WHISKY DISTILLERIES
SCOTCH WHISKY - TRULY A SPIRIT OF PLACE
Scotch whisky. It may not be quite as old as the hills that hid the early producers, the highlanders, from the soldiers and the excisemen, but this most aromatic and complex of spirits has a very long, romantic, and sometimes stormy history. While the grain may have changed over the centuries, and the manufacturing process grown more sophisticated, at heart whisky remains the product of natural, local ingredients which undergo an almost magical alchemy in a long-necked copper still. And the exciseman in Whitehall still levies his punishing taxes!
The uninitiated, driving through Scotland on holiday, might be forgiven for thinking they had strayed into an Eastern film set, such is the impact of one’s first sight of the ‘pagoda’, the pyramidal tower that is the top of the kiln. In the lowlands, the highlands and islands, and especially in Speyside, these tell-tale landmarks tell the visitor they have arrived at a distillery, a manufacturing plant like no other.
Just as there is no such thing as a bad malt whisky, so each distillery has something unique to offer; landscape, a story, a water source, a take on hospitality. Glenmorangie used to claim that an accidental dent in one of its stills gave rise to the flavour! What follows then is a brief guide to just some of Scotland’s distilleries, where the welcome is as warm as a dram by the fire on a mid-winter’s night.
Written by our Whisky enthusiast Gordon Coxhill – Vintage Acquisitions
- All
- Campbletown
- Islands
- Islay
- Lowland
- Portal
- Speyside
- The Highlands
MILTONDUFF
There is no suggestion that the good monks of the Benedictine Priory in the Glen of Pluscarden were themselves involved in illicit distilling and smuggling in the early 1800s, but if not, they were about the only locals who weren’t!
FETTERCAIRN
A conflict of interests at Westminster? It would appear to be as old as the hills – the Grampian mountains, that is.
ALLT A BHAINNE
Malt purists, look away now, lest apoplexy get the better of you. While most aficiandos would baulk at taking anything other than a few drops of Scottish spring water…
PORT CHARLOTTE
Port Charlotte may have been ‘squatting’ at the Bruichladdich distillery two miles up the road, whilst its own premises were being rebuilt, but the two whiskies could not be more different.
BRUICHLADDICH
Ponder this. Way back in 1881 when the three Harvey brothers founded the Bruichladdich Distillery on the south-west tip of the then remote island of Islay, there were as many computers on site as there are today.
PORT DUNDAS
Imagine. For 200 years, on a 21-acre site at the highest point in the city of Glasgow, the Port Dundas distillery produced some 39 million litres of spirit.
GLENKINCHIE
When, in the near future, visitors are allowed to call at the Glenkinchie distillery, Pencaitland in East Lothian, they will marvel not only at a whisky with a difference, but also at the beautifully landscaped gardens.
GLEN SCOTIA
It was the rich farmland of Kintyre that produced abundant local barley, it was the ancient peat bogs and the proximity to Atlantic weather fronts that provided pure, soft water, that gave rise to the phenomenon that was Campbeltown malt whisky in the early years of the 19th century.
SPRINGBANK
If you prefer to take your dram in the company of a fine Havana, comfortable in a favourite winged leather armchair in your well-established library, then the 25-year-old, Local Barley special edition Springbank could be the malt for you.
GLENROTHES
Local Vicar Makes Fund-Raising Appeal’. Nothing surprising about that, you may think. Until you know that in 1878 the Reverend William Sharp, who warned of the dangers of temptation every Sunday morning, was appealing to the burghers of the small Speyside town of Rothes for money to build a new distillery!
CRAIGELLACHIE
A secretary of Harper’s Weekly Gazette, he visited every working distillery in Great Britain and Ireland between 1885-87, including 129 in Scotland.
ROYAL BRACKLA
Shakespeare does not record whether Macbeth was a devotee of the local whisky, but his descendants almost certainly were.
GLEN MORAY
Shortly after the first spirit flowed from the new stills by the banks of the River Lossie in Elgin, on 13th September, 1897, much of it was encased in casks which had once held Sicilian Marsala wine; a truly innovative experiment for the time.
BUNNAHABHAIN
Anybody making the pilgrimage to the village of Bunnahabhain, by the Margadale Spring on the Sound of Islay at the north-east tip of the island…
STRATHISLA
Just imagine. If the bottom had not fallen out of the flax dressing business – removing the straw from the fibres of the linseed plant in readiness for turning it into linen…
TULLIBARDINE
A coronation is naturally likely to bring on a bit of nerves. So a young King James 1V of Scotland can hardly be blamed for stopping off for a beer at the brewery at Blackford, Perthshire, on the way to his crowning in 1488.
THE GLENLIVET
What’s in a name? An awful lot when the name is The! Back in 1824, George Smith caused something of a rumpus among his peers when he obtained the first legal licence to distil spirits at Castleton of Blairfindy in the River Livet valley.
GLENFIDDICH
If it is true that Glenfiddich is the name most often brought to mind by those with only a passing interest in whisky, thanks to its ubiquitous presence on supermarket and pub shelves, that would surely please founder William Grant.
GLENFARCLAS
At the foot of Ben Rinnes at Ballindalloch, Speyside, lies an area known as Valley of the Green Grassland. Only in the Gaelic does it take on great significance; Glenfarclas.
GLEN DEVERON (MACDUFF)
The whisky from the Moray Firth fishing port of Macduff has suffered an identity crisis in the past because bottlings were released at various times under the name Macduff, The Deveron or Glen Deveron. Today, look out for the latter.
THE MACALLAN
The opening of a £140 million state-of-the-art distillery and visitor centre that made the shortlist for the Stirling Prize for excellence in architecture.
GLENMORANGIE
Almost 20 years later Glenmorangie (it rhymes with orangey) joined the Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy company.
ISLE OF JURA
Isle of Jura single malt whisky was finally re-established in 1963 and it has not looked back since, steadily garnering both reputation and following.
HIGHLAND PARK
The whisky is matured in American and European oak in which Oloroso sherry has previously resided for two years.
ISLE OF ARRAN
Even down to the packaging, there is something distinctly clean and clear about the Isle of Arran single malt.