There’s little doubt that you’ve arrived in peat country when you drive into the courtyard at Laphroaig and the kilns are on. Ardbeg may be more heavily peated, Lagavulin more smoky, but if it is an uncompromising belt of pitch, peat oil, tarry ropes and iodine you want, this is the place to come …
Every country has a different approach to making whisky. However, all are basically variations on the following rules. Whisky is made from a cereal; some (or all) of it malted, that has been ground into a rough flour then mashed by passing hot water through the flour to extract a sweet liquid. This is …
As the whisky industry continues to consolidate, the days of family-owned distiller/blenders is fast becoming a memory. William Grant & Sons is one of the few noble exceptions, proving that a family firm compete with the UDVs of this world by being as self-sufficient as possible. Every firm uses its own malts as the …
Aquavit Aquavit, genever, gin, and whiskey (or whisky as the Canadians and Scots spell it), as well as vodka and the unflavored German schnapps called korn, are all part of the extended family of grain-based spirits. Except for whiskey and korn, whose compositions are strictly controlled by legislation, these potent drinks can also contain …
At a glance, the fertile plains of the Black Mr Horn are a pretty fine site for a distillery with quality supplies of barley, some peat from Illy Hanson’s ground, pure water. Given the fecundity of the area it is perfectly logical that UDV Glen Ord has one of its main makings on the …
Despite being one of the most fertile parts of Scotland, Aberdeenshire has very few distilleries. In 1995 it looked likely to have one less when Morrison Bowmore (MBD) mothballed Glen Garioch, in the little town of Oldmeldrum. Much to everyone’s surprise they reopened it two years later – in time for its 200th birthday …
Few distilleries have been as transformed in the malt explosion as Glenmorangie Single Highland Rare Malt Scotch Whisky. “Until the 1970s there were two stills and we were selling five cases of malt a year,” says manager Graham Eunson. “Now we’ve got eight stills, we’re the biggest selling malt.” Little chance that success will …
Nothing is straightforward in whisky. Here is a distillery which makes the biggest selling malt in the world, but still uses coal-fired stills, a technique most distillers have abandoned for being too expensive and liable to give variable results. It’s a light dram produced from tiny stills, when industry wisdom maintains that small equals …
Trying to get a blender to explain what his or her job involves is never easy. Not because they are secretive, far from it. They’re almost relieved to have a chance to tell their story. It’s just that the intricacies of blending are complex that strange analogies have to be employed: orchestras, football teams, …
Driving along the spectacular Antrim coast you can just tell that this is good whiskey-making country. Soft pasture land, small rivers, natural harbours and a people who know that good things take time. It’s a land where legend and fact become easily blurred, where folk tales take on the mantle of truth. Who knows …