#38.1 Warming up for the Highlands, in Speyside

The Ballindalloch Distillery

TL; DR: On our way to the Northern Highlands, we couldn’t help but stop in Speyside for a couple of visits. First off, a distillery we’d driven past several times but yet to visit: Ballindalloch. Bonus, when we visited they’d just released their first few bottlings!

Important things first: happy New Year! We hope you are well rested after the Christmas and New Year holidays, and had plenty of good drams. We absolutely did – our (Italian) Christmas dram was a very tasty Glen Moray 18y (47.3%) grabbed at the airport, while as a last dram of 2023 and first dram of 2024 we chose the delicious Kilchoman 100% Islay 10^th Edition (bottled in 2020, 50%). We are looking forward to another year of tasty drams to share with you, lovely lot!

Back to 2023, one of our last whisky trips was in early November, with the mighty Edinburgh Whisky Group, organised by the mightier Justine from Kask Whisky. After the Campbeltown Jolly (2021) and the Speycation (2022), it was time for the Highlands: Who Wants to Dram Forever? “Highlands” is quite a broad whisky region (both in terms of area and flavour), we chose the North, and we were based in Dornoch. Of course, to get there you need to take the A9 (unless you go for some insane detour), and the A9 does run kind of close to Speyside as well…so why not doing a quick detour on the way there?

A long drive to Ballindalloch, but here we are!

And it goes without saying, we detoured indeedy. We decided to visit two distilleries, both quite new, starting with Ballindalloch. We’d driven past the this distillery many many times during our multiple Speyside holidays, and once we even stopped for lunch at the cafe just behind it. The distillery was founded in 2014 by the Macpherson-Grant family, who owns the entire estate with the castle (where they’ve been living since 1546!), pastures and barley fields. Before becoming a distillery in 2011, the building was a run-down farm originally built in 1848.

At the time of our visit, they offered various tours (now they changed a bit), but the only one available on the day we’d be there (Thursday) was quite pricey (£75pp), as it included old drams from Cragganmore casks (a distillery to which the family is linked). We asked if we could do the simpler (and cheaper, £20pp) tour they were offering on Wednesdays (now it is offered most days), which included a taste of their two distillery-exclusive single malts. To our big surprise they agreed, in our experience (not only in visiting distilleries), this kind of flexibility has been rarely seen: kudos to them! Just FYI, on Thursdays they also offer an in-depth all-day experience for £275, learning from the manager and the staff.

How an old steading can become a beautiful distillery.

The trip there was uneventful, under a grey sky, and fortunately we didn’t find any road closures due to rain along our route. At the distillery, we were welcomed by Evan, who later told us he was already working for the family but in their fishing range and had very recently switched to the distillery for the off-season. Being in an old stead building, the distillery follows a square layout: the side of the visitor centre entrance is occupied by a lounge (where the tasting took place) and offices, while the remainder is mostly for production.

After a brief introduction, we moved to the milling room, equipped with a modern mill. They process about 1 ton of malted barley every day, which after milling is moved to their semi-lauter mashtun, where one mash is done every day from Monday to Friday.

Every piece of equipment is clearly sized to fit into the building: as the latter is a listed building (and thus can’t be reshaped or expanded) and because of the barley provenance, expansion beyond their current production (100,000 litres of alcohol per year) is not under consideration. As a matter of fact, the barley comes from the family estate, which produces about 350 ton/year, just over their requirement for whisky production (a bit over 300), and it is sent away for malting (the only stage not happening at the distillery).

Gianluigi nosing the wash, a tradition 🙂

We kept walking along the buildings, and next we found the four wooden (Oregon pine) washbacks, where fermentation lasts between 92 or 140 hours (fermention over the weekend is longer, of course). Next, right in the corner, the two stills, a 5,000-litre wash-still and a 3,600-litre spirit still, connected to two wormtubs located outside the building, each one with 70m of copper tubes inside. From the second distillation, they take a cut between 75% and 68% abv. They cask everything on site, and the casks are stored in a warehouse in the courtyard. Surprisingly, their (wee) bottling line is on site too!

Creativity at play when space is limited.

Finally, we went back to the lounge/tasting room for our drams. We were lucky as they’d released they first single malts just a few months before, and we could try their second batch of distillery exclusives: both cask strength and single cask, one matured in an ex-bourbon barrel and the other in an ex-sherry butt. They are both approximately 7.5 years of age (see below for more details) and very tasty for their age, not too sweet and with the robust and thick spirit character clearly coming through.

At the shop, they also had their first small batch bottling, called Seven Springs Collection, Edition #1: a vatting of five ex-bourbon casks (1203 bottles in total, cask strength at 60.2%abv). Evan kindly gave us a sip, tasty but a bit up in price (£150.00).

You can guess who’s had drams and who’s driving.

Overall we really liked this distillery. It looks like they paced themselves and took their time to do things, including releasing their first whisky, which was indeed more robust and tastier compared to others from fairly new distilleries. Yes, their bottlings are pricey, but considering the scale of their operation it kind of makes sense…? Hopefully we’ll see a widely available and better priced expression soon.

Ballindalloch Short Tour and Drams

Price: £20.00 pp (November 2023)

Duration: 45min-1hr

Tasting: 2 drams of their new distillery exclusive bottlings

Distillery Exclusives: Single Malt Distillery Exclusive ex-Bourbon barrel (distilled 21/1/2016, bottled 28/8/2023, cask 29/2015, 62.3%abv) and ex-Sherry butt (distilled 3/12/2015, bottled 28/8/2023, cask 600/2015, 62.3%abv), both 50cl at £89.00

Target: everyone

Value for money: very good

Highlights: the distillery layout and building

Recommended: yes

Link: https://www.ballindallochdistillery .com/

#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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

#36 The Stirling Distillery

Distilling underneath the castle

TL; DR: Very gloomy Sunday afternoon, we decided for a last-minute distillery visit not far from Edinburgh: the Stirling Distillery. Very close to the Stirling Castle, they distilled only gin until very recently, when they added malt whisky (well, newmake spirit for now) to their portfolio.

Most of our trips (in particularly whisky trips) are carefully planned in advance, mainly because of the popularity of distillery visits nowadays. Of course, we don’t want to risk travelling to a distillery and being told they’re fully booked, it happened once during a non-whisky trip and it was disappointing. Careful planning also helps because Scotland is not the easiest country to travel, with ferries, single track roads, etc…And before we got Mr Vantastic, finding reasonably priced last-minute accommodation was always a challenge.

Sometimes though, we can still sneak in a last-minute whisky trip, and this was the case of today’s story. On a Sunday at the end of October we’d planned to take the van and go somewhere for a walk. However, as usual when we plan outdoor activities, the weather was dire: dark, gloomy, rainy (we should probably just buy waterproof walking gear at this point…). So, instead, we went to a new whisky distillery: the Stirling Distillery!

When the rain brings you to a distillery…

This is one of the newest whisky distilleries in Scotland, and as the name reveals, it’s in Stirling, on the same hill that leads to the magnificent Stirling Castle (one of the most interesting to visit, and where Kings of Scotland stayed until the end of 1500s). Unlike many others, the distillery has not been talked much about in the whisky world, it’s not even mentioned in the very comprehensive Malt Whisky Yearbook 2024, despite the notable feature of starting distilling whisky in the town of Stirling for the first time after more than 170 years. We can think of two possible reasons for this: first, it’s tiny, definitely a craft operation (see later for more details). Second, and more importantly, owners June and Cameron conceived it as a gin distillery in the first place, all the way back in 2015, with the aim to “reflect the Stirlingshire countryside” in their gin, and only very recently they moved to new make spirit.

So there we are, under a dire weather, after an almost-hour drive from Leith. The stone building is very beautiful, we will soon find out that it was called “the Old Smiddy”. Built in 1888, funnily enough it used to be a church temperance hall and a blacksmith. The distillery moved there in 2018, although they also have a warehouse and gin production in the Stirling outskirts. They have two experiences, one dedicated to gin and one to whisky, with the latter being very new as whisky production had only started 2-3 weeks before our visit. They also offer a gin school for £90 (or for £140 for the couple, quite unusual to find such discounts in the Scottish whisky landscape).

The building is very beautiful inside too, with low lights creating a very peaceful atmosphere. On the right side there is the shop, and on the left the bar, offering a variety of beverages (including soft drinks). There is also a mezzanine where we didn’t go, it looked like an office/warehouse space. The guide for the day, Kiran, told us he was mostly into gin and cocktails, and that was one of his first whisky tastings. When all visitors had checked in, we started the tasting, which included four single malts from their independently bottled range called Sons of Scotland (all non-chill filtered, not artificially coloured and bottled at 50%).

The expressions we (well, Teresa) tried are named after historical distilleries near Stirling. The first (*) was the Cambusbarron (batch 3), a 3y Lowlands whisky (vintage 2020) matured in a combination of ex-bourbon and ex-sherry casks. The second dram was the Arngibbon (batch 4), an 8y Speysider (vintage 2015) matured in ex-bourbon casks. Then we tried the Stoneywood 9y, an Orkney whisky (vintage 2014, we still wonder which distillery this was from), finished or fully matured (we didn’t get it) in ex-white wine casks (batch 3). Finally, we tried a previous batch of the Arngibbon (batch 3), a 14y Speysider matured in ex-bourbon and ex-sherry hogsheads (vintage 2008). Overall a nice string of drams, with the Orkney one being definitely the most interesting.

After the tasting, Kiran showed us the whisky production, which is entirely happening in a separate part of the building, all in the same relatively small room! They buy malted barley grist (pre-milled), which they mash on site stirring by hand. Then they move it into two fermentation vessels, where it ferments for 4 days (96 hours approximately, they use distiller’s yeast). They finally distill it twice in the same 170-litre copper pot still, a very beautiful Portuguese still, named Flora after June’s mother. The spirit comes out at 70%abv, and it is first put into plastic jugs, only later transferred in casks at the warehouse for maturing.

At the time they were producing the newmake to fill the casks for their King James Collection: six casks of different type (bourbon, sherry, rum, etc.) which will be released biannually starting in 2027. They also have a cask sale programme, from 55-litre Firkin to 250-litre hogsheads. They aim for a production of 10,000 litres of alcohol per year, which would put them as the smallest distillery in Scotland (currently the smallest are Dornoch and Moffat, with 12,000 litres each).

Some distilleries we visited started gin production as a way to get quick cash (for example Borders, Cotswolds and Holyrood), but they knew from the beginning they mainly wanted to do whisky. Stirling (and others like In the Welsh Wind or Deerness) on the other hand, started with gin, and decided to add whisky along the way. This is definitely reflected in Stirling distillery’s size and equipment, which makes them a truly craft operation. As we couldn’t try their newmake spirit, we cannot really say much more at this stage, but this left us very curious for the future. Hopefully we’ll come back to try it, or try their single malt too.

Until next time, slainte!

Stirling Distillery Whisky Experience

Price: £25.00 pp (October 2023, £12.00 for drivers + £1.85 fee)

Duration: 1hr

Tasting: four drams from their Sons of Scotland independent bottler range, depending on availability (see * for description)

Target: everyone

Value for money: ok

Highlights: the bar and the distilling “shed”

Recommended: if you’re visiting Stirling and have some spare time, definitely, otherwise we’d suggest waiting for their single malt

Link: https://stirlingdistillery.com/