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Many of the most passionate devotees across numerous diverse pursuits would agree with me when I say that, irrespective of the favoured activity in question, cogitating upon and talking about it contribute enormously to maximising appreciation and enjoyment. Every interest – and I feel this is especially true of whisky - benefits from equal portions of anticipation, evaluation and participation. I am only too aware – and if I forget, the twice-monthly Quaich Society meetings and their aftermaths remind me – that one cannot be forever drinking whisky; but one can sure as hell natter on about the subject indefinitely.

I will go into far greater depth in a later post, but the Scotch Malt Whisky Society rolled into St Andrews for this week’s tasting with five bottles of single cask, cask strength, distilled discussion. The epithets for each expression assert this quality, and as we tucked into Old Jazz Bar and The Antagonist, tongues were loosened. I had Quaich Soc old-timers come up to me afterwards and beam that it was the best tasting they had been to. Ever. Much of the credit – maybe around 99.9% – must go to our host, Craig Johnstone. With charm, affability, professionalism and frankly frightening levels of knowledge and expertise, he imparted the confidence I suspect some of the 60 tasters were in search of when contemplating the wild beasts in their Glencairns. That production details and histories were interspersed with Craig’s own extensive encounters with the drinks industry internationally, with many of these boasting hilarious consequences, the entire room could put their trust in his juggernaut of an interest.

And without a doubt this is what makes whisky such an eminently-discussable topic. Those who speak for whisky, when hangovers, deadlines or time of day preclude sipping the stuff and communing with it personally (although on the latter criteria, Craig was very forthright in his condoning of “breakfast whiskies”), are so often engaging and dynamic also. To nurture a fledgeling hobby they brought their powers of curiosity and investigation to bear; to transform it into a pre-eminent passion they sought out personal interactions with the spirit, its people and process, to sustain the obsession they battled to make it their job. Who wouldn’t want to talk to those who suit up to go to work, but for whom the whole exercise is simply constructive, engrossing leisure time with a pay cheque at the end of it?

I’ve been very fortunate over the last couple of years to tap into this whisky conversation, encountering people who go beyond the off-licence for their drams. With distillery managers and staff, brand ambassadors, shop owners, other bloggers and even fellow students I am engaged in a free-flowing, richly-layered dialogue, not just about whisky in the bottle, but about how we have been compelled to experience whisky in the distillery, in the landscape, in the bars, in the trade shows, in the homes of those who make it.

Whisky is a launch pad to other matters – other cultures, other flavours, other ways of seeing the world. The borders of a love of whisky are contiguous with an appreciation of all artisanal products; when the plethora of pockets of Scotland have been explored, there is always the rest of the globe, and the people you meet in the process will continually amaze and surprise you with their generosity, knowledge and enthusiasm.

After having given me five single cask, cask strength drams of his, I thought I had better show my appreciation for Craig’s performance by offering him one of mine. The Aberlour 16yo was uncorked, and the conversation continued.

Keep track of what whisky matter Craig is presently mulling over via his blog – it’s as diverse (and brilliant) as he is: Whisky Adventures.

I offer first a belated Hello from the Scotch Odyssey Blog, followed by an apology. Succeeded by an explanation which I will try and supply as concisely as possible.

Nearly three weeks. Nearly three weeks of silence as far as you, my readers are concerned, although I have been screaming into pillows at the top of my lungs for the last two. Having told you all about the fourth release of single casks from GlenDronach I took my twenty-year-old self up to Carron, Speyside, in order to undertake the transition to 21 in the most comfortable and Scotch whisky-saturated surroundings that I know of. My seven days in the north were expected to yield relaxation, fine company, outdoor pursuits and, of course, blog posts. True to form and forecast, they did.

However, well aware that my return to St Andrews for University Year 2 snapped at the heels of my holiday with only a couple of days of transition, I did my best to compile drafts detailing some of my distillery tours and shop tastings thus mitigating the panicked chaos of last year when time and attention post Freshers’ Week derailed the blog for some time. The plan was that until I secured internet access in my new flat, I would find some elsewhere around the town and simply ‘Publish’ that which I had sensibly prepared earlier. My WordPress platform has had other ideas, however, and it wasn’t until yesterday and the joyous advent of home broadband that I could work out why my best laid plans had been so scuppered. For whatever reason, posts containing images (if I could upload them into the post at all), thoroughly upset whatever permalink-generating or content transfiguring mechanism it is that enables what I write to be read by you. Cue further screaming.

Updates haven’t worked, permission changes haven’t worked, scouring the WordPress support forums hasn’t worked. Until I can sort this out – or, more likely, track down someone in possession of the technological logic nodule which I so patently lack – the Scotch Odyssey Blog will be back to its ‘good old days’ when I was pedalling around Scotland at the mercy of truculent hostel PCs: a thousand words will have to take the place of one glossy picture.

My apologies again, therefore, but I still intend to bring you tales of Speyside, and other whisky news from Scotland when I get it.

Just the kind of precious Scotch whisky experience I need my drinks cabinet to recall.

No sooner had a stabbed the ‘Publish’ button on Tuesday than I realised my pontifications concerning whisky-consumption, far from reaching a conclusion, had simply shifted into new territories. I stand by the argument and extended sporting analogy posited in the previous post, but I now understand that it will soon cease to have any relevance for me.

When I talked about assembling ‘Whisky United’, that was a project born out of the pressures of the here-and-now, although in practise my future purchases ought to be made with the there-and-then foremost in mind. Over the lazy and meandering course of this summer vacation, however, I have been fortunate enough regress to my Before University habits with the whiskies to oblige me readily available: pre-dinner drams abundant in citrussy and green fruitiness conspiring with sweet caramel oak flavours. So limitless is the blissful pleasure I derive from these vibrant, delicate whiskies, is it any wonder that I should crave their like again when they finally expire? It was under such an influential and suggestive mood that I wrote the last post.

Of course, my final sentence was tellingly ambiguous, “Perhaps it is not for me yet to dictate where and when a malt is allowed to be extraordinary”, and already hinted at the turning mental cogs. Even if I shall no longer be in Halls when I return to St Andrews, I cannot expect my moments for malt to mirror those of home. The reasons are soberingly plentiful: food will not appear on the table without my participation and historically I have found my whiskies to become muted in a cookery atmosphere. More often than not the aperitif period is consumed with work, socialising or society gatherings – I cannot guarantee being anywhere near the flat and my precious pre-dinner comrades. On the subject of academic demands, it is nothing short of hopeless delusional optimism to think that second year shall concede a reduction in the workload. In order to complete reading, essays and presentations I shall need to preserve a compus mentis state until, at best, 11pm.

I can promise you that a Glencadam 15yo will struggle to impose itself on a listless, dim-eyed shell of a man at that hour. I don’t need a drinks cupboard, stuffed full of polite if artful drams with infinitesimal degrees of complimentarity. I need something more akin to a medicine cabinet stocked with a few choice potions certain to revive me irrespective of the time or how attritionally awful John Dryden might prove to be. This, I admit, requires an entirely inverted approach to buying drams but I am certain it will reward the exploration and increased investment.

For the coming months, I sense that textural, accompanist whiskies will be simply inadequate and money wasted. I must instead be on the hunt for true iridescent personalities which can inhabit my precious instants of relaxation with genuine physicality and idiosyncracy, thus reasserting the imponderable majesty of malts. This ability I noted with the Adelphi, a whisky so passionately individualistic and untampered with it quite happily mauls and mugs those mundane moments.

As a whisky consumer and purchaser, then, I am no longer Sir Alex Ferguson tasked with maximising sporting performance. If anything, I am a Don King – the manager of a glittering stable of champion boxers. For my drinks cabinet, I need the best pound-for-pound whiskies bursting with formidable flavours, unique selling points and quality. Suddenly, the £15 discount on the Benromach bottle-your-own with a Manager’s Tour ticket appears too good an opportunity to miss. Likewise, if that Aberlour single cask is the equal of April 2010′s, £65 will be nothing short of a steal for so magnificent a whisky.

Over the course of this academic year, I intend to right a few wrongs made during the first. An on-going project shall be to ensure that I am never underwhelmed when I do find time for a dram. I see it as vital that, however viciously deadlines harrass me and however meagre my food budget may be, this burning passion of mine for all aspects of Scotch whisky should never lack for the most potent and dependable fuel.

The depleted whisky shelf.

Putting together a satisfactory whisky cabinet is much like building a successful football team. A collection of individuals it may be, but only as a cohesive unit can they hope to secure long-term glory. Likening whisky to a team sport may sound odd, but my relationship with it is such that I can only conceive of it in this way.

For me, whisky is precisely like a game football: the malt I happen to be drinking is simply the one in control of the ball while round about it are many others engineering its direction, providing supporting angles and ensuring collective success. One whisky is never consumed in isolation for it evokes so many elements in my whisky explorations, not just of places, people and processes, but of flavours and possibilities, too. The inclination to have a dram stems from all of these considerations and betrays not a craving just to consume alcohol but a need to savour again the past successes and delights associated with drinking whisky. It is therefore a polymorphous, composite inclination in its own right and highly complex. The challenge which it lays down is never the same and requires an elite assemblage of malts whose qualities enable them to engage in the contest dynamically and inspirationally.

This does not mean, however, that the brashest, showiest and above all most expensive whiskies make it into the team. I have learnt that my Whisky United, while expected to perform on the most glamorous nights of the Champions League, must chiefly earn their bread and butter in the quotidien grind of the Premiership. As I have already described here, my very favourite moment for a malt whisky and therefore by far and away the period of time in which most is consumed, is before dinner and this calls for a relatively light, fruity dram with ideally a strong citrussy and vanilla-accented ex-Bourbon influence. Peat is not unwelcome either. This, therefore, is the spine of my team from the centre halves to the holding midfield players. Of these latter, I have recently recognised that the Compass Box Asyla is my Iniesta: a player whose merit far outweighs his initial asking price. The likes of Linkwood and Caol Ila are the star strikers.

As I alluded to above, however, there are some late evening kick offs where a dram must possess the requisite power and artistry to shine on the biggest stage. It is not often that I call upon a whisky to serve as a digestif, but when I do there had better be one ambitious enough to seize the opportunity and make the moment. My Adelphi can do this tremendously well. It is the Didier Drogba or Cristiano Ronaldo of my drinks cabinet.

However, with the new season imminent, I have a problem with personnel. Many of my try-outs from the youth academy did not impress (Tomintoul Peaty Tang, Tormore 12yo, Glenmorangie LaSanta) and my old stagers have retired (Longmorn 15yo, Old Pulteney 12yo). The team needs rebuilding and I’m putting my limited budget towards quality players perhaps overlooked by many. They must be distinctive, individual and roar with eloquence about how fantastic unadulterated whisky can be. Presently I have my Adelphi (which qualifies handsomely), the Ardmore Traditional, Auchentoshan 1978 and tiny amounts of Glen Garioch Founder’s Reserve and Compass Box. Not a collection guaranteed to best the hurly-burly of forthcoming opposition. I need additional vibrancy, delicacy and long-term commitment.

I’m struggling to channel Sir Alex Ferguson on this one, though. I’m due in Benromach for a Manager’s Tour next month and cannot overcome the temptation to take them up on their offer of £15 off the bottle-your-own single cask. The excellent 10yo may be more consistently amenable, and there is much to be said for drinking a whisky at 43% abv when there is still much academic work to be done over a cask strength brute. But the ‘cask strength brute’ is precisely what interests me about whisky right now: in its raw state, pure, simple and unique. There is a similar conundrum associated with the Aberlour bottle-your-own. It is a lot of money (although I would drink it) and despite the ex-Bourbon genesis, is it simply too rich to serve as an aperitif whisky?

My response has been and continues to be: wait and see. The Benromach single cask may be first-fill sherry, in which case it is a big no-no; the Aberlour may underwhelm so impossibly high are my expectations for this next single cask. Or, I may elect to trust in my holding midfielder (the Compass Box Asyla) and maybe a G&M Longmorn 12yo, while investing in the promises made at the time by whichever luminous malts I succumbed to that they can and will set the pitch on fire when necessary. Perhaps it is not for me yet to dictate where and when a malt is allowed to be extraordinary.

Maybe I’m just more prone to it on account of the age group in which I find myself, but surely many of my readers can empathise with the seething washback of possible rebuttals provoked by the outburst: ‘Urghh! How can you like whisky?’

First up, and an attitude which must always be stamped down again, is the cutting and dismissive inference – entertained privately – that circumstances alone must take the blame for pairing you with this apparent dunce lacking in any sense of adventure, imagination or taste. As much as you adore whisky, and however stingingly upsetting it may be to encounter someone with a noisy aversion to it, exercise patience and remember that this is your chance to champion the single malt cause and maybe convert the heathen – I mean the unfortunate soul – in the process.

Too often have I heard grim tales from disenchanted individuals whose first and only encounter with the spirit involved a) a cheap blend b) a hyperactive environment, and c) large quantities. I can only nod in sympathy when they describe ‘the burn’, ‘the harshness’ and ‘the headache’. So how should you launch into your proselytising evangelism? How can you begin to clear the junk and grime of associated experience from the glorious edifice of possibility whisky presents?

These are questions I have been mulling over for the last few years, well aware as I am that I cannot reproduce exactly the preconditions for my own initiation into whisky’s majesty. Whisky is a personal entity, and perhaps it is best to start by asserting this very fact. You may yammer on about landscapes, history and flavours – and I do – but in all likelihood promising, calmly and confidently, that there will be a whisky out there for them if they could only overcome their shocking memories of metallic, rough and caramel-smothered brown messes, will recast all the negative debris in a new, impermanent light. There is no point in listing the makes of distilleries likely to please because they won’t remember them. There is no point in explaining the differences between a brashly young, indifferently-matured and adulterated entry-level blend and a prime single malt because it will adorn whisky with complications unnecessary for them in the here and now. Suggest a few places which, in your experience, take best care of those maybe a tad intimidated by whisky but with a genuine curiosity to try it: a favourite bar, maybe, or somewhere like the Scotch Whisky Experience. If the jarring bleat of whisky antipathy sounds in your own home, perhaps a tour of your drinks cabinet is in order, but adopt the same gentle authority and above all else, choose conservatively. Passion can be easily transmitted from master to apprentice but peat smoke and TCP are liable to erode whatever trust the latter holds in the former.

As devoted whisky drinkers, for whom a compulsion to know more was engendered together with our first auspicious sips, it can be severely tempting to lecture. However, as significant and enlightening as the innumerable facts accumulated over many years of reading and visiting are, they are for the novice to absorb along their own way, should they choose to follow it. We must exercise restraint and simply impart whisky’s true reality as a universal church, capable of embracing and thrilling all.

In the evolutionary progress of the whisky blogger, the likes of John Hansell and Tim Forbes have adopted the Darwinian role in extrapolating histories, motives and likely mutations for the species. As the blogging population expands, institutions become established and competition for resources intensifies, blog-based discussions are increasingly about… blogging.

One could say, cynically, that this new self-awareness and inclination to stratify the blogosphere into the obsequious and the high-minded is little more than paranoia and sour grapes. However, I tend to think that any call to personal reflection is a positive move for it reinforces the attitude that blogging is and ought to remain a valid and efficacious platform from which to discuss whisky matters. Blogging lends so many commendable attributes to the exploration and interpretation of whisky such as immediacy, interactivity and multiple media options to accomplish something truly creative and original. In addition to this, however, I would like to attach the word ‘sustainable’, and have it stick.

In last month’s Whisky Roundtable, a potent coalition of blogging minds devised by Jason Johnstone-Yellin, Jason himself  raised the issue again of what the future held for blogging. He suggested that there were certain unscrupulous individuals, self-styled experts and those suckling at the teat of distillers’ PR companies, guilty of muddying the water for the rest of the blogosphere. Has the democratic nature of the media worked against quality control? With whisky bloggers having experienced such terrific growth in stature over the last few years largely because of committed self-publicity, where has this left blogging ethics? How can the best, and by this I mean those writers endowed with a genuine passion built for the long haul as well as proper care for the factual integrity of their content, distinguish themselves from the tech-savvy upstarts capable of grabbing all the attention in this fast-paced world?

The responses from the twelve blogging platforms were revealing and considered and I would recommend you read both them and the equally thoughtful comments posted by other readers and bloggers. For me personally, however, it provoked some soul-searching. Have I been as transparent as I could have been? The answer, regrettably, is no. The bulk of my content never was intended to be comprised of tasting notes and that, together with my small stature in the blogging community and especially in the eyes of those PR companies, has meant that the necessity for cross-examining the pros and cons of writing about all the ‘free stuff’ simply never arose. My content has not been driven by a few companies sending me oodles of booze. However, I feel I owe you further clarification on what appears on the Scotch Odyssey Blog and why.

I have received some samples. Master of Malt have sent me three: one from their Drinks by the Dram selection and two of their own independently-bottled whiskies. One of these, the Highland Park, I wasn’t keen on and said so. The other, a Caol Ila, I absolutely adored and said so. I reviewed the Glenfarclas, and the DbtD service, because it was one I intended to use myself as a budding connoisseur. However, Master of Malt in their correspondences with me have overtly stated that there is no obligation on my part to provide a good review. Had they done so, I would have consumed the whisky in private and details of it would never have made it as far as the Scotch Odyssey Blog. The only other samples to date were the Hankey Bannister range from Inver House. They didn’t light my fire at the time but proved useful in bulking out a piece on blended whisky inspired by a superlative Compass Box tasting.

Speaking of Inver House, what about that press trip late last year? Unquestionably I was flattered to be invited, but I hope my trio of write-ups express most explicitly my appreciation of the team involved comprised of the distillery managers, Cathy and Lucas, and my fellow bloggers. On the subject of the juice, I have had a bottle of Old Pulteney in my cupboard long before I knew of Inver House as a company and I fell in love with Balblair as a spirit eight months before I would be invited to visit it. Regarding my recent work experience, that was entirely financed by myself and the potential blog content was neither suggested nor restricted by anyone at the distillery or in Airdrie.

Ultimately, though, we bloggers have to watch our steps: analyse the offer on the table at any one time and evaluate how relevant and unencumbered any potential freebie will be to the platform you have put together and built up. That I have specialised perhaps makes that boundary even clearer for me and the Scotch Odyssey Blog. If it hasn’t anything to do with whisky tourism or the experience of encountering Scotland and its flavour-creating and flavour-capturing distilleries then why discuss it at all? But what of those occasional tasting notes, then; what is the deal with them?

I have already gone into some depth (and verified my views with the help of Keith Wood) on the matter of ‘sensings’ here, but I would like to add that whisky appreciation is increasingly a form of meditation and, if it is not so extravagant a claim to make, self-knowledge for me. When nosing a whisky, I venture under the skin of my world and learn more about it and my previous interactions with it on a sensory level. When these findings surprise or delight me, I want to share such discoveries.

Certain distilleries and certain places are invested with more personal significance for me and these are far more likely to be and indeed have been woven into the fabric of the blog. When an expression from one of these distilleries does receive a review, an accompanying explanation has not been fudged to justify my commenting on a whisky in preference to distillery visitor centres or tours, it is instead part and parcel of my ethos for the blog. I have been fortunate and determined enough to explore Scotch whisky in an unusual manner and to particular depth and this has instilled me with powerfully emotive ideologies and memories. It was inevitable that these should often be attached to certain brands and I am not about to apologise for this. It was the people, place, circumstances and spirit itself that wooed me, not marketing bumfph. Such experiences and the resulting preferences simply make me a passionate whisky drinker, just like all the rest of the most principled whisky blog writers and readers.

I would be very surprised if there weren’t further instalments of my five days spent a-roaming about the congeries of Balblair distillery, and undoubtedly my time there will inform all subsequent musings and interpretations on the Scotch whisky industry. However, let this post suffice to lend a flavour of my experiences ‘working’ in a real live distillery while I attempt to compartmentalise the numerous profound insights I was generously granted by the remarkable group of people who make Balblair single malt. They certainly made the experience for me.

242. 242 days had passed since I had last shimmied into a distillery. 242 days since I had inhaled the aromas of wort and wash. 242 days since I had gazed with the tenderest love upon a copper pot still. Two thirds of a year since I had been granted the opportunity to indulge my passion for malt whisky. Funnily enough, 242 days prior to the 4th of July, Balblair had featured also. Following a seven-hour and magnificently stressful train ride up to Tain during which I had spotted Dalwhinnie, Teaninich, Dalmore and Invergordon distilleries I could embark upon my first day as more than just a tourist or even privileged blogger at Balblair.

The distillery is entirely hidden from view until you have emerged beyond the cluster of houses half-way along the village of Edderton. Then, beneath the Struie hills and their skins of heather over rock, the pagoda vent and scarlet smokestack are visible. They are, from this perspective, equal in height to the Clach Biorach Pictish stone. I freewheeled into the distillery grounds; men clambered on warehouse rooves while others loitered outside the manager’s office. In here I found Graeme, who helped me find John, who was staring gloomily into the mill.

What followed was five days of informal education. I could shadow who I wanted, go where I pleased and spent most of the time in the tea room eating ginger biscuits and chatting. During the first few days the aromas were overpowering and I guzzled them up with greed. From entering the distillery complex, you detect a spicy-sweet whiff of whisky-filled Bourbon wood. I would then park up beside the millroom in a compact courtyard around which the zesty, squeaky scents of fermentation wafted. Having changed into trousers and polo shirt beside the embryonic visitor centre, I would duck between the cool, dusty malt bins to the mash tun and its heavy, warm and sweet fragrance which mingled with the countless other flavours contributed by a Plumb Center worth of pipes and a water treatment tank which could conjure up a workable approximation of what a riding school arena smells like.

Sat on the well-wron stillman's chair, it felt as though I were communing with two golden Buddhas.

The still house was a miracle of flavour-weaving. Between the wash and spirit stills the aroma was strongest: banana cheesecake, flambeed banana and vanilla. By the spirit still, all was appley and intense, until the spirit run began and then a creamier cereal note entered the picture. I spent the bulk of my time checking hydrometers, yanking open valves and turning wheels under the watchful eye of either Martin or Mike. I sampled, I dipped, I pumped and I charged. The distillery’s rhythm was an enchanting and fairly rapid one: wash left the tun room after 48 or 60 hours, passed into the wash still, left it over the course of three hours as either low wines or pot ale (which had a gorgeously heavy bakewell cake fragrance) and moved to the spirit still where there would be a 10-minute foreshot run, a two-hour spirit run and three hours of feints.

It is one thing, as I found myself marvelling to Martin and Mike, as well as Alan, John, Graeme, John and Norman, to race through a distillery over the course of an hour during a tour and glimpse a mere snapshot of each process in the whisky-making recipe. It is another to bide and watch the work of man, copper and wood and the transformation of the malt. They aren’t lying to you on your distillery tours; there are no secret switches and vessels. I simply discovered that however much you read about it and understand it in theory, only in the act of supervising whisky-creation can its reality be apprehended.

Admittedly, my time at Balblair extracted a little of the romance of making whisky. Tricky malt, a minor leak on the spirit still and the imminent advent of automation revealed a process preoccupied with yield and output. However, the cavity created in my innocent idealism was filled by infinitely precious experience. The production team know their plant, what works, what doesn’t, how to adapt and manage a wilful amalgamation of equipment on a frying summer day or a paralyzing winter night. Distilleries work, like dogs at times, but that is what they are designed to do. Without question craft and affection come into it, too, but it is a constant negotiation with a location, history and personality perfectly inclined to go its own way. Mike grimaced at the prospect of returning to work at the end of next month with the distillery having lain silent for four weeks. To him, it only makes sense when the buildings are suffused with heat and aroma: with industry. Only then is it Balblair, doing as Balblair does. That’s a whole new kind of magic.

My sincerest thanks go to Lorna Craig for setting up my week’s work experience and John MacDonald for making room and time for me. As for Alan, John Ross, Martin, Mike, Norman and Graeme: I’m still pondering how exactly I can begin to repay you all for not just putting up with me but making me feel like part of the team. When I read newspapers in future I hope to make you all proud.

The Scotch Cyclist 'working'.

Gargantuan Glenfiddich.

From whisky’s commercial beginnings, success has meant going large: more equipment equals more liquid which equals more profit which equals more equipment. As businessmens’ wallets expanded so, inevitably, did their distilleries.

Miniature Edradour.

Today, however, we find a subtly changed model. Like the tiny birds which munch their lunch from the hides of rhinos and elephants, there are those whose comparatively diminutive size ensures their survival and prosperity. Fluttering in the wake of the industry’s behemoths are flocks of boutique operations flourishing thanks to the robust health of their enormous counterparts. Liberated by their small-scale natures to offer something particular, distinctive, unusual – maybe even personal – these distilleries cultivate a following of devotees which, though often equally as minute, are enough to sustain a brand and a philosophy. Small, for increasing numbers of ambitious and passionate people, is the whole point. But is boutique best? In the following paragraphs my aim is not exactly to answer this question. I want instead to ponder how whiskies differ on a level beyond – or perhaps it would be more correct to say beneath – flavour. The means by which Springbank journeys to your drinks cabinet contrast with those of The Glenlivet; which dram, therefore, speaks most faithfully of the provenance, process and people behind it?

This train of thought chugged into motion with the Benromach press release published yesterday. However, I should say that the thrust of this article is not innovation. Rather, I want to interrogate the principal bottlings from the likes of Glenmorangie and Macallan and evaluate whether they are as honest as they could be. Has their extraordinary volume compromised their identities as discernible in the final product? Could distillery character be more vividly captured and engaging with less output? Does spirit from smaller sites taste somehow more authentically like itself?

Giant Jura.

My tentative belief is that with fewer litres produced, requiring fewer casks and therefore with perhaps a smaller spectrum of oak-derived (or oak-perverted) flavours available, the creation of a new core expression presents the master blender with fewer alibis – whisky special effects. When putting together a 12-year-old, for example, he or she hasn’t the diverting inventory of casks with particular qualities which might in other conglomerates be brought to bear on the vatting with ameliorating, distorting consequences. I know that, with the larger companies, whole floors in warehouses are exhumed to contribute towards the next bottling run, many hundreds – even thousands – of litres many years older than the age statement that will finally appear on the bottle lend colour, fragrance and structure which may have been lacking in the youngest stock. This practise is not misleading exactly, just obscuring. Also, when releasing a subsequent batch of ’12-year-old’, the boutique master blender may be unable to maintain consistency with the previous release at the volume demanded by head office. Theirs will rather be a whisky for and of the here and now. They cannot replicate the character of a single expression, they can only construct a whisky that reflects how the Edradour or Royal Lochnagar spirit has coped with and embraced those variables which are at the heart of whisky manufacture.

Titchy Arran.

I compared the scores given in the latest Malt Whisky Companion to the principal – or only – bottlings from the eleven smallest Scottish distilleries in output terms with those of the eleven largest. They were, once I had calculated an average, to all intents and purposes identical (80 plays 79 respectively). This, of course, tells me very little. Were the MWC published on an annual basis, however, and were the bottling habits of the likes of Kilchoman, Arran and Benromach to become de riguer for all boutiques, I would expect their scores to fluctuate, whilst those of the giants remained constant.

Not to conclude, therefore, but rather to adjourn for now, what about flavour exploration? Is fluctuating whisky better whisky? For me, I would bellow ‘Yes!’ I have enormous respect for how the big boys put out consistently tasty stuff year after year, but right now I yearn for variety, digression and different shades in my drams. I want to explore the products of those whose business models and above all artisanal attitudes empower them to shout about something really great when they find it, instead of having to surrender those drops of transient magnificence into the uniform ocean of brand continuity. To my mind, master blenders must too often sacrifice wonderful malts to function as a kind of whisky airbrushing tool; our omnipresent malts are merely beautified – they are not truly, idiosyncratically, beautiful.

A view from the dry warmth of the visitor centre last April.

Henceforth, ’one year ago…’ moments shall occur to me on an almost daily basis. They may never have come to pass, however, had it not been for my guardian angels who abstained from supping Scotch whisky vapour long enough to manifest themselves at Glen Garioch, Aberdeenshire. To commemorate this date twelve months ago I thought I would post up a piece which I submitted to John Hansell’s blog for consideration in his guest-blogger season last September. Although I was frustratingly unsuccessful in that particular journalistic bid, I have retained the article so that, today, it may serve as the narrative silver lining to my north-east Highland rain clouds.

I rolled out of Dufftown, making headway into the first of the day’s sixty miles. Snow flurries mutated into persistent rain and little strips of asphalt became the A96. I had chosen to ignore the look my hotelier had given me when I told him I was taking the main road between Aberdeen and Inverness to Oldmeldrum. For ten miles I didn’t so much cycle as self-preserve, hunted by oil industry executives in their BMWs and blasted by the bow waves of air from gargantuan trucks, none of whom were about to touch the brakes for a squidgy cyclist.

Exhausted and petrified I swung off the motorway at the sign for Oldmeldrum, the rain still falling lazily, the rolling arrow-straight roads of Aberdeenshire taunting my cracked, foggy brain. Every last inch of me was dripping and squelching. My bike, on account of the spray, muck and frenzied pedalling of the A96, was disturbing the peace in Hades with its creaking, squeaking and rattling. My personal fuel warning light had been on for the last fifteen miles and I splashed into the distillery car park not entirely alive. I knew, however, and with grim certainty, that if I didn’t get my cycling gear dried somehow, when I came to leave the distillery after my tour for the return leg to Huntly I would depart this mortal coil, as well – long before the trucks could have a second crack at me on the motorway.

Resembling a refugee more than a participant on her next tour, I begged the lady in the visitor’s centre for a hot radiator.

“Go across to the stillroom and say Jane sent you to dry some things,” she said.

The very accommodating stillroom.

I stumbled back out into the rain to the still house where I found the stillman reading his newspaper. I mumbled my message from Jane and he pointed to a clothes rack stationed behind the spirit still. With the last of my strength I wrenched off my saturated clothing and turned the stillroom at Glen Garioch into my own personal launderette.

Back across the road in the visitor’s centre, Jane made me a cup of tea and I was taken round the distillery by tour guide Fiona. As we approached the glowing stills, the point at which my semi-nudity had featured unexpectedly in her previous tour, Fiona joked that she had considered whether or not to inform her two visitors who had also witnessed my disrobing that half-naked cyclists were pivotal to the final Glen Garioch flavour.

After the tour we discussed with Jane my travel ambitions, mishaps and fears, of which there were many at that moment. It was partly the bone-dry clothes, but mostly their encouragement that meant I had a smile on my face when I left Oldmeldrum and still had one when I later arrived in Huntly.

Would my Glen Garioch experience have been drastically different had I undertaken my journey in invigorating spring sunshine? It is, to all intents and purposes, a redundant question – one pretending to a rationality and design entirely absent from the minute-to-minute experience of my Odyssey. It rained, I chose a despicable road, I had a crisis, I was restored. That’s pretty much it.

When will be the 'right time'...?

Except, of course, it isn’t. Not by a long way. As I excavated my bottle of the 1990 Small-batch Release from the drinks cabinet, my entire tour could be appraised in 70 centilitre form. As I had reason to remark to my charming Swedish neighbour on a recent train journey, Scotch whisky has at once assumed positions in the micro and the macro of my life. Nothing is ‘just’ a dram – drinking is not simply consumption but a form of communion with a very particular form of spirit. Glen Garioch will always abide in my memory – like the mircoflora in a wooden washback – because it created a unique, intoxicating blend of circumstance, humanity and history: a sequence of unrepeatable malt moments. Friday, April 23 2010 surpassed all previous expectations for how whisky could inspire me to singular efforts, as well as the extent to which it and the people involved in it could reward them. Therefore, whilst my powers of recollection do not strictly require a material object, my 1990 bottling is as good a manifestation as I can come up with for now of these complex amalgamations of whisky and wonder.

A moment I will never forget - obliviousness as to the future makes a certain imprint on the mind.

If only my mind weren’t obliged to sacrifice quite so much attention to mastering my academic commitments, you would find me sprawled amongst the daffodils, incapacitated by reminiscence.

This Tuesday past marked the one year anniversary of my unpredictable, challenging and spectacular cross-breeding of single malt and a bicycle. I had not appreciated the power with which the rapid turning of the year would recall my preparations for my Odyssey although fortunately cherry blossom, blue skies and what feels as if it were laundered air have evoked less of the jittery insanity and helplessness and all of the excitement and wonder I don’t quite remember the prospect of six weeks of cycling in aid of the finest Scotch whisky entirely induced within me the first time round, the closer it came to departure. That I should be in Scotland renders the comparison still more arresting.

Of course, of greater import than a wish to go back in time, cock a leg over that silver cross bar and pedal away into the Trossachs again is the contrast of perspective the intervening twelve months supply: a year ago I would be snuggled into the bottom bunk in a dormitory of the Pitlochry Youth Hostel. Now, I am desperate to get into a different bed – one in my student accommodation. (Not until you’ve done more work.) I may yearn for the extraordinary surroundings of that first 60 mile plus ride from Pitlochry to Brechin, through Kirkmichael and Kirriemuir, but I have also encountered the sublime in my literary studies. The Odyssey introduced me to magnificent, singular people; here in St Andrews I have made further wonderful acquaintances.

Though I haven’t cycled between its production facilities for a while, whisky itself has at least abided with me. As I sipped a Glen Garioch Founder’s Reserve – a toast to the occasion – I could be profoundly grateful that my memories, connections and all that I learnt and experienced on the Odyssey inform each dram I pour for myself. While I won’t have the opportunity to get on the bike and spin to a distillery during the next six weeks, I intend to enjoy many whiskies in diverse circumstances and – as Keith and I discussed last month - chances are pleasingly high that a malt in my hand will communicate with one from the past.

As I complete my term’s work, my mind at every opportunity free-wheeling down a myriad single track roads or wandering between washbacks, I hope some of you will take advantage of the much improved weather to get out and explore some of Scotland’s unique landscapes, and singular single malts by whichever method of transport pleases you. These itchy legs of mine won’t let me forget the precious joy of two-wheeled adventure.