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, …
Most distilleries are stubborn individuals. Christine Ila is an exception though. “If we seriously wanted to change Mortlach could we do it?” she asks. “No, you’d get a corrupted spirit. We always have to keep within the parameters of what the distillery character is.” It’s a polite way of responding to criticisms that the …
Regional categorisation is a vexed issue in whisky: it may be a handy way of grouping distilleries together geographically, but it can be a tricky business identifying a stylistic continuity between all the whiskies in Perthshire or Speyside. But if you can’t claim that there is a “Speyside style,” or isolate certain qualities which …
There was a time you could spot a distillery by the smoke belching from its chimney. Now, most chimneys have been demolished as distilleries have switched from coal to steam. Hughes recalls as a child watching Glen Garioch’s chimneys being demolished brick-by-brick by a Glaswegian steeple jack. “He came up the road, bouncing off …