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If the subject wasn’t whisky, I would consider the recent concentrated exposure to the BenRiach Distillery Co. and its products a haunting. A tasting of the GlenDronach 15-year-old, details of the forthcoming Cask In A Van tour, press releases on What Does John Know?, prominent bottlings in the bar of the Scotch Whisky Experience when I visited last Wednesday and now another press release. This one concerns Batch 7, a 10-bottle release of rare and exclusive expressions from the revitalised distillery just south of Elgin. They commemorate the sixth anniversary of the BenRiach take-over and the subsequent spate of bottlings matched only by Bruichladdich in their profusion and variety.

This release, in much the same way as the whisky lab on Islay, offers a variety of malts of different ages, strengths, wood finishes and peating levels.

BENRIACH’S LATEST AND VERY LIMITED BATCH OF SINGLE CASK BOTTLINGS NOW AVAILABLE

AWARD-WINNING BenRiach is issuing its latest batch of single cask bottlings this week. Available worldwide, Batch 7 maintains BenRiach’s reputation for encapsulating both perfection and rarity in a glass.

The new release celebrates the sixth anniversary of the first bottling of BenRiach under its new independent owners. Back in August 2004, its ‘Heart of Speyside’ core range of 12, 16 and 20 yo malts became available for the first time.

Fast forward six years, and Master Distiller Billy Walker has selected ten highly distinctive casks from 1976 to 1993 for BenRiach aficionados. These vintage malts are immense and full of character – from pineapple, coconut, honey, and spicy vanilla to treacle toffee, cloves and chocolate coated fruits.

And the range of exceptional vintages is enhanced by their prolonged maturation in different casks – from a Virgin American Oak and a Gaja Barolo Finish to a Tokaji and a Peated Tawny Port Finish.                                                

The ten, in ascending chronological order, are:

Year     Number        Strength       Age          Cask Type             Style

1976     8795           53.2%          33yo     Hogshead                              Classic Speyside       

1977     1033           52.2%          33yo     Pedro Ximinez Hogshead     Pedro Ximinez Sherry Finish

1978     4417           50.4%          32yo     Tokaji Hogshead                Tokaji Finish                                      

1979     7511            47.9%         30yo     Bourbon Barrel                  Classic Speyside   

1980     2532            51.1%          30yo     New Wood Oak Barrel     Virgin American Oak   

1981     2589             51.6%         28yo      Bourbon Barrel                 Classic Speyside                                

1984     493               54.1%         25yo       Hogshead                            Classic Speyside                               

1984     4052            51.7%         25yo       Tawny Port Hogshead    Peated/Tawny Port Finish

1991     4389             54.9%         19yo       Virgin Oak Hogshead      Virgin American Oak Finish

1993     7420            56.7%         17yo       Gaja Barolo Hogshead   Gaja Barolo Finish         

Bottled in July 2010, the ten are all bottled at cask strength, with natural colour and non chill-filtered. They are individually numbered by hand and presented in a gift tube.

I think the whisky gods are trying to tell me something. I need to try BenRiach.

I think Ardbeg could win wars. In the shape of its Committee the Islay distillery has, in the event that the word “closure” wriggles from Gallic mouths in LVMH, a sizeable and quickly-mobilised private army. Paris would fall in hours. People hold Ardbeg in the kind of esteem that was once more commonly displayed for one’s country. Ardbeg transcends nationality, however. Japanese, Scandinavians and Americans would muster alongside the Ileachs beneath the banner emblazoned with that stylised Pictish ‘A’ should strife threaten the peacable, peaty kingdom. In fact, I rather suspect Ardbeg transcends whisky altogether.

Ardbeg: a whisky lover's Wembley Stadium, Graceland and Mecca - all rolled into one.

I use Ardbeg as the most demonstrative and well-documented example of this tribal fanaticism. Clan Ardbeg is vociferous, protective and passionate bordering on unhinged. When I visited in May the distillery was crawling with people. Hordes of men (and they were almost entirely male) roved about the visitor centre, clutching T-shirts, caressing bottles, looking as if they would shortly wet themselves with excitement and joy. However, I could not fail to interpret something more in their fixed stares, proud gaits and faint smiles: spiritual gratification and beatification was burgeoning in their souls with every step and profound breath. Their visit had unshakeable, indeed consoling and elevating, overtones of the divine. Their pilgrimage was at an end; their faith had been rewarded. The atmopshere was one of incredible intensity – such are the emissions of reverence. Perhaps that explains my prevailing disappointment with the tour itself.

Only near-neighbour Laphroaig can administer the single malt sacrament akin to the Ardbeg dogma. In the visitor centre there, too, it was easy to pick out the disciples for whom this was no simple diversion but a sacred destination. I could isolate the contingent of hushed devotees at Macallan, Springbank, Bowmore and virtually every other distillery I toured, global icon or not.

The question is why? What compels someone to travel to the birthplace of their favourite malt? Why is it so crucial to hear the mill, smell the washbacks, feel the heat of the stills and see the middle cut gushing through the spirit safe? For many, such a journey is neither straightforward nor cheap yet whisky enthusiasts arrive in their thousands each year in order to learn how that bottle of Bruichladdich they bought in Osaka, Stockholm or Seattle came into being. I think it is a means to discover, to acquaint themselves with, a malt whisky’s complete personality; flavour being only one limited facet of it. Octomore, after all, will taste the same on Islay as it does in Idaho, but seeing for yourself where it is made, by whom and how, adds so much to the experience of pouring a dram once back home.

However, if your interest in malt whisky has been keen enough to lure you to the distillery’s front door, I must warn you that it is already too late to resist the exponential momentum to which your relationship with the spirit is now prey. It will carry you into obsession and alter entirely your perceptions of the industry. Suddenly, the drink will become subsidiary to the premises that craft it in the same way that music is subsidiary to the person who writes and performs it. Visiting a distillery is like seeing the band live; the songs are the same but they are enriched by the arousal of all the senses in response to the wholeness of the experience: the essential mechanics of the performance, the demeanour of the musicians, the intoxicating sensation of sharing space with many other like-minded people. A great concert can be further enhanced by occurrences and encounters only loosely connected to it before, during or after; close-to or far away. All provide texture, depth and context to the main event.

The same is true of distilleries. To travel to one is to immerse oneself in its locality, and in Scotland that is almost invariably beautiful and dramatic. No longer is your favourite dram made in the isolation of your imagination but amidst hills, lochs, forest and foaming waves. You associate it with so many things: your landlady of the previous night; the man in the pub; the guide and staff in the visitor centre. You are charmed by the architecture, absorb the history of the place radiated from every stone and dusty corner. A fascination with and love of Scotch malt is so readily translated into an equally potent desire for Scotland. A little more exploration reveals an indelible symbiotic tie between the most engaging, dynamic and endearing distilleries and the most authentic and personable faces of the country. These may occasionally be tragic and melancholy ones but this only strenghtens the preference of the enthusiast.

All of which leads me back to Ardbeg and its beautiful rennaissance. The underdog, not so very long ago broken and dishevelled, has come good. It is now a distillery of charisma, drama and energy, with these heady ingredients imbued - in the romantic eyes of the fans - into its expressions, and who among us wouldn’t wish for a similar apotheosis at times?

Discreetly tucked away in prime location on Edinburgh’s Royal Mile since 1988, The Scotch Whisky Experience benefitted in 2009 from a £3-million renovation, bringing its brand, mission statement, and experience overall, in line with the expansive and diverse nature nof Scotch whisky in the 21st Century. Since my very first visit in July of last year it has become one of my favourite Scotch whisky establishments.

The revamped tour begins in the bowels of the building as you clamber into a ghost train-style truck in the shape of an enormous whisky barrel. This will cart you, like a little grain of barley, on a linear journey through the premises and the whisky-making process. Appropriately, there is in fact a ghost on-hand to explain each stage of production to the visitor: lang deid distiller, Douglas McIntyre. He is authentic and diverting company, venting the occasional harmless Scots imprecation whenever he comes off a little worse-for-wear along the way, in the mill or the stills. His narration is contextualised by smells, sights and sounds. Even for the seasoned distillery tourer, this ride from grain to cask is rather fun.

You take leave of your oak cask transportation for ones that don’t move – at least, not until duty is paid on them. The Cooperage area attempts to describe what occurs over the course of maturation after you have put new-make spirit into a wooden barrel or butt. To illustrate this magical transformation and chiefly the acquisition of colour in the spirit, there are samples of whiskies drawn from ex-Bourbon and ex-Sherry casks at various increments of ascending age.

Though invariably led by an enthusiastic twenty-something and highly engaging, the Sense of Scotland talk is one for the novice or casual tourist. However, as your (corporeal) guide discusses the classic characteristics and provides a potted history of Lowland, Highland, Speyside and Islay malts there is one very innovative feature. Each region is denoted a coloured jar and all four sit before you on the bench, placed over corresponding coloured plastic inlays. Within each of these jars is something that approximates that region’s defining or most prominent aroma - malted biscuits for the Lowland malts, for example. At the conclusion of the lecture (which covers blending very comprehensively, too), you simply place your Glencairn glass (yours to take away with you) over the coloured circle relating to your preferred fragrance and a malt from the region it simulated is poured into your glass.

Be careful not to drop it as you are ushered into the next room, or to be more precise the Aladdin’s Cave that is the Diageo Claive Vidiz Scotch Whisky Collection. It is a jaw-dropping altar of whisky, and an extraordinary manifestation of the drink’s history, told in every faded and sometimes peeling label. There are 3,384 unopened bottles of Scotch, a world record, each with their own personal back-stories, and the collection is a more than suitable subject for contemplation as you sip your own dram.

In the McIntyre Whisky Gallery are housed some of the most valuable, unique or just plain odd examples in the Vidiz Collection. (Cans of whisky and cola stand out in my memory for all the wrong reasons.) Against the opposite wall, however, you can find almost equally rare and desirable malts for consumption at the bar. This is my second tasting room, and my favourite part of the Experience. On two occasions I have come to analyse whiskies I would be unable to source and sample by any other economical means. My love for The Dalmore was cemented when I tasted the 1263 King Alexander III and I was nearly overcome by the loveliness of the Glenfarclas 30-year-old. To begin with, the purchase of a Gold Tour ticket entitles you to a tasting tray of four malts to compare and contrast as well as 10% off the list price of any other malts you wish to try.

Down in the sublime shop the same ticket will, on the day of your visit and for twelve months thereafter, secure a £3 discount against any 70cl bottle of whisky. The Amber Restaurant on the floor below serves top-quality and reasonably-priced food from light lunches to substantial meals, many dishes with a dash of whisky in the recipe.

Whilst Whisky Heritage is responsible for the coordination of the Experience, almost all of the industry’s major players have a share in the enterprise. Part of the arrangement is that they pitch up in the shop from time to time and ply the public with free samples of their product. Had I known that such was the definition of “Tasting”, I would most likely not have bothered venturing up to Edinburgh for the Morrison Bowmore event on the 7th of August. To my disappointment, having wrestled my way up the Royal Mile through the invading armies of Festival-goers, I found only one man pouring out measures of Auchentoshan Classic and ThreeWood, as well as Bowmore 12 and 15-year-olds into plastic cups no larger than thimbles. No Glencairn glasses and, most regrettably, no Glen Garioch, either. This was a shame, but I’ll know better next time.

This wasn't how I had pictured it. I had hoped for all of the MB malts, with maybe the Glen Garioch 1990.

The Scotch Whisky Experience Tours:

Silver Tour – £11.50

Gold Tour – £19.95 (the Silver Tour plus one year’s membership of the Scotch Whisky Appreciation Society, numerous discounts at the Experience and future entry on a two-for-the-price-of-one basis.)

Collection Tour – £20 (from what I can work out, this is a more in-depth encounter with the Claive Vidiz Collection.)

info@scotch-whisky-experience.co.uk

www.scotch-whisky-experience.co.uk

When an email from GlenDronach dropped into my inbox I was quite excited. Maybe they were inviting me up for a top-line deluxe super-dooper tour, such was their disappointment that I couldn’t visit them first time around? Maybe they were sending me samples? Maybe they wanted to pay me lots of money to get back on my bike and spread the word about this rejuvenated distillery from one of my very favourite micro-regions? It turned out to be none of those. In fact, the details within the correspondence couldn’t have had less of a bearing on me at all.

However, I know I have at least one Belgian who drops in from time to time to browse the site and my fledgling views on all things single malt, as well as a fair number of Germans and even the odd French person so this, mes amis, is for you.

At the end of next month some people from GlenDronach distillery, near Huntly, will drive a little van containing lots of their juice - most in bottles, but some in a whole cask - around Belgium. From the 21st to the 25th of September they will pull up at various towns and cities to educate, entertain and (responsibly) water the Belgian whisky-drinking public.

Had this over-taken me on my (mis)adventures around Huntly I may have been compelled to brave the A96 again and haul my creaking clanking bike to the distillery.

“We’re taking the brand “on a journey of re-discovery” around Belgium, one of our fastest-growing markets,” declared James Cowan, Regional Sales Director for GlenDronach. 

“Following the phenomenal success of last year’s tour, which was a huge hit with Belgian whisky fans, we’re proud to announce details of our new 2010 tour.

“Once again we’ll be out in force with our special liveried van offering Belgians a unique chance to taste and purchase a truly excellent GlenDronach single cask whisky – this time it’s a 2002 release, which has been matured in a Bourbon barrel. In addition, we’ll be offering tastings of our award-winning 12, 15 and 18 year-old core range.

“Like last year, people will be given the opportunity to fill their own bottle of GlenDronach straight from the cask…charcoal, sheep’s hair and all! As it’s a limited edition, it’s going to be a highly collectable item.”

I tasted the new 15-year-old this week and I liked it a lot. If you are roughly in or near the Benelux area I would recommend you check it out. GlenDronach is owned by the same group of people who have brought such success to BenRiach, minnows when compared with Diageo and most of the other companies and this, I rather think, works to their advantage. Driving a little van around Belgium is something the above conglomerates could finance easily, but the point is they don’t. The BenRiach Distillery Company is both shackled and ingeniously (given the right way of creative thinking) liberated by their smaller marketing budgets. They are the modern day Tommy Dewars: heading to new territories with samples stuffed into suitcases and vehicles, making a genuine and personal connection with their customers. Well done. The list of tour dates (they sound like a jobbing rock band, don’t they?) is below:

Tuesday 21/09 Tasttoe – Kampenhoudt; Wednesday 22/09 Whisky on Wheels – Erpe Mere; Thursday 23/09 Anverness – Antwerpen; Friday 24/09 Tasttoe 2 – Wondelgem-Gent; Saturday 25/09 afternoon Jan Vissers – Geel-Westerlo; Saturday 25/09 evening Whiskyhuis – Zottegem

Borders barley country.

I’m feeling a primeval affinity for British wildlife at the moment. Just recently summer’s vital signs have deteriorated: rain, wind and tepid temperatures have usurped August’s golden time. Hibernation, dear hedgehogs, badgers et al, is nigh.

At this period of the year I am always mildly discomfited, a beat behind Nature’s Circadian rhythm and trying very hard to catch up. Fields that were only yesterday creaking with Sauternes gold or ale brown fecundity are now mute black earth. Rumbling rapacious machinery hurriedly devour the crops and yet more clanking contraptions bury the evidence of the crime.

Allegedly, long before I could have any memory of such an activity, I would go with my mother to the nearest farm to sit and observe the combine harvester at work, trundling up and gliding down the fields, attended to assiduously by the tractors. Back then, I was entranced by farm machinery. Now, as I ride my bike beside the dwindling rugs of gold, I realise that I’m afflicted by a deeper fascination with the traditions and timetable of putting the land to work.

Of course, this interest is enjoyably manifested in the most apt of harvest festivals: whisky-making. No matter how clinical and scientific the process may have become in some distilling enterprises, fundamentally the grain must, in the style of the ancients, be sown in the dirt, subjected to the whims of the weather as it grows. Those fields of barley are precursors to whisky, akin to the sloshing burn as the most organic of ingredients cupboards, and I know that such an arrangement is very rare in the industry, but I’m very taken by the concept that several acres of shimmering golden grain can, care of the local distillery, become whisky. This is why I give Lowland and Aberdeenshire malts preferential treatment (and eagerly await the next batch of Springbank Local Barley): their styles speak so clearly of barley country and agriculture.

When I watch the fields being shorn my imagination is consumed by malting, mashing, fermenting and distilling. The middle of August through to the end of October is Whisky Time, with the anniversary of my single malt inititation falling on October 25th. As this date approaches, all of the emotive memories - of arable colour, clean, crisp and complex, and the new noises and smells – associated with my spontaneous afternoon in sparkling Speyside and The Glenlivet echo in the decelerating natural world. The functions of sunlight pare down so that it provides more in the way of illumination than heat, and I start to dream of cool dunnage warehouses and their honeyed, oaky aromas.

Like the stoat sealed in his den, the bounty of summer has moved indoors and underground: crammed into whisky distilleries for whom this is their true season, the period when, hundreds of years ago, their founders would transform surplus barley into spirit. October’s brisk freshness cannot penetrate the balmy microclimate of mashtuns and washbacks and it is positively repelled by the hearth-gleam of the stills – copper suns.

All in all, I cannot wait for Glen Garioch in three weeks’ time, the distillery dusted by the fall out of chaff clouds that are presently drifting around the ‘Granary of Aberdeenshire.’

Barley into Benriach.