WhiskyCast Episode 129: January 27, 2008

Dallas Dhu 1970 / 37 Year old

Just 109 bot­tles of this: a refill hog­gie from the silent dis­tillery Dal­las Dhu (which was closed in 1983 and is now a dis­tillery museum).

Bruichladdich 18 Year old

A new addi­tion to the Bruich­lad­dich core range, this has been matured for eigh­teen years in Bour­bon casks and then in Willi Opitz Trocken Beeren Auslese (very sweet) red pinot wine casks.

WhiskyCast Episode 128: January 20, 2008

Cragganmore Distillery

Crag­gan­more dis­tillery was founded in 1869 by John Smith. It is sit­u­ated in the vil­lage of Ballindaloch in Banff­shire in Scot­land. The site was cho­sen by Smith both for its prox­im­ity to the waters of the Crag­gan burn and because it was close to the Strath­spey Rail­way. Smith was an expe­ri­enced dis­tiller, hav­ing already been man­ager of the Macallan, Glen­livet, Glen­far­clas and Wishaw distilleries.

The Strath­spey Rail­way is now dis­used and forms the Spey­side Way long-distance walk­ing route.

Crag­gan­more dis­tillery is on the offi­cial Scotland’s Malt Whisky Trail which cov­ers eight Spey­side dis­til­leries and the Spey­side Cooperage.

Crag­gan­more is mar­keted by United Dis­tillers under their Clas­sic Malts brand.

The Whisky

The stan­dard 12 year old bot­tling has a dull gold colour. The nose is rightly famous as being one of the most com­plex of any single malt. There are sweet flo­ral fra­grances with a firm body and malty taste, a long fin­ish with del­i­cate aro­mas and light smoke. The 14 year old Distiller’s Edi­tion is dou­ble matured in port casks which gives the whisky sweeter nose, with hints of spices on the palate.

The stills used in the sec­ond dis­til­la­tion (the spirit still) of Crag­gan­more whisky are unique in hav­ing a flat top and being rel­a­tively short. The stills’ shape has a def­i­nite effect on the taste and aroma (nose) of the whisky.

Andrew Cormie is the cur­rent mas­ter distiller.

Cardhu Distillery

Cardhu is a Spey­side dis­tillery founded by the whisky smug­gler John Cum­ming in 1824. The dis­tillery is cur­rently run by Dia­geo and the distillery’s whisky makes up an impor­tant part of the famous John­nie Walker blended whiskies.

His­tory

The dis­tillery was set up by John Cum­ming, who had pre­vi­ously been whisky smug­gler, in 1824. The dis­tillery was sited high up on Man­noch Hill, above the River_Spey due to the peat soft­en­ing the water. The dis­tillery started as farm dis­tillery work­ing on a sea­sonal basis after the har­vest had been gath­ered. The dis­tillery was mainly run by his wife, Helen Cum­ming, who used to sell bot­tles of whisky to passers by through the win­dow of their farmhouse.

In 1885 the dis­tillery was rebuilt on a new piece of land but con­tin­ued to stay in the hands of the Cum­mings being run by Eliz­a­beth Cum­ming the daugh­ter in law of Helen Cum­ming. The stills from the old dis­tillery build­ing were sold to William Grant who set up Glen­fid­dich dis­tillery. The new build­ing and stills meant that Cardhu could pro­duce triple the amount of whisky it had pre­vi­ously pro­duced. These higher pro­duc­tion lev­els lead to John­nie Walker and Sons buy­ing much of Cardhu’s out­put to put into their increas­ingly pop­u­lar blend.

In 1893 Eliz­a­beth Cum­ming sold the dis­tillery to John­nie Walker and Sons on the con­di­tion that the Cum­ming fam­ily could con­tinue the day to day run­ning of the dis­tillery. Cardhu dis­tillery kept work­ing under these con­di­tions until the onset of the Sec­ond World War when wartime restric­tions meant that it was harder to use bar­ley for dis­till­ing purposes.

In 1960 the distillery’s still-house, mash-house and tun-room were rebuilt and in 1970 steam coils were intro­duced to heat the stills and the num­ber of stills were increased to six. Spring water from Man­noch Hill started to be mixed with water from the local Lynne burn to sup­ply the increased pro­duc­tion of the distillery.

In Decem­ber 2003 Cardhu caused con­tro­versy by halt­ing the pro­duc­tion of their single malt and replac­ing it with a vat­ted malt which they called a pure malt in order to keep up with the ever increas­ing demand for the whisky for use in John­nie Walker blended whiskies. How­ever in 2006 Cardhu recom­menced pro­duc­ing a single malt as the sales of Cardhu single malt dropped sub­stan­tially due to the change.

Benromach Distillery

Ben­ro­mach is a Spey­side dis­tillery founded by Dun­can McCal­lum and F.W. Brick­man in 1898 and cur­rently owned and run by Gor­don and Macphail of Elgin. It is sit­u­ated near For­res in Morayshire and is fed with spring water from the Chapel­ton Springs in the Romach Hills beside Forres.

His­tory

Dun­can Mac­Cal­lum and F.W. Brick­mann founded the Ben­ro­mach Dis­tillery Com­pany in 1898. Dun­can Mac­Cal­lum had pre­vi­ously been work­ing at the Glen Nevis Dis­tillery in Camp­bel­town and FW Brick­mann was a spirit bro­ker in Leith, Edin­burgh. Con­struc­tion work started at the sight of Ben­ro­mach Dis­tillery in 1898 how­ever due to the depres­sion in the Scotch Whisky indus­try in 1898 the dis­tillery did not start pro­duc­ing whisky until 1900 but closed the same year due to a lack of money.

In 1911 Ben­ro­mach was acquired by the Lon­don based Har­vey McNair & Co who con­tin­ued dis­till­ing until the onset of the First World War. After the war Ben­ro­mach was acquired by Ben­ro­mach Dis­tillery Ltd and was run by this new pri­vate com­pany until 1925. In 1938 Ben­ro­mach was acquired by Asso­ci­ated Scot­tish Dis­til­leries Ltd which later became a part of Scot­tish Malt Dis­tillers Ltd. Between 1966 and 1974 the dis­tillery was mod­ernised and con­tin­ued to run until 1983 when the dis­tillery was offi­cially closed.

In 1993 Gor­don and Macphail took over the site and in 1997 they started to restore the dis­tillery to a work­ing order. The design of the dis­tillery was changed slightly to allow it to be oper­ated by one man. Finally in 1998 the dis­tillery was offi­cially reopened by Charles, Prince of Wales and bot­tling of the new malt started in 2004.

Balvenie Distillery

In early 1892 work began to con­vert an 18^th cen­tury man­sion (Bal­ve­nie New House) into a dis­tillery. The build­ing took fif­teen months to com­plete and on 1^st May 1893, the first dis­til­la­tion took place at The Bal­ve­nie Distillery.

William Grant

William Grant founded Bal­ve­nie whisky in 1889.

William Grant was born on 19 Decem­ber 1839 in his father’s house in Dufftown. At seven he was sent to aug­ment the fam­ily income by herd­ing cat­tle at a farm on the upper reaches of the River Deveron. Appren­ticed to a shoe­maker and after a spell as a clerk, William took a job in 1866 as a book-keeper at Mort­lach dis­tillery. Imme­di­ately he set about learn­ing the art of dis­till­ing and in a short time he was appointed clerk and manager.

After almost twenty years of learn­ing the art of dis­till­ing, William Grant resigned from his job at the Mort­lach dis­tillery and bought a field beneath the tow­er­ing shadow of The Bal­ve­nie Cas­tle. He then drew up plans for his dis­tillery and the foun­da­tion stone was laid in the autumn of 1886.

William Grant remained active in the com­pany until his death in 1923 at the age of 83.

In 2007, Balvenie’s Global Brand Ambas­sador, David Mair pre­sented an online doc­u­men­tary series about the mak­ing of malt whisky, shot in and around the Bal­ve­nie Distillery.

Awards

At the 2006 Inter­na­tional Spir­its Chal­lenge, The Bal­ve­nie was awarded gold medals for its Founder’s Reserve 10 Year Old, Dou­ble­Wood 12 Year Old, Bal­ve­nie New­Wood 17 Year Old, Port­Wood 21 Year Old, Bal­ve­nie Thirty and Bal­ve­nie Port­wood 1991. This is the biggest gold medal haul for any brand in any one year since the com­pe­ti­tion began.
Tast­ing Notes

The Bal­ve­nie Founders Reserve 10 Year Old presents with a del­i­cate, refresh­ing nose of honey and orange peel. The com­plex full-bodied rich­ness of flavour is rem­i­nis­cent of grandma’s mar­malade fol­lowed by delayed sea mist with a hint of spice leav­ing a long lin­ger­ing richness.

The Bal­ve­nie 21 Year Port­Wood has “Impres­sive ripe fruit and raisin notes which yield over time to a sub­tle wine bou­quet. A creamy, silky tex­ture with com­plex lay­ers of rich dried fruit, honey and spice which slowly develop into a lin­ger­ing warm, nutty finish.”

Aberfeldy Distillery

Aber­feldy Dis­tillery is the home of the highly-acclaimed Aber­feldy 12 and Aber­feldy 21 single malt Scotch Whisky. The dis­tillery is located where Perthshire’s high­est moun­tain, deep­est loch, and longest glen meet, and is his­tor­i­cally and geo­graph­i­cally the ‘Heart of Scotland’.

His­tory

Aber­feldy Dis­tillery, founded by the John Dewar & Sons, Ltd., was built in 1896 and opened in 1898. Aber­feldy was con­structed at the begin­ning of the Dewar’s expan­sion just as their brand was becom­ing rep­utable world­wide. John A. Dewar, the son of founder John Dewar Sr., real­ized that to meet the high demands placed on them to sup­ply pre­mium Scotch whisky, they needed to be able to guar­an­tee a single malt whisky of supe­rior qual­ity, and a lot of it. The only option for the two broth­ers was to erect a new dis­tillery that could pro­duce the amount of prod­uct that they needed. Aber­feldy proved to be a great suc­cess for the com­pany and the brand.

How­ever, the onslaught of World War I on the sup­ply of bar­ley crip­pled the dis­tillery, and the com­pany was forced to shut down Aber­feldy from 1917 until 1919. Upon re-opening, busi­ness picked up and the Dewar’s brand flour­ished. But the Sec­ond World War proved to be just as detri­men­tal as World War I on the avail­able sup­ply of bar­ley. The Aber­feldy Dis­tillery was forced to once again shut down dur­ing the war. It was not until 1962 that the com­pany was able to meet the demand for their whisky.

In spite of these tribu­la­tions, Aber­feldy picked their busi­ness back up and by 1972 expanded Aber­feldy in order to pro­duce more whisky to sat­isfy the ever-growing demand for their prod­uct. in 1999 Aber­feldy launched their Aber­feldy 12 Year Old Single Malt, which proved to be a huge suc­cess for the com­pany. In 2000, the Earl of Elgin opened “Dewar’s World of Whisky” at the Aber­feldy Dis­tillery which is a cen­tre edu­cat­ing the pub­lic on the process of dis­til­la­tion and his­tory of the Dewar’s brand.

The Dis­tillery

Aber­feldy is sit­u­ated in the cen­ter of Scot­land, approx­i­mately 5 miles east of Loch Tay and the town of Ken­more and approx­i­mately 8 miles south of Loch Tum­mel. Aber­feldy relys on the fresh water stream Pitilie Burn, which runs along­side the dis­tillery and has been used for cen­turies to make whisky. Aber­feldy is the only dis­tillery in Scot­land to use these waters. Aber­feldy uses only Scot­tish bar­ley, yeast, and water to make their single malt Scotch whisky. Along with being a pre­mium set­ting for pro­duc­ing pris­tine single malt Scotch whisky, it is speck­led with his­tor­i­cal land­marks, such as Ken­more Bridge. The bridge was built by the 3^rd Earl in 1774 and it was the view from this bridge that was the inspi­ra­tion behind Robert Burn’s poem he wrote on the chim­ney piece of the Ken­more Inn.

WhiskyCast Episode 127: January 13, 2008