#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

#60.2 Another Spirit of Speyside

The casks of Glen Moray

TL; DR: After the Cabrach, we drove straight to Elgin, for a last-minute tasting: Cask Origin Stories at Glen Moray! The distillery is an old acquaintance (fourth visit!), and as the previous three times, we had a great time with a range of delicious whiskies paired with a glass of what was in the cask before newmake or whisky. One for real whisky nerds!

(missed Part 1?)

The tour at the Cabrach lasted less than we thought, so after a short stroll around the distillery under an overcast sky, we were on the road again. Since the afternoon unexpectedly opened up, as soon as we had some phone signal, we phoned a well known distillery to ask if they still had places for a tasting we’d spotted, but until that moment we thought we could not make it on time. The tasting was the Cask Origin Stories, at Glen Moray, in Elgin.

Glen Moray is an old acquaintance. At the start of our whisky journey, we mostly saw their entry level expressions at supermarkets, a brand among many, possibly anonymous. However, thanks to Scotch Malt Whisky Society (SMWS), it didn’t take long to mark the distillery as one of our first great “discoveries”. We found some of their single casks remarkable, and our second bottle ever from the SMWS was indeed a Glen Moray – St Bernard’s barrel, 35.232, finished in an ex-wine barrique, hidden in the elusive Spicy & Dry category. We were definitely sold after we visited the distillery during our first trip to Speyside in December 2019. There, we had two whisky flights: the travel retail version of the core range (Elgin Classic, NAS, the 12y and the 15y: all not chill-filtered and bottled at 48%) and the bottle-your-own drams. It was a wee while ago, so we don’t remember all the details, but Gianluigi still regrets not buying a delicious ex-Rye whiskey finished expression. We went back there in 2022, during the Speycation with the Edinburgh Whisky Group, for a full distillery tour and tasting, and again last year for a Star Wars themed tasting on May the fourth.

We managed to get here on time, yay!

One of the great things about Glen Moray, other than the variety of casks they like to experiment with, is that they always have three bottle-your-own expressions available at the distillery. But mostly, that two of the three are kept at a very reasonable price, conversely to most distilleries that like to charge extra for distillery exclusive bottlings. Last time we were there, two were nicely priced at £60, while the third, a more aged one, was £99 (still very affordable for a 20y malt!). This makes all the new visits interesting, and hence, once we realised we had enough time, buying the tickets for this event was a no-brainer!

The power of the wind on Teresa’s hair.

As we arrived at the distillery, we greeted our pal Iain, the brand ambassador and visitor centre manager. We met him during an online tasting organised by Justine (Kask Whisky), and since then we had many tastings with him (and we are also acquainted by a similar taste in music). After a nice chat, it was the time for the tasting to start, not with him, but with Fiona, who led us to the Glen Moray House. This is a lovely cottage to the right of the entrance, a multi-functional space that has been used as a tasting room as well. First, she showed us some old registers, reporting dates and type of casks filled: among the many “refill” and “sherry”, we spotted a few different wines, fortified or not.

A cosy tasting room.

We started the tasting with an unusual one, a Busnel Calvados (40%), followed by a vintage 2017 Glen Moray single malt finished in Calvados casks (56.9%). We moved on to the second pairing, a 10y Tawny Port from Cruz, with a 2008 (17y) single malt fully matured in a Tawny port cask (at the impressive abv of 60.2%!). These two drams were available as “bottle your own”, so it might be that at the time of writing (June ’25) they are still available at the distillery visitor centre. The third drink was a 15y Boal Madeira wine from Henriques & Henriques, followed by the Glen Moray House Exclusive whisky, a 13y Madeira matured whisky (57.8%). As the name suggests, this one is only available if you attend an event at the house. Finally, the last pairing was a single-vineyard Valdespino Inocente Fino sherry, and a peated, fully matured Fino cask whisky from 2015 (58.5%), this one available at the distillery.

From bottle…

…to glass.

It was a great line-up, and Fiona did a great job to walk us through the drinks and the drams, in spite of an unusually ‘serious’ audience of northern European men (other than Fiona, Teresa was the only woman in the room). Drink-wise, we were not too keen on the Calvados, too sweet for our taste, but otherwise we liked them all, especially the Madeira! The drams were all very tasty, showcasing a range of flavours from fruitiness, savoury and smoke. The Port-finished dram and Glen Moray House Exclusive were the two we liked the most, while in the last one the peat was ‘turned to 11’, which masked a bit the savoury notes of the Fino cask…One for true peat lovers!

The new kid on the block.

Back at the visitor centre we tried some of the new releases: “spirit drink” finished in Maple syrup casks, one peated (11y) and one unpeated (8y, both £90). Obviously, it cannot be “single malt” because the SWA doesn’t allow such experimental casks (but who knows? maybe Diageo or Pernod Ricard will buy a maple syrup producer at some point…). They were both less sweet than expected, in particular the peated one: was more like a BBQ-y meaty thing.

Not a bad spot for the night.

We soon left the distillery to find a spot for the night, which we did next to Portgordon, on the sea. There we made ourself dinner and relaxed (and Gianluigi powered through his drams, since he had bottled them all in sample bottles). It was nice to fall asleep to the sound of the waves, after such a nice day and cracking drams.

Stay tuned for more Spirit of Speyside action! Until the next week, slainte!

Glen Moray Cask Origin Stories tasting (Spirit of Speyside 2025)

Price: £50.00 pp + SoS transaction fee

Duration: 1h30m-2h

Tasting: 4 drams paired with the previous content of the cask (see above).

Distillery exclusives: bottle-your-own 2017 Port cask finish (59.4%), £60; 2005 Chianti cask finish (53%), £99; 2015 peated Fino Cask (58.5%), £60 (at some point the first two drams of the tasting)

Target: whisky geeks

Value for money: very good

Highlights: a few of the drams were excellent…and Fiona was a great host!

Recommended: absolutely

Links: https://www.glenmoray.com/ https://www.spiritofspeyside.com/

#60.1 Another Spirit of Speyside

Discovering the Cabrach

TL; DR: And…We’re back in Speyside, to celebrate whisky at the Spirit of Speyside! This year we started off with a new distillery, located in the very remote namesake area: the Cabrach! A beautiful project by great people in a stunning area, definitely one to look out for when they’ll release a single malt, in a few years.

Like the past two years (2023 and 2024), the time came for the Spirit of Speyside festival: a great opportunity to visit distilleries usually closed to public. Tickets went on sale in early February. It was the usual scrum, and at the check out the tickets for two events disappeared from our cart: the visits to Cabrach and Aultmore distilleries. We also missed out on Dalmunach and Braeval, but for another reason: Chivas Brothers used the very cheeky (not to say “shitty”) approach to couple each of them with another distillery tour (respectively Aberlour and Glenlivet, that we already visited twice, both) and put the price at an insane £200. Silly. But anyway, thanks to our friend Lenka, we understood that Cabrach could organise extra tours – she put us in contact with Euan, the distiller, and the tour happened indeed!

We left on Thursday morning, looked like we had a cloudy day ahead. Gianluigi was back from a conference in Rome the night before, so we didn’t have much time to prepare. However, Mr Vantastic is born ready, so in the morning we showered and quickly left Leith, direction Speyside. On the way, we stopped only for a coffee and a delicious bacon roll at the Glamis Corner Shop (in Glamis, recommended!), after we realised that Flour (in Meigle) was not open yet. The rest of the drive was uneventful, we left the main road to Aberdeen near Fettercairn (we crossed the village), and we stopped for a sandwich just before arriving at the Cabrach. We also had a quite hilarious small accident, but you’ll have to ask Teresa about that.

A typical cold spring day in Speyside…

Our tour was scheduled at 1pm, we arrived a bit early, so we parked at the Cabrach community hall, and we walked to the distillery. The landscape is very relaxing, some crops, hills and woodlands. Definitely a place to consider if you want to escape chaos. At the distillery, John, one of the operators, welcomed us and alerted Euan, who introduced himself and started the tour. He’d previously worked at the Dornoch Distillery, with the Thompson Bros, and before that at the Scotch Whisky Experience (hence the connection with our friend Lenka).

Tidy, cute distillery, the Cabrach.

The distillery is community owned, by the Cabrach Trust. This was set up by Grant Gordon in 2013, with the objective to revive the area and preserve its cultural heritage. At the turn of the 20^th century about 1,200 people lived there, while now not even 100. WWI played an important role in the depopulation, but these trends are common to rural areas throughout Europe. Whisky was a part of Cabrach cultural heritage, as the area was famous for its illicitly distilled whisky. Now they hope to bring back people and interest, and the distillery is only a part of a bigger project: a cafè and a museum should be added in the coming years, together with a visitor centre. All of these will be fitted in the unused buildings on the site – the distillery only takes part of the original square farm built in 1849. The only intervention they had to do is to increase the height of the roof, but with wood, as the buildings are B-listed. They are also planning to use the barley grown in the big field in front of the distillery as main source for their malt, so to become (almost) a grain-to-glass distillery. At the moment they only use it for the 20% of their production (the variety was Lauriet first, now Firefox, bur Bere is in the cards as well). The malt is lightly peated (12 phenols part per million) by the Glen Esk maltings.

Space for future museum, cafe and visitor centre…Exciting!

The production area is very self-contained, on one of the sides of the square: only the mill (a modern AR2000) and the boiler are located in another building, with pipes going underneath. The malt silos can hold 17 tons each, but now they are only filled to 13 tons. The mill returns a grist with the very common 20/70/10 split of husks/grit/flour, but they’re looking to increase the latter. They use three waters for their mashing (in a half-ton mashtun), at increasing temperatures (65, 75 and 85°C), aiming for a clear wort.

Pipes under the floor, that’s new.

Fermentation is at least 160 hours, but it can go for up to a week in one of the four wooden washbacks. They allowed us to climb a ladder to have a peek inside one, nice! Distillation is where things get very interesting: first, they have two stills (wash- and spirit still) with worm tubs outside the building. Cuts are still in the experimental phase, but they were taking a large one (a spread of about 15% abv between the two, if we recall correctly).

Checking the fermentation.

The classic picture.

However, they have a third “special” still, commissioned to imitate the illicit stills that were so popular in the area. In our understanding it can be used as wash still, a spirit still or independently to run both distillations. Very intriguing project, which saw the collaboration with Alan Winchester, former distiller at Glenlivet and expert on illicit distilling.

The experimental side of the distillery.

Finally, we visited the filling station and the cute, very small dunnage warehouse, with a capacity of only a few dozen casks. There, Euan gave us a nip of the newmake spirit to try: very oily, lots of caramel and hazelnut.

Much more whisky to come in this wee warehouse.

The tour ended there, and we thanked Euan for showing us around, and the flexibility he and the management showed, when they realised that many people were left out at the ticket sale (such flexibility is not easy to find in the whisky hospitality sector, unfortunately). So kudos to the Cabrach, we’re looking forward to their whisky!

Stay tuned for more Spirit of Speyside action! Until the next week, slainte!

Cabrach Private Tour

Price: £30.00 pp (May 2025) + £4.80 fee (per transaction) [now the tour is £25 pp, offered every Friday]

Duration: 50min

Tasting: a sip of the newmake spirit (70%) [the current tour offers a dram of the Feering “Early Harvest” Blended malt, NAS, 46%]

Target: whisky enthusiasts

Value for money: ok

Highlights: the community project and the experimental still

Recommended: yes

Link: https://www.thecabrach.com/

#44.3 Spirited in Speyside

From Ben Rinnes to Tomintoul

TL; DR: Another sunny day in Speyside, so we finally did what we’d wanted to do for a long time: climb Ben Rinnes! In the afternoon we visited Tomintoul, attending a Spirit of Speyside tour and (quite generous) tasting. We were not very familiar with this malt, which turned out to be a very solid and sweet Speysider!

(missed Part 2/Part 1?)

We woke up well rested, under the trees and with birds chirping all around us. We had breakfast in our van: coffee, yogurt, fruits, and we indulged in a couple of cookies as well. Again, it was a magnificent sunny day, so we could go ahead with our plan: go for a walk before starting our whisky activities.

We’d decided to climb Ben Rinnes, the hill in the middle of Speyside, whose slopes provide water to many distilleries around it. It was not a long walk, less than 8km, but it was quite steep, a 550-metre ascent in total from the parking lot to the top of the hill. We started early, around 8.30am, when not many others were hiking (we only met about 4-5 people while going up). The climb started quite uphill right away, and the ascent was interrupted by a couple of short plateaus, before the last climb of more than 300 metres.

Finally a good day to climb Ben Rinnes.

Once on top, though, we got rewarded, as the view is quite amazing. As were going up, on our left, we spotted a distillery very close to the top – we guessed Benrinnes but we were wrong, it was Allt a’Bhainne. Others could be seen (well, mostly the vapours) once on the top. Our plans to have a snack at the top were ruined by the strong wind, so we quickly started descending back to the parking lot. We bumped into a lot of people, probably because of the time, although the sky was clouded when we got to the van. On the Walk Highlands website the hike (back and forth) was estimated around 3-4 hours, but it took us only 2, so we had some spare time!

Quite windy up there!

Back in the van, we started looking for a place for coffee and a bite, possibly in the direction of our next destination, Tomintoul. We were unlucky at first: some cafes were still closed until summer, some were opening later in the day. We were saved by Bike Glenlivet, a cafè inside an outdoor centre, less than 10 minutes past the distillery. There we could enjoy a sandwich and, past midday, a warm soup.

We arrived at Tomintoul distillery a few minutes early, just the time to park, take some photos and check in. The distillery is tucked at the bottom of a woody hill, along the road, with another hill in front of it: we were told later that during the heather flowering season it becomes all purple, which is why purple is one of the flag colours.

About to explore the distillery producing a ‘gentle dram’.

The visitor centre actually consists in a room with the shop and a big table for tastings. Fun fact: in the room there is also a giant bottle (over 100 litres!) of Tomintoul 14: the Guinness World Record holder for biggest whisky bottle, in our understanding. The distillery is usually open to public, but their regular tours are on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays, making it a bit hard to schedule a visit. This was one of the reasons to visit them during the Spirit of Speyside, the other being that we were not very familiar with their whisky, so an enhanced event could have made us know them better…and it did, indeed!

Teresa losing the ‘who’s the tallest’ contest again.

The tour was hosted by Rob, the distillery manager, and Iain, the master blender who gave us a dram of their 16yr (40%abv), one of their flagship expressions. We always appreciate the tours where they give you a dram at the beginning, well done! The distillery was founded in 1964, so it is “young” compared to their peers, and they produce unpeated (marketed as Tomintoul), lightly peated (peated Tomintoul) and heavily peated (Old Ballantruan) single malt. The latter takes name from the spring where they source water. The peated run lasts about 6 weeks per year, much less compared to the 40 weeks of the unpeated one. They use Crisp malt, which is stored in 8 malt bins before processing through a dresser and the classic Porteus mill. The grist is then moved 12.2 tons at a time to the mashtun, with 48,000 litres of water at 65°C, followed by the usual two other waters at increasing temperature, to maximise the sugar intake.

The mash-tun is mashing. Smashing.

Once the wort (clear after the first water, cloudier after the second) is cooled down to 20°C, it is moved to one of the 6 washbacks, where they add solid distillers’ yeast. Fermentation lasts about 60 hours, then the wash is distilled in one of the two wash stills, and then again in one of the spirit stills. Cut points are usually from 72% to 61.8%, and it takes more or less two hours. Originally the distillery had only two stills, the second pair was added in 1974. Rob showed us one of the byproducts of the first distillation, a syrup with almost 0% alcohol, which is sold to farmers.

…And the classic selfie.

Still in the still room (pun sort of intended), Iain joined us again, this time to give us a dram of the 25yr (43%), a very sweet and delicious one! We then visited one of the warehouses, a racked one (the most common from the distilleries built in that era). They can store up to 150,000 casks on site, while the rest is shipped to the main site in the Lowlands. There, Iain demonstrated us the use of a (leaky!) copper dog, although the whisky inside it came from a bottle, not straight from a cask: a single cask from a Bordeaux wine barrique, vintage 2008 (14yr), bottled at 60.7%.

A 25yr dram after visiting the still room. Nice surprise!

We headed back to the visitor centre for the remainder of the tasting: first, a couple of Madeira matured expressions, a 15yr limited release (46%) and a single hogshead from 1998, bottled in 2022 at 24 years of age (50.2%). The next dram was their Cigar Malt, a quite delicious sherry cask matured expression, lightly peated, and very solid despite the 43% strength (a shame it was a bit pricey). We finished with an Old Ballantruan from the core range: the 15yr (the other two are the non-age statement and the 10yr, all bottled at 50%): a sweet and smoky dram. At that point, a group of Spanish who were on the tour (one of them was a London-based employee of Angus-Dundee, the distillery owners) brought out some Jamon Iberico, which paired perfectly with the last two drams!

A wide range of flavours here!

We left the distillery very happy (not just because of the drams, Gianluigi was dry!), taking one of their bottle with us: as most of their core range is bottled at 40% or 43% and the limited expressions were a bit pricey, the perfect one for was the 14yr: not only unchill-filtered and bottled at 46%, but also from ex-bourbon casks, which in our opinion is the best type of cask to grasp the distillery character.

We arrived at our destination, the Parkmore Cottage and Camping in Dufftown, where our friend Justine (from Kask Whisky) was waiting for us. We had a beer, dinner and a few drams with her, to conclude the day on a high. And what a great day was that, first the climb to Ben Rinnes, and then Tomintoul. With 7 drams their tour was one of the most generous as well (compared to higher priced tours with less than half of the drams…), giving us a chance to fully appreciate the potential of their very solid and fruity (gentle, as they like saying) whisky.

Stay tuned to know about our day at another Speyside whisky distillery…until then, slainte!

Tomintoul Distillery: Behind the Scenes Tour and Tasting

Price: £70.00 pp (Spirit of Speyside 2024)

Duration: 2hrs (actually, almost 3!)

Tasting: Tomintoul 16yr (40%), Tomintoul 25yr (43%), single cask from a Bordeaux wine barrique (2008, 14yr, 60.7%), Madeira 15yr limited release (46%), Madeira single hogshead (1998, 24 yr, 50.2%), Cigar Malt (43%), 15yr Old Ballantruan (50%)

Target: whisky geeks

Value for money: very good!

Highlights: the tasting (including drams during the tour)

Recommended: yes

Link: https://tours.tomintoulwhisky.com/

#44.2 Spirited in Speyside

A walk to Craigellachie

TL; DR: After Kininvie and a very nice walk, it was time for Craigellachie distillery, the ‘queen of worm tubs’! We’d been waiting over 4 years to visit it, we finally made it and it didn’t disappoint. A great tour with very knowledgeable staff, for a very reasonable price (other producers, take note!)

(missed Part 1?)

As the tour at Kininvie came to an end, it was time to move to our next destination for the day. It was a gorgeous day, probably one of the best (if not the best) we had in all our visits in Speyside (so much better than the dreaded August ’21, when it was so wet that we couldn’t ignite the self-igniting charcoal to grill). The weather so was nice and warm that we both ended up in short sleeves – perfect for our walk back to Craigellachie along the Old Speyside Railway. We knew the path, it’s where we ran the Dramathon Half Dram (half-marathon) in 2022 (and 2021), and where we’ll hopefully run the Wee Dram (10k) later this year. The walk turned out to be over 6 km, on a peaceful path surrounded by vegetation and buzzing insects…a very refreshing and enjoyable moment, in particular considering the poor spring we had this year (and still having at the time of writing).

For once, we’re not running on this path.

We arrived at Craigellachie distillery only a few minutes early, just the time to take a few photos in front of the distillery. In the past two years Teresa visited a couple of distilleries that Gianluigi hasn’t (Liberties in Dublin and Copper Rivet in England), while Gianluigi only visited one that Teresa hasn’t (Glenora in Canada), so we both celebrated our personal 100^th distillery in separate occasions (Aberargie for Teresa, Kininvie for Gianluigi). Craigellachie though, was our 100^th distillery visit together, yay! Next target: 100^th Scottish distillery, which will hopefully happen in 2025…maybe?

The 100th distillery visit together, big achievement!

The distillery is unmissable, as it is right on the road from Craigellachie to Dufftown. They don’t have a visitor centre, something we learned back in 2019 when we visited a sister distillery, Aberfeldy. They are both owned by Dewar’s/Bacardi, together with Royal Brackla, Aultmore, and Macduff (whisky marketed as Deveron/Glen Deveron). The distillery was built in 1891, during the pre-Pattinson crash whisky boom, and expanded in 1964, while malting stopped in 1968.

Back to today, the tour was given by Stephen, the distillery manager, together with Matthew (brand ambassador) and Gary (cask supply specialist, and “grainman”), a fun dynamic trio. In the mill room (hosting a classic Porteus installed in 1964), they told us they mostly use Lauriet barley, never peated, with the usual grist split (10% flour, 70% grit and 20% husk). The mashtun is more recent, as it was replaced in 2001. They work 24/7, and they do 20 mashes per week, each one lasting 6h, aiming for a clear wort. They only close for 3 weeks in the summer to clean-up everything. The washbacks are made of Siberian larch, installed in the 60s, and they use Laland as yeast strain (not to be confused with La-la-land), with fermentation lasting about 60h. They used to have direct fire stills, but they were replaced in the 60s with steam coil ones, as many other distilleries.

Finally in the still room we saw so many times from the outside.

After the stillroom, they showed us one of their most iconic feature: the worm tub condensers! This is an old way of condensing the spirit, as simple as “a worm in a tub”, as they jokingly pointed out. Compared to the more “modern” tube and shells (well, still over 100-year old), the reduced contact between the copper and the spirit should result in a heavier spirit, loved by many. Craigellachie is one of the best examples of this feature, together with Mortlach, but there are many other distilleries we visited that have worm tubs: Speyburn, Oban, Edradour, Cragganmore, Springbank (which uses a mix, except for Longrow, which is 100% worm tub condenser) and even some newer distilleries, notably Ardnahoe on Islay and Ballindalloch in Speyside. It’s a very fascinating topic, and if you want to know more there is a recent Aquavitae vPub focusing on this.

We had to take a picture with worm tubs.

After the production, it was time for the tasting, which was held in a shed, previously a space for in-house cooperage. The line-up was quite comprehensive, considering we only paid 20 quid (!!!) for the whole thing. We started with the distillery flagship, the Craigellachie 13 (46% abv), matured in a combination of ex-bourbon and ex-sherry casks: having tried it years ago, we’d forgotten how good it is! We then tried a more recent bottling, again 13 years old (46%), but finished in Bas-Armagnac casks, less sherry influence, brighter and super fruity. Then, a treat, the 19yr (again 46%), very well balanced and delicious, matured in ex-bourbon casks, and finished in 1^st fill both ex-bourbon and ex-sherry casks. Finally, they also let us try their Spirit of Speyside 2024 exclusive: cask strength (54.9%), vintage 2005 (so 18-19yr), finished for over 3 years in red wine casks. The jump in ABV was there, but also in flavour compared to the other (still very tasty) drams.

A nice display.

As the tasting ended, we went to the office/pop-up shop to pick up a “souvenir”, and we slowly walked back towards the van, not before stopping at the Craigellachie Hotel. Unfortunately, the whisky bar was busy with a tasting, so we just had a half-pint at the bar downstairs, before finally heading to the van where we had dinner and spent the night.

A very good spot for the night!

What a day, Kininvie first (making 4/6 of the Dufftown distilleries for us… Glendullan and Dufftown, some day we will come!), and then this great tour at the ‘queen of worm tubs’ distillery! Also, kudos to Dewar’s: not only the team that took us around was super knowledgeable and very nice, they also gave us a very nice tasting for a very reasonable price, unlike some other producers.

Stay tuned for the rest of our Spirit of Speyside trip, still 3 days (and 3 distilleries) to go! Until then, slainte!

Craigellachie Distillery Tour

Price: £20.00 pp (Spirit of Speyside 2024)

Duration: 1hr (a bit more actually)

Tasting: 4 drams, Craigellachie 13y (46%), 13y Bas-Armagnac finish (46%), 19y (46%) and Spirit of Speyside 2024 Edition (54.9%)

Target: whisky curious and nerds

Value for money: extremely good!

Highlights: the worm tubs, of course!

Recommended: yes

Link: https://www.dewars.com/

#44.1 Spirited in Speyside

Catching up Kininvie

TL; DR: May again, which means Spirit of Speyside again! And again, we tried to bag as many distillery tours as we could. First off, the mysterious Kininvie: hidden behind their stablemate Balvenie, it’s a treasure to be found…and we’ll have a pleasant surprise too!

In the last couple of years, the Spirit of Speyside has become one of the unmissable events for us. It’s a festival, but it doesn’t feel like one, probably because of the wide area the events are spread around: the whole of Speyside! There are so many events: fairs, walks, tastings, tours, even runs! Of course, for us it is a good opportunity to visit distilleries that are normally closed to public. In 2023 we managed to visit “a few”, this year we tried to do the same.

This year we made our long weekend a wee bit shorter: from Thursday to Sunday only, skipping the Wednesday and the Monday. It was enough, because, unlike last year, we managed to book all the distilleries we wanted to visit over 4 days! The only ones we decided to pass on were Glen Keith (the event is insanely expensive, like north of £250… yes, it included Strathisla, which we visited twice already, but still a brainfart) and Glenglassaugh (the event was pricey, £200, but included visits at Benriach and Glendronach too, transport and lunch…not a bad deal, but still too much considering all the other visits we’d planned).

The first distillery we hit this year was Kininvie, in Dufftown. It is owned by W. M. Grants, like Glenfiddich and Balvenie. Actually, we’d already visited most of the distillery during our fantastic tour of Balvenie in 2021, with James. Mash-tun and washbacks are indeed in the same building as Balvenie’s ones, and the mill is actually the same! This time though, we will see everything about Kininvie!

A cryptic bus timetable…

Back to the trip, we left early in the morning, as the tour was at 11am (but also to avoid the silly Edinburgh’s rush hour traffic…silly because given the size of the city, it shouldn’t be like that). We also left a bit earlier because we’d planned to leave the van in Craigellachie, get the bus to Dufftown, walk back to Craigellachie after the tour. Everything went according to plan, except that the bus from Craigellachie to Dufftown was, like, over 20 minutes late. No problem though, we were still able to get there in time for our tour, and in the meanwhile we had time to chat to our friend Graham Fraser, who was taking the same bus to go to Glenfiddich instead. He is a fellow vPub barfly and also a “drammer around” like us, but more experienced, with over a 100 Scottish distilleries under his belt: impressive!

After checking in at the Balvenie visitor centre, we had a big surprise: Paul (who we met at Linkwood last year) has recently moved to Balvenie and Kininvie as production manager, and would give us the tour! He is a super nice guy, and thanks to his impressive career in whisky, also extremely knowledgeable, so we were super happy about that!

Paul gave us the tour, such a nice surprise!

The history of Kininvie is peculiar: it was built in 1990 to supply malt for blends (Grant’s and later Monkey Shoulder), instead of Glenfiddich and Balvenie, kept to be bottled as single malts. They started producing on the 4^th of July of the same year, and nowadays the equipment is also used to experiment with barley and yeast strains, including running a rye campaign every year before the silent season: Paul was very excited about the freedom to experiment.

A happy “worker” at Balvenie malting floor.

The tour started with a visit of the Balvenie malting floor and kiln, which was under repair waiting for some replacement parts. After a walk in the kiln, we moved to the main production building with mill, mash-tuns and washbacks. On average they do up to 25 mashes per week, using 240 tons of barley. When they don’t experiment, the barley strains used at the moment are Sassie or a mix of Sassie and Diablo, which have mostly replaced Lauriet. The barley is mashed with the usual three waters at increasing temperatures (65, 75 and 85C). Fermentation takes place in one of the 10 wooden washbacks, next door to the Balvenie’s ones. They use Mauri yeast and go for either a short fermentation (60h) to get a cereal-y cloudy wort, or a long one (over 70h) to obtain a lighter and fruitier one: the one we tried was very sweet, and Teresa picked up notes of white chocolate.

Gianluigi feels cool because it’s his 100th distillery!!!

Finally, it’s time to visit the still room, located in a hidden (hence the name of the tour) dedicated building behind Balvenie. They have three triples of stills (with enough space for a fourth, in case of expansion), for a total of nine. Each triplet works as a unit, with one big wash still for the first distillation and two smaller spirit stills for the second one. The cut points are very variable depending on what they are producing, but usually the second distillation takes 10 hours: 1.5 to heat up, 4.5 for heads and tails and 3 for the heart run. Once at the spirit safe (the piece of equipment used to control the cut points of the distillation run), we could try some newmake spirit, at a whooping abv of 70%! A very nice touch!

A hidden still room…

…a beautiful one.

After that, we moved to one of their massive racked warehouses next door, where after a brief, nerdy chat with the warehouse manager George, we tried some drams. Kininvie releases are very rare: the only one we’d tried previously was during an online event in 2020, as part of the Belfast Whisky Week: the KVSM001, a 5yr triple distilled single malt matured in ex-bourbon casks. We had like it back then, so we were now quite excited and curious about the tasting at the distillery. We started with a “single distillery blend”, KVSB003: a vatting of single malt (matured in European oak casks) and single grain (matured in virgin American oak) produced at the same distillery, 4yr and bottled at 48.2% abv. The second one was a component of this blend, the single grain KVSG002: it is actually a rye whisky (although we think it wouldn’t comply with the American definition of “rye whiskey” because the rye part was less than 51% of the mashbill, only 1 ton malted rye vs. 8.6 ton malted barley), matured in virgin American oak, distilled in 2015 and bottled in 2019 at 47.8%. These drams were both quite interesting, but we recently find rye whisky a bit too herbaceous, particularly the ones produced in Scotland and Europe. Nonetheless, we were quite excited because the labels on the bottles provided a great deal of information, a real deal for us whisky nerds!

We then moved to a single malt, a 23yr distilled in 1991 from a combination of hogshead and sherry butts, bottled at 42.6% (a bit weak to our palate, but nicely tropical and balanced). Finally, the gem was the cask sample: a 10-year single malt from a first refill Sherry butt at 68.4% (the cask filling strength was 70.3% abv!!!): it definitely needed water, but once it opened up it was really fantastic!

About to pour something really delicious.

And with this visit, the Spirit of Speyside festival was officially underway, starting with a bang! Like we noted last year, the staff were so happy to show us around, truly a refreshing experience, and so nice to see Paul in his new role! But it was time to move to our second whisky “adventure” of the day, so we quickly left the distillery on foot.

Stay tuned for more on this. Until then, slainte!

Kininvie Hidden Distillery Tour

Price: £60.00 pp (Spirit of Speyside 2024)

Duration: 2hr

Tasting: 5 drams, Kininvie single distillery blended KVSB003 (single grain rye whisky and single malt), single grain rye whisky KVSG002, Kininvie 23y Single malt, cask sample (ex-sherry cask, 10y) and newmake spirit (for details see the descriptions above)

Target: whisky nerds

Value for money: good

Highlights: the still room

Recommended: yes

Link: https://tickets.spiritofspeyside.com/sales/events/2024-festival/kininvie-hidden-distillery-tou

#31.7 Spirit of Speyside 2023

Speyburn uncovered!

TL;DR: Another visit to a (then…) closed-to-public distillery: Speyburn. In 125 years it was open for the first time during the 2023 Spirit of Speyside. A great visit, their own old drum maltings were a highlight, a jump back in time!

(missed Part 6/Part 5/Part 4/Part 3/Part 2/Part 1?)

From Dufftown to Rothes it’s barely a 15-minute drive, so we could take it easy and stop for a coffee and a soup, to warm up in the cold and rainy day. We then soon arrived at the Speyburn parking lot: in spite of being hidden from the main road, we knew exactly where to go, as during one of the many trips to Speyside we drove on the road just in front, from where the distillery could be admired in all its beauty.

Speyburn is not among the most well-known single malts, although it can now count on the presence on some supermarket shelves (the Bradan Orach and the 10y). They are owned by Inver House (which is in turn owned by Thai Bev, guess where they’re from…) together with other four single malt distilleries, two in the Northern Highlands (Pultney and Balblair), another in Speyside (Balmenach) and Knockdhu (producing the AnCnoc whisky) in the Eastern Highlands. We previously only had one bottle of Speyburn, from the Scotch Malt Whisky Society: a 9y old from a refill bourbon. We got it by chance when buying a pack of three bottles during the pandemic, with the Speyburn being the one we were less excited about: it ended up being the best of the trio! Spicy at first, with time in an opened bottle the oxidation played its part, and the whisky mellowed down and became a fruity deliciousness. At this point, it goes without saying we were very curious to know more about Speyburn!

Beautiful despite the clouds.

As we parked, we were warmly welcomed by the distillery manager Euan and the global ambassador Stuart (who we knew from some Aqvavitae’s vPubs), who walked us to the visitor centre to check in. Compared to the other “usually closed to public” distilleries, they seemed to be way more prepared: there was a proper shop (not just a pop-up like at Dailuaine and Mortlach), with bottles and merchandising displayed on the shelves, and also a brand-new bar with big tables, where the tasting would have taken place after the visit inside the production. We’ll come back on this point.

The tour started with some history in the courtyard: the distillery was founded in 1897, and the architect was the famous Charles Doig, who brought the pagoda roofs into the game. This became one of the iconic features of Scotch whisky distilleries, to the extent that distillers in other countries started copying it. It is also on the road signs in Speyside and elsewhere: if you see a white pagoda on a brown background, there must be a distillery close by! The original function was the kiln’s ventilator, as at the time most distilleries were malting their own barley, Speyburn included. A crucial difference, however, early on they installed one of the few on-site drum maltings. They haven’t been used in almost 60 years (after a sudden stop in 1967 following the stop of the near railway the year before), but they are still preserved for nerdy visitors to admire. And in fact, the first part of the tour was dedicated to this unique feature of the distillery.

Time travelling part 1: the malting floor.

Time travelling part 2: the steeping tanks.

Time travelling part 3: the drum maltings.

Euan and Stuart explained us that the place has been made accessible only recently, as testified by the new woodwork to allow people inside: it was like taking a walk in the past. The malting was working on different floors, the top one was where the barley was laid out, steeping tanks at the middle one, while the drums (think of huge tumble driers…kind of) on the ground floor. One thing we found interesting was the completely different story compared to the usual one: smaller on-site drum maltings, and similarly Saladin boxes, were intermediate stages between the two extremes that are usually talked about during distillery visits (and on blogs, etc.), the (highly romanticised) labour intensive and not so efficient malting floor, and the modern highly efficient industrial-scale maltings. So fascinating to see what was in between!

We jumped back to the present, moving to the mill room, and from there through the usual layout of the modern plant: the closed stainless-steel mashtun, and the wooden washbacks, where we could sip a bit of their semi-cloudy 72hr-fermented wash (always an experience). One interesting feature is the combination of both shell-and-tube, of which one is horizontal, and two wormtubs condensers (132m in total). The former condenses liquid from the wash still, while the latter two from the spirit-stills, from which they take a cut between 72 and 64% abv. With only 3 stills they manage to produce about four millions of litres of alcohol per year: they get this incredible volume by working 24/7. There is a catwalk on the wormtubs, which are located outside, where we spent a couple of minutes….we wonder if in Speyside the weather gets warm enough to tempt some people to jump in them.

The still and us, the classic picture.

We soon checked out the warehouse, where a surprise was waiting for us: nope, unfortunately we didn’t sample some casks (we were hopeful, considering the hefty 80 quid tickets), but it was almost as good: we had a sample of their 125^th Anniversary release, a single cask bottling from a 2^nd fill ex-bourbon barrel vintage 2007, similar in style to the one we had but much more balanced, tropical and creamy. A truly delicious dram, probably the best one we tried during the festival.

The warehouse.

The last part of the experience was the tasting of their core range, back at the bar. We had four generous drams of their non-age statement (NAS, but they told us it should be about 7-8y) expression Bradan Orach (40%abv, refill ex-bourbon), the 10y (again kind of introductory, 40%, 90% ex-bourbon and 10% ex-sherry casks, mostly second fill), but finally the two gems: the 15y (ex-bourbon before a 2-3y finish in ex-sherry Miguel Martinez casks) and the 18y (14y in ex-bourbon casks, then 4y in second fill oloroso casks), both 46%, natural colour and not chill-filtered. They were both super tasty: Gianluigi preferred the former, Teresa (as most people on the tour) the latter.

You can’t really tell from this picture how nice the bar is…

At this point you’ll be wondering: wait a minute, if they are only open occasionally, how come they have a bar for tastings and a nice shop? Well, as a matter of fact, before the festival we’ve been told by a birdie that Speyburn might have been preparing to open to visitors permanently. At the Spirit of Speyside 2023 they won the award as “best new experience” and this might have given the company the nudge to open permanently (although, more realistically it was already planned and not depending on the award…). Bottom line is that, good news: starting August 2023 (coincidentally the time of writing), you can visit them and go check their very fascinating old drum maltings for the very reasonable price of £20 (see the link below).

So, overall, it was a great visit (one we’d do again), and as we said earlier, a true deep-dive into the history of whisky production in Speyside. A bit pricey maybe, but at least the tasting was generous (5 healthy drams and a taste of the newmake), unlike some other we visited for the same price.

Guess who was the designated driver…

For the evening we drove first to Aberlour for a chit-chat with Matteo at the Speyside Whisky Shop (from which he just moved on as we are writing), and then to Dufftown where we spent the night. We parked near the Mortlach Hall, which was super quiet. We had dinner at the Commercial Hotel, which has moved the restaurant to the former function hall, together with some tasty Three Ships South-African malts (produced at the James Sedgwick Distillery), very rare to find in Scotland. Not that we were bored of Speyside malts, but it was good to try something different! Slainte!

The Speybirn Distillery Tour (Spirit of Speyside)

Price: £80.00 pp (April 2023, but now – August 2023 – they’re open to the public and it’s £20.00)

Duration: 2hr

Tasting: 5 drams, Speyburn 125^th Anniversary (vintage 2007, 15y, refill ex-bourbon barrel, 62.6%, NC, NCF), Bradan Orach (40%), 10y (40%), 15y (46%, NC, NCF) and 18y (46%, NC, NCF)

Target: whisky enthusiasts

Value for money: not great

Highlights: the old drum malting equipment

Recommended: better than others, but still hard to justify at this price

Links: https://www.speyburn.com/, https://www.spiritofspeyside.com/

#31.5 Spirit of Speyside 2023

To Forres and back to Rothes: Benromach & Forsyths

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

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

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

You could say we needed more coffee.

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

A cute distillery…

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

…with a sizeable warehouse.

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

The wee tasting at the end.

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

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

The hard job of judging whiskies.

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

Gianluigi meets a condenser (we think)…

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

…and almost complete ones.

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

That’s Scotland in spring for you.

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

The Benromach Distillery Tour (Spirit of Speyside)

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

Duration: 1hr

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

Target: whisky curious and tourists

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

Highlights: the manual settings

Recommended: yes!

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