wine (a typical red wine from Piacenza’s province) for 3 months, and it is now holding a very tasty 12y Dufftown…In 2024 we will find out if it’s turning into pish or is actually drinkable.

After plenty of distillery visits and more than a handful of tastings this year, we’re already planning for next year trips with Mr Vantastic …Islay & Jura? More English distilleries? The Western Hebridies? Back to Speyside? We shall see, but nonetheless, we are already looking forward to it! Now is the time to rest and enjoy some time with our families, hoping that you are doing the same, wherever you are. Possibly, with a good dram in your hand.

Until next year, slainte, and have a great New Year!