Have just tried (Speyside edition) ... Craigellachie 1991 'Connoisseur's Choice' from Gordon & MacPhail

Craigellachie is located in the heart of the Speyside whisky region in Scotland. It can be found on the edge of the village of the same name and sits at the point where the River Spey and River Fiddich join. Craigellachie was founded in 1891 by Alexander Edward and Peter Mackie, and they commissioned the reknowned architect Charles Doig to design and construct it. The most famous feature of his design at the distillery are the huge floor to ceiling windows of the stillroom. Problems with the construction and cashflow meant that the distillery did not start production until 1898.

Peter Mackie started his own company, Mackie & Company Distillers, and they took sole charge of Craigellachie in 1916. In 1924 the company name was changed to White Horse Distillers following Mackie’s death. White Horse later became part of the large Distillers Company Limited group, although the name remains as one of the best selling blended whiskies in the world. The current owners are John Dewar’s & Sons, who in turn are part of the Bacardi Group. They use much of the 3.5 million litres of spirit produced at Craigellachie each year in their popular range of Dewar’s blended whiskies. As a result, only a tiny percentage is released as single malt and even this (a 14 years old) is rare.

This Craigellachie is released by the Elgin based independent bottling company Gordon & MacPhail. The best way to find single malts from little known distilleries, such as Craigellachie, is through the numerous independent bottlers. Having said that, Craigellachie still remains hard to find. This bottling is a current release and can be found in specialist whisky retailers and Gordon & MacPhail’s website and should cost roughly £35 a bottle.

This bottling of Craigellachie has been matured in bourbon casks and the colour is golden yellow. The nose is sweet and grainy with lots of malted barley and vanilla present. There is also some fruit (think of sultanas especially), toffee, some toasted nuts (imagine almonds) and a hint of dried grass or hay. It is an intriguing and pleasant nose that makes you want to sit a continue taking in the aromas. On the palate, this feels rich and creamy with the vanilla, toffee and toasted nut elements particularly prominent. These are joined some sweetness - the fruit and grains from the nose - some honey, some dry woody spice (imagine cinnamon bark) and a slightly odd hint of menthol eucalyptus and that dried grassy note. The finish is fairly short with the sweetness turning drier and woodier towards the end. This is a lovely whisky that is rich, sweet and spicy but with that interesting menthol-like twist. It should be tried to if the opportunity arises and offers very good value for money, especially when considering that it is an 18 years old single malt from a little known distillery. A lovely dram.

Distillery visit - Benriach

Benriach distillery is located to the south of the city of Elgin in the Speyside whisky region. The distillery was founded in 1897 by John Duff & Co, who had already built the Longmorn distillery on a neighbouring plot of land in 1894. The original name was the slightly unimaginative Longmorn 2, before this was changed to Benriach in 1899.

Benriach had a very short early history – it was closed and mothballed in 1903 and not reopened until 1965, when it was bought and restarted by the Glenlivet Distillers Ltd. It was closed and mothballed again in 2002 by the owners at the time, Pernod Ricard. In 2004, an independent group named Benriach Distillery Company took over the distillery and the maturing stock. This group was headed by Billy Walker, a former director of Burn Stewart Distillers, and this makes Benriach one of the few distilleries in Scotland that are independently owned.

On our recent trip to Speyside we were lucky enough to have a personal tour around Benriach with the distillery manager, Stuart Buchanan. Benriach is not open to the public so this was to be a tour with a difference! We thank Stuart for his fantastic hospitality and Peter Semple of The Whisky Shop for arranging the tour for us. We had a great day.

The day was rainy and we arrived at Benriach slightly windswept. We knew that the distillery was not open to the public but did not expect to have to help the taxi driver with directions from Elgin (which is three miles away!). When we arrived Stuart was working in the warehouse preparing some casks to be sent for bottling and once we had located him and he had finished, our tour began. These moments of wandering around outside on our own made us realise just how few people actually work at a distillery. We only saw two more people there, other than Stuart, and we later found out that Benriach is designed so that all the processes (from start to finish) can be operated by just one person.

The tour begins in the milling room where Stuart explains to us the milling process and the importance of having the correct final grist. The grist is made up of three parts – the husks, the centres and the flour. Each part contains soluble sugars that are useful in the mashing process. The husks break up the grist and supply drainage, the main sugar content is in the centres and the flour provides further sugars. If there is too little husk then the mash will not drain properly and if there is too much flour then the grist will stick together like dough when mixed with water. Each distillery has its own specification for the grading of its grist but on average the split is around 20% husks, 70% centres and 10% flour.

Stuart continued by explaining the mashing process and we got to see the latest run of the mash tun in action. Benriach has one mash tun. We tasted the mash and it was sweet, malty and slightly syrupy, reminiscent of a malt extract drink. He explained that during the mashing process they mix the grist with water at different temperatures in order to extract the most soluble sugars possible. This is done by adding warm water to the grist and then draining the resulting solution off, before adding more water at a higher temperature and repeating the process. Most distilleries do this three times and on average the water temperature for each stage is 65, 75 and 85 degrees Celsius. Benriach do an additional fourth run of water that is just over 90 degrees.

We moved on to the washbacks and witness the fermentation at various stages of the cycle. Benriach has eight stainless steel washbacks and we the opportunity to taste the newly fermented liquid, which is called wash and has an approximate alcoholic strength of 8% ABV. If you ever get the chance to do this, then just take a sip as the wash is rumoured to have severe laxative qualities if drunk in any quantity! It tasted sweet, malty and reminiscent of a heavy ale or beer.

The stillroom at Benriach houses two wash stills and two spirit stills and these produce 2.8 million litres of spirit a year. Stuart explained the workings of the stills and also told us that they produce the peaty version of Benriach for one month a year. This is normally in January and it then takes them over a week to clean all the equipment thoroughly, from the mill to the spirit safe, to clear the system of the residual peatiness. The stills are very much onion shaped and the lyne arms run through the wall to the outside, where the alcohol vapours return to their liquid form with the help of condensers that are supplied with cold water from the local river. The water is heated by the hot vapours and this water is then cooled and returned to the same river under Environment Agency guidelines.

Stuart then showed us the spirit safe, which is located at the far end of the stillroom. The spirit safe is the piece of equipment that measures the different parts of the distillate as it comes off the stills and helps the stillman determine when to start collecting the 'heart' (the part of the distillate that is matured to become whisky). The spirit safe is kept padlocked with only the distillery manager and a Customs & Excise man having the key. This is done by law and was started to stop people stealing the spirit. As can be seen on the adjacent image, the spirit is clear when it comes off the stills. It has an approximate alcoholic strength of 65% ABV at this stage and is then collected in a huge tank, where it waits to filled into casks.

After viewing the cask filling room and trying some of the new make spirit (this is fresh and full of sweet grains, crisp green fruit - especially pears and apples - and just a hint of warm spice), we are taken to one of the warehouses. Here, Stuart shows us around and explains that Benriach warehouses have the perfect conditions for maturing whisky - thick stone walls, earth floors and low ceilings. He also told us about the cask colour coding system (this can be seen in the adjoining image). This system is used in a similar way across the whisky industry. At Benriach they paint the ends of the casks with different colours to indicate what type it is - green indicates a cask that is on its first filling, blue is for a second fill cask, maroon/red for a third fill and white for 3+ fills. If a cask is left unpainted, then this shows that the whisky is maturing in a wine cask with the type of wine written on it. We did not know about this coding and it was one of the many things that we learnt in our three hours in the company of Stuart Buchanan.

We sampled a number of whiskies directly from the cask including two that were to be bottled the next day for release in mid November (both 18 years old - one finished in a Moscatel wine cask and one in a Barolo red wine cask) and a couple from Stuart's favourite casks in the warehouse. This sampling in the warehouse was a fantastic experience, as was tasting the 'whisky' at every stage from the grains through to the new make. We have never had the chance to do that before. In the warehouse, it was evident that Stuart was passionate about and proud of his whiskies.

It is a shame that all distillery tours can not be like this one, but of cause the distillery tours for the public could never be this detailed or personal. If you ever get the chance to do a similar tour at a distillery such as Benriach, then grab it. You see the reality of life in a distillery, worts and all. We moved on finally to the Benriach boardroom. This exhibits all their single malts along one wall and after more chat with Stuart and a couple more quality drams, we staggered off in to the dark rainy evening to try and find our cab, who incidentally had managed to get lost just as the first one had done!

Have just tried (Speyside edition) ... Glentauchers 1991 from Gordon & MacPhail

Glentauchers (pronounced glen-tock-us) is one of Scotland’s least known distilleries. It is located in the village of Glentauchers, which is close to the Speyside town of Keith. The distillery was founded in 1897 by two Glasgow whisky merchants – James Buchanan and W. P. Lowrie – who wanted to start there own blending business. Buchanan’s Black & White, one of their original blended whiskies, is still on the market today and continues to use the well known logo of one black and one white dog that Buchanan designed himself . The current owners are Chivas Brothers, who are part of the larger Pernod Ricard group.

Despite the anonymity of Glentauchers, it is actually quite a large distillery with an annual production capacity of 4.5 million litres. Nearly all of this whisky is assigned to the blending market and Glentauchers whisky contributes to some world famous blends such as the Chivas Regal range and Ballantine’s. As a result, there is little left to be released as a single malt and Glentauchers is pretty much non existent. The only way to sample it is through the independent bottling companies and even these are scarce.

On our recent trip to Speyside, we saw a bottle behind the bar of the Mash Tun pub in Aberlour and we just had to try this rare whisky. This single malt is released by the independent bottler Gordon & MacPhail, who are based in the city of Elgin. This forms part of their regular range and remains one of the only consistent sources of Glentauchers on the market. A bottle should cost around £30-35 and will be found in selected whisky retailers or on Gordon & MacPhail’s website.

This Glentauchers 1991 is bottled by Gordon & MacPhail at 18 years of age and is brown amber in colour. The nose is aromatic with plenty of sherry cask influence - dried fruits (think of raisins, sultanas and prunes), hints of spice (especially cinnamon) and burnt sugar/caramel. There is also some sweet malty cereal grains and a hint of grassiness (imagine dried grasses or hay). On the palate, this is rich, soft and smooth with the sherry cask characteristics (the dried fruits, spice and caramel again) combining with some vanilla, sweet cereals, a distinct and slightly bitter nutty note (think of something like walnuts) and just the hint of some dark chocolate or cocoa. The combination is lovely and complex and makes you wonder why more of this whisky is not made available. The finish is again rich with the sweetness from the malted barley and the sherry balanced by the slightly bitter grassy, nutty and chocolate elements.

This is an very pleasant and intriguing dram that surprised us with its complexity and quality. It offers extremely good value for money also, when you consider that you are buying an 18 years old whisky from a rare distillery for £30-35. We are definitely glad that we tasted this whisky from a distillery that we had never tried before.

Have just tried (Speyside edition) ... Tomatin 15 & 18 years old

Tomatin is a whisky distillery that is located to the south of Inverness, the capital of the Highlands. OK technically, it is a Highland whisky but we were in Inverness on our recent trip and had the chance to try some. Tomatin was founded as the Tomatin Spey distillery in 1897 by a group of Inverness businessman. It was renamed as Tomatin in 1909, after a nearby village, and the distillery enjoyed a highly successful period. This was especially true in a period between the mid 1950s and the mid 1970s, when Tomatin was expanded on numerous occasions to finish in 1974 with 23 stills and a massive production capacity of 12 million litres per year.

This success made Tomatin Scotland's largest distillery, ahead of Glenfiddich. The success couldn't be sustained and it went into liquidation in the mid 1980s. In 1986, Tomatin was bought and production restarted by two Japanese companies - Takara Shuzo and Okuru & Co. Ltd. This made it the first Scottish whisky distillery to be owned by the Japanese. Both companies are now part of the larger Marubeni Europe plc.

Tomatin is little known despite still being one of Scotland's largest with an annual production capacity of just over five million litres. The distillery has been downsized with 11 of the stills removed in 2002. The reason for this is that the majority of the spirit produced at Tomatin is used by blenders to create numerous blended whiskies, including the well reknowned Antiquary. This leaves little to be to be released as single malts. The current owners have just expanded the core range by adding this 15 years old and this new version of the 18 years old to the 12 and 25 years old. These are occasionally joined by limited edition bottlings and Tomatin is also popular with the independent bottling companies.

Tomatin 15 years old
This new addition to the core range from the Tomatin distillery is matured in ex-bourbon casks. The colour is golden and the nose is pleasant and full of the classic bourbon cask characteristics - vanilla, oak, toffee, cereal grains and a touch of warm spice (think of ginger). On the palate, this has a lovely softness and a buttery quality. The vanilla and oaky woodiness are particularly prominent with the toffee, sweet cereals and spice coming through well. There is also a nutty element (imagine a creamy type of nut like hazelnut). The finish has a delicate feel and is sweet and malty. This is a lovely dram that is quite straight forward but very enjoyable. £35-40 a bottle.

Tomatin 18 years old
This is a new version that replaces the old 18 years old in the Tomatin single malt range. The difference is that this new 18 years old has had some part maturation in sherry casks. The evidence of this can be seen and noted in the colour (golden amber) and on the nose, which combines sweet vanilla and malty cereal grains with a hint of soft dried fruit (think of sultanas and raisins) and spice (imagine nutmeg). On the palate, this has a sumptuous velvety feeling and is viscous in the mouth. There is a lovely mix of elements - honey, vanilla, toffee, dried fruits (especially sultanas and a touch of candied orange peel), malt, cereal grains and maybe just a whiff of smoke (imagine a sulphury type like coal smoke). The finish is rich, fruity and malty. A well balanced and very good dram that has more complexity than the 15 years old. £45-50 a bottle (pictured above at the beginning of the post).

We tried both of these whiskies in the Inverness branch of The Whisky Shop, the UK's biggest chain of whisky stores. Our thanks to Scott and Neil for the opportunity to sample them.

The Whisky Shop, Inverness

The Whisky Shop is the UK's largest specialist whisky retailing chain. The company currently has 14 stores in Scotland and England. The Scottish stores are located in Callander, Fort William, Glasgow, Inverness, Oban and three in Edinburgh, including the newest store at the new Ocean Terminal centre. The stores in England can be found in London, Norwich, Oxford, York and the Lakeside and Metro shopping centres. The Whisky Shop also has most of its stock available for online ordering and worldwide shipping. For more details, take a look at www.whiskyshop.com. We visited the chain's Inverness branch on our recent visit to the Speyside region in Scotland.

The Whisky Shop was founded in 1992 with the first store opening in Edinburgh. The number of stores grew in Scotland until the group was purchased in 2004 by Ian Bankier, a top corporate lawyer and former Managing Director of Burn Stewart Distillers who own the Bunnahabhain, Deanston and Tobermory distilleries. He saw the opportunity to consolidate the stores in Scotland and expand The Whisky Shop chain south of the border. There are now six shops located in England.

The Whisky Shop chain currently stocks over 700 whiskies across the company, including 450 different single malts and one of the widest selections of miniatures available. They also bottle their own range of whiskies named Glenkeir Treasures. These come in two forms. The first is the cask strength single cask limited edition releases that have been selected and purchased from distilleries, some of which have been closed or mothballed. The second form is bottled in the stores by the staff. The whiskies are bought from the distilleries and then put in to temporary casks in each of the stops. The Glenkeir Treasures sit at the centre of The Whisky Shop's range and offer something different for new whisky drinkers and connoisseurs alike.

The Whisky Shop in Inverness is a great shop that offers almost 500 different whiskies to choose from. We were looked after by Scott and Neil and sampled a couple of new whiskies from the local area - the Tomatin 15 and 18 years old - we will be reviewed shortly. The shop also stock all manner of other whisky and Scottish related items such as hipflasks, quaichs, shortbread, confectionary, sweets, books, maps, glassware and other souvenirs. The shop is located in Bridge Street, very close to the River Ness, and is definitely worth a visit if you are in the capital of the Highlands or nearby in the Speyside region.

Have just tried (Speyside edition) ... Birnie Moss

Birnie Moss is a single malt whisky that is released by the Benriach distillery. Benriach is an innovative distillery based in the central Speyside region, to the south of the city of Elgin. It is one of Scotland's few independently owned whisky distilleries having been taken over by the Benriach Distillery Company in 2004. They have also acquired Glendronach, another Speyside distillery, in 2008. Benriach distillery was originally founded in 1897 and has a current production capacity of 2.5 million litres per year.

Benriach release a traditional Speyside style core range that are predominantly matured in ex-bourbon casks. However, they also release another ever expanding range of whiskies that are finished in different wine casks or are made with peated malt or, in some cases, both. These two practices, especially using peated malt, are unusual for a Speyside distillery. Other Speyside or Highland distilleries are starting to produce smoky whisky but Benriach's previous owners had the foresight to start doing this in the mid 1970s and now the Benriach Distillery Company are continuing the tradition. They distil peaty spirit for roughly one month of the year and then switch production to their regular non peated spirit.

Birnie Moss is part of this peaty tradition and represents the first peated whisky that has been produced and released by the Benriach Distillery Company. They release other peaty whiskies, namely the Curiositas 10 years old, the Authenticas 21 years old and the wine cask finished range, but these are all made up from old stock that they discovered in the warehouse when they took over. Birnie Moss was first released this Summer and is approximately four years of age, has a peating level of 35ppm (phenols per million, the scale for measuring the amount of peat absorbed into malted barley) and is bottled at 48% ABV. A bottle should cost £27-30 from specialist whisky retailers.

The colour is very pale and straw-like. The nose is potent with an initial hit of pungent sweet peat smoke (think of damp moss and earth) and then vanilla, some citrus (imagine lemon zest) and crisp fresh green fruit (pears, apples and perhaps a hint of melon). On the palate, the young alcohol is quite prickly although this soon dies away with the smoke becoming the predominant feature. The whisky feels light, spicy and vibrant - the smokiness seems a bit more like coal smoke here, rather than earthy or mossy. Through this smoke other elements battle to get noticed - that lovely vanilla is there again, as is the citrus and green fruits. There is also a distinct sweet malty cereal note and some more fruit, although this is more tropical in nature and is reminiscent of dried mango or apricot. The finish is sweet, smoky and a touch fiery (think of the heat from a red chilli). The addition of water tames the young alcohol and flattens the smokiness a little. This allows more sweet vanilla, cereals and fruit notes to come through. A decent dram that shows much potential while not being the finished article. Worth a try but it will be interesting to see how subsequent older versions of Birnie Moss will mature.