That’s The Spirit!

It’s amazing how often you can drive by something and not realise the treat you are missing. Being somebody who works away from home, I get used to missing things as deadlines and events pass me by. But this month I was going to make a stand and take action about some things that I’ve passed by for years.

The first thing that that I regularly pass by is the Bridge of Avon at Ballindalloch castle. If you are familiar with the A95 road that runs through Speyside, you’ll know of the hairpin like bend that descends past the Delnashaugh Hotel, towards Ballindalloch Post Office and Filling station. There is a modern bridge going over the River Avon, and out one side, you may see the gatehouse for one of the Ballindalloch Castle entrances, but it’s hard to see the old bridge.

The other thing that is easy to pass by is some whitewashed steadings, but not just any old steadings – these contain the Ballindalloch Distillery, which started production in 2014. I have to admit that I don’t pass it by, as I have visited before and completed the ‘Art Of Whisky Making’ day that was run before the advent of the Coronavirus pandemic. This time I was going to be able to stop and take part in my first Spirit of Speyside Festival event in many years.

The Spirit of Speyside festival is probably the largest whisky festival in Scotland, if not the UK. Starting in 1999, the festival can ordinarily have over 700 events spread out over 6 days. Over the past couple of years, the festival has been impacted by the pandemic and the normally springtime event in 2021 was moved to the late autumn. This was great news for me. Normally the spring through to summer periods are a busy time at work due to the fact a lot of projects kick off at sea when the weather is more conducive to oil industry operations so I normally miss out, but the rescheduled festival this year meant I could take part once again.

As part of the Spirit of Speyside Festival this year, the distillery opened its doors once more. Not only would you get a detailed tour of the very compact distillery, but you would also get the chance to taste their single malt some two years before its official release.

Our party of 8 for this event included Richard Forsyth OBE, the former managing director of Forsyth’s of Rothes, the company famous for the manufacture of distilling equipment. Mr Forsyth told the story how he and some golfing chums used to play on the Ballindalloch Golf course. One day they had been playing and had met the Laird of Ballindalloch Castle at the time, Oliver Russell. Mr Russell had been mentioning to Mr Forsyth and his friends that he didn’t know what to do with the ruined buildings, which were listed, and means they could not be demolished, so the story goes that Mr Forsyth had suggested a distillery.

It is a good job that this advice was taken, for by 2014 the Ballindalloch distillery had started production. One of the issues in the construction was that the buildings could not be modified externally due to listing regulations, therefore any distilling equipment had to be fitted within the available space.

***Mash tun and stainless steel under back***

The distillery has a copper topped mash tun, with a charge of 1 ton of grist, the process then flows through the building beyond with 4 wooden washbacks followed by the single wash and spirit stills. All the equipment is on an upper mezzanine which makes the process easier to understand. While the majority of those present had been to the distillery before, the distillery manager Colin Poppy gave us a detailed yet unhurried tour and the opportunity to ask whatever questions we wished.

***Wash backs with spirit Spirit Still and Wash Still in the background.***

Previously, tours usually ended in the tasting hall or sitting room where there were comfortable sofas to sit and relax while drinking whisky from some of the family Cragganmore whisky casks, on account of there being no Ballindalloch whisky to taste. This time was going to be different.

I’m not going to beat around the bush; the highlight of this trip was to sample the Ballindalloch whisky. For the tasting we were able to try two 7 year old samples of Ballindalloch. One was from cask 5, which was a bourbon cask, and the second one was from an Oloroso sherry cask number 130.

Due to the nature of the tasting, I wasn’t able to take detailed tasting notes of any of the whiskies at the time as I was not able to take the time to really analyse the drams but I can give you the following: –

***Ballindalloch Single Malt. Bourbon Cask 5 on the left, Oloroso Cask 130 on the right.***

7 Year old Bourbon Cask – 60.3%

Nose: – Black pepper, Apples, slightly acidic – lemon. Hint of vanilla.

Palate: – Sweet – vanilla fudge, Apple jolly rancher candies, pastry notes. Became more spicy once water added, and the apple became less prominent and more like an apple pie with cinnamon and ginger. Light to medium mouthfeel with little spirit burn.

Finish: – Long but gentle finish with the apple, ginger and vanilla notes fading gradually.

7 Year Old Oloroso Cask – 60.2%

Nose: – Raisins, Fig, Christmas cake sponge, Red Apple.

Palate: – Much more Raisins and Fig, Plums, Sultanas, Nutmeg. Sweet, light to medium body, excellent mouthfeel with little spirit burn.

Finish: – Again, became a little spicier when water added. Another gentle fade with the Christmas Cake Spices and dried fruit dominating.

These drams both have something in common – at no point would you have guessed you were drinking cask strength spirit at such a young age. I found both these spirits to be immediately drinkable. Water was not necessary, though did open the spirit. Indeed, everybody at the tasting had the same opinion of the Ballindalloch spirit. It was agreed that the whisky that we were provided was exceptional. In my opinion the fact that Ballindalloch had made the decision not to release whisky as soon as they could legally do so was the correct one. I’ve tasted a few younger drams from some of the recent crop of recently opened distilleries and they come nowhere close to this.

***Three Cragganmore from the MacPherson-Grant private casks***

The three Cragganmore that followed were also very delicious, ranging from a 28 y.o Bourbon Cask at 53.1%, a 28 y.o 2^nd fill Bourbon cask at 42.6% and a 29 year old PX cask at 43.2%.

Ballindalloch will always be a distillery with limited supply of whisky when they eventually release. All the barley for the distillery is grown on the Ballindalloch estate, and the distillery was never designed with 24 hr operation in mind. If they were to up production, they would also likely need more washbacks to maintain the long fermentation times that are required to give the light and fruity spirit that is produced at Ballindalloch. And here is where the problem lies is that there is no room for extra washbacks.

With Ballindalloch not having a large output and not able to expand, it is likely that releases of Ballindalloch will have the same buzz that is seen when a Daftmill is released. And it deserves this accolade, if not more than Daftmill. I’ve had early Daftmill and at 12 years old it came nowhere near to the levels of enjoyment I got with the Ballindalloch whisky. Colin and his team have done an excellent job in developing the Ballindalloch distillery right from the start. The unrushed approach to the distillation of the whisky has paid off, and I can’t wait to taste the final spirit.

***Empty glasses are a sure sign of*** ***a good dram***

We were told that Ballindalloch is not likely to release its spirit until 2023, this will be as an 8 year old. Colin informed those present that the plan would ideally to be to progress to a 10 and 12 year old once stocks allow. Of course, one does hope for single cask releases too.

Based on this experience, I don’t think anybody should have any sleepless nights over the quality of this whisky. The only sleepless nights I will get will be because I just can’t wait.

Hopefully the Ballindalloch distillery will get back to allowing regular tours next year, as well as the day long ‘Art of Whisky’ making course. I can personally recommend this, as you can see the passion in the Ballindalloch team in their distillery, the care they take with their spirit, and hopefully now the smiles they will have now the public have had a taste of their work and have loved it.

The countdown has begun to 2023.

Yours In Spirits (and in Speyside!)

Scotty

Index of tastings here

Index of articles here

Thanks also to Fiona and Andrew at the Delnashaugh hotel just around the corner from Ballindalloch distillery. I stayed here when visiting for the Art Of Whisky day and again for this trip as I could not drive after drinking.

A great family run hotel with delicious food and large comfortable rooms. I slept well and the breakfast the next day was outstanding. I thoroughly recommend that anybody visiting Ballindalloch consider staying here.

Photo Credits

All Photos – Authors Own

Doing It Yourself

Making whisky at Ballindalloch

Followers of my Facebook page can’t have failed to notice that I’ve recently visited the Ballindalloch Distillery. This is the one distillery that I haven’t got a bottle from in the Speyside Corridor surrounding the A95 ‘Whisky Road’ from Aviemore in Highland to Keith in Morayshire. There is a good reason for that – they haven’t released one, as it is still a young distillery.

I have a small issue in my whisky journey, and unless you are in the distilling trade, it is one you may suffer too – distillery tours are not enough. Regardless of how professional guides are in the major distilleries, most of them just follow a script, and while if you ask a question they can’t answer they’ll find out for you, the best thing to do is cut out the middleman and do it for yourself. Luckily for me, the Ballindalloch Distillery provide an ‘Art of Whisky Making’ experience. The idea behind this was so I could also provide you with much more information, but there is so much to process, it would be impossible to write in a simple blog, and therefore I’ll just use my knowledge gained to enhance any articles I write.

I have been on many distillery tours, and know how whisky is made. No matter what distillery you go to, it all happens in the same general way. I needed to know how the distillery were able to influence the flavour through the fermentation and distillation processes. Ballindalloch is a very special distillery. I watched it grow from a ruined steading to the distillery it is now as I drove between Aberdeen and Kingussie. I saw the stills being lifted in by crane, and I was determined to visit at some point. This came on the 3rd of October this year.

I must say, the visit couldn’t have been any better. I was a wee bit nervous at what to expect, but I needn’t have worried. The biggest thing I was worried about was arriving at 8am!

I was met by the distillery host, Brian Robinson, who gave me a friendly welcome. We sat down in the room where tastings from the McPherson-Grant cellars are taken, and we discuss what I expect to gain from my visit. When I mention it’s detailed knowledge I require, Brian delightfully tells me that the guys will love to pass on their knowledge, and I should ask away!

There are only 4 people involved directly with the distillery; Brian, Colin the manager, plus operators Davie and Ian. All of them took time to show me exactly what was happening and answered all questions enthusiastically.

Empty wash still, steam heating coils showing

Unlike any distillery tour, you get to see the whole lot, warts and all. Also, unlike any tour, the day starts at the stills, and not the mash tun. Firstly, Low wines from the wash still is already in the spirit still, and has been sweating in the spirit still ready to go. This already has heat in it, and is already starting to react with the copper of the stills. This helps define the character of the whisky. The spirit still has a boil ball, which increases the amount of reflux, further purifying the spirit.

While the spirit still is coming up to temperature, the wash still is filled with the liquid from the washbacks. Ballindalloch has 4 washbacks, and have 4 long fermentations and one short. Davie and Ian both explain at different times during the day that long fermentations give a wash that will provide fruity and floral spirit, shorter ones give a more malty, biscuity spirit.

The wash still is charged with 5000 litre of wash, and the clock starts. Within half an hour, flow is observed in the spirit safe. That’s the magic of Ballindalloch – there wasn’t a figure given, but it was done roughly by time. There appears to be no rush at all. Attention is turned to the mash tun now.

Inside the mash tun – rakes at the ready.

“People see the stills as the romantic side of a distillery, but if you don’t get the mashing and fermentation right, you’ll have nothing to distill” says Davie, a man with over 30 years experience at Macallan. And he’s right. The mash tun is filled with sparge water (water from the 3rd rinse in the previous mash) to heat the bottom of the mash tun, and to prevent the grist forming a dough and blocking the mash tun up. Close to 1000kg of grist (milled malted barley) is fed into the mash tun along with sparge, for the first rinse. This is followed by two more rinses at higher temperatures to give a charge of wort for the washback, and sparge water for the next mash.

Agitating the yeast to start fermentation

I’m given a sip of the filtered, undistllled wash, and it catches me by surprise. It actually tastes very much like cider – apple, pear and a wee bit of malt. The dead yeast at the bottom of the wash back is what has created esters which give the fruity taste. By now, the liquid is ready for distillation, having reached an alcoholic strength of 8-9%

All the time, Ian is keeping a eye on the wash still and the spirit still, and explains the principles behind temperature and gravity to work out how much alcohol is produced. While not such a consideration for the low wines out of the wash still, it is important when trying to know when to make the cut from the spirit still.

For those of you who haven’t been to a distillery, knowing where to make the cut is important. The first produce out of the still is the most alcoholic, plenty of volatile compounds, and too strong to use. These are known as the foreshots (or head). Next, around 72% alcohol, we move the spirit safe to divert the still output to the spirit receiver. This portion is known as the heart and when it drops to the acceptable level, the spirit safe then diverts to collect the final portion, the feints. The foreshots and feints gets collected in the feints receiver and are used to charge the spirit still with the low wines for the next spirit distillation.

Tradition is important to Ballindalloch. The vapours from the stills aren’t condensed in a shell and tube condenser, but in a traditional wooden worm tub. This is a large wooden tub with the whisky being fed into a spiral of copper tube some 70 metres long to cool the spirit. Further copper contact also removes more of the sulphuric compounds to produce a lighter spirit. Indeed, a small sip of the new make (or Clearic) is a revelation. Not harsh or gobstoppingly strong, but light, fruity and floral.

It is mind boggling to believe that a 5000 litre wash charge only makes about 600 litres of spirit. This is eventually moved to a vat, where the week’s produce reduced to casking strength of 63.5%. This is put into barrels once a week on a Thursday, therefore I had a go at filling a barrel, and also inking on the distillery logo and markings. There is a small dunnage warehouse on site, with the scales for weighing the barrels before and after they were filled. This is so they know how much liquid is in the cask. The casks used are from the American Bourbon industry so will give a sweet note to the whisky as it matures.

One of the skills I had to master is the timing of the casks. A line is drawn on the floor, and the cask gets rolled to the end of the strip of concrete in the middle of the warehouse. It has to stop with the bung up to prevent leakage. The next cask has to be advanced 20 minutes when it reaches the line, so that by time it rolls against the first cask, the bung will be at the top. By advancing 20 minutes, it means moving the barrel so that when at the line, the bung is at 120 degrees further round than the previous barrel. This guarantees the bung will be in a vertical position. Much to the amusement of Davie, I got it right three times in a row. He reckons it was good judgement. Those who know me will realise it was a fluke!

And so now we have to wait. Nobody could say exactly when bottling is expected, but figures around the 2022 – 2024 were mentioned. I for one cannot wait to taste this whisky, and look forward to the day when the first edition is released.

The day ends with a tasting from one of the casks held by the McPherson-Grant family. I had a 27 year old Cragganmore, and it was outstanding. Relaxing in the tasting room which is made up to resemble a public room in the castle, I took the time to speak to Colin the distillery manager, where he shared some of his experiences in the Scottish Whisky industry.

It was a whole day, but it shot past so quickly and it wasn’t long before Brian was giving me my Art of Whisky Making polo shirt, and it was time to go. It was day for learning, in which my whisky knowledge came on so much. I’ve forgotten a bit of it already as I didn’t want to be too rude in taking notes on my phone all the time. Therefore I think a repeat visit will be needed.

Draff for the Ballindalloch Aberdeen-Angus

There are other whisky experiences like this. Springbank do a residential one for 5 days, and Strathearn used to do similar, and there are other distilleries but these are very high cost. In the case of the Springbank experience it is over £1400 not including transportation. To me, I feel my £175 was money extremely well spent. There is no way in the world I could have learnt and seen so much by just going on a tour. If you want to advance your whisky experience, this is a journey I can recommend.

I can’t wait to go back.

Postscripts – Davie, I bought the Naked Grouse. We’ll soon see if you need to buy my bottle off me!!

Ian, Callum said that once you drink a bottle of 60 year old Ballindalloch, you’re free to throw chuckies at him!

Colin – thanks for the corrections!

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photo credits

All photos authors own unless otherwise credited.

I do like to be beside the seaside.

The distillery you could throw a stone into the sea from – Oban

Taste Review – Oban 14

To conclude last week’s visit to Oban Distillery, the guide handed out a measly portion of Oban 14. I wasn’t too sure of it, so had decided to have another one in the whisky bar upstairs.

The key taste profile is one of smoke, orange peel, salt and honey. During the tour we were told the barley is malted using a small amount of peat to give the smoke. The length of the fermentation gives the citrus notes and the ex-Bourbon Cask gives the honey. Nobody knows where the salt enters the process, but as the worm tubs used for condensing the liquid from the stills are in the roof, plus the fact the distillery is less than 300 steps to the sea, there is a good bet that there is where it gets its salt. Barrels are not matured on site, but elsewhere in the lowlands.

Age

14 years old

Strength

43% a.b.v

Colour

Light golden pine

Nose

Slight smoke, citrus

Palate

Oak, figs, a wee bit of citrus, orange peel, spice.

Finish

Medium, spice, smoke, honey and sea salt.

Conclusion

It’s a good enough malt, but it wasn’t good enough for me to buy a full size bottle. Diageo seem to miss a trick yet again by the dreaded chill filtration, which while it ensures a clear whisky after adding water, removes some of the goodness and taste. I’d increase the abv to the correct side of 46% as perhaps more alcohol would give a fuller flavour.

Would I buy another? No. Wee bit too bland for me, and as it’s almost central in a whisky map, would give a beginner an excellent start in single malts. On this basis I can recommend. Certainly an easy drinker, and I wouldn’t turn my nose up at it. As I said, I really liked the cask strength sample, and if I saw an independent bottling of this, I would buy it.

My 20CL bottle cost me £15.95 at the distillery, expect to pay £46 for a full size bottle in the UK.

Slainte Mhath!

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Size isn’t everything…..

…..It’s what you do with it that counts….

Whisky distillery visit – Oban

Well, I hope you all didn’t miss world whisky day on the 18th of May. I have to admit, I did. I had hoped to leave an article or a tasting review on the day. I was travelling about 100 miles down the West Coast of Scotland to Oban, and my intention was to get into the distillery and have a wee taste review on the day, but it just wasn’t to be. In the end my visit had to be on the day after on Sunday.

Oban is the second smallest distillery in Diageo’s Scottish portfolio, the smallest being Royal Lochnagar. It has a capacity of 838,000 litres a year, which is quite low for a distillery owned by a major corporation. The distillery started off as a brewery next to a small fishing village. Soon, the village grew into a small town and surrounded the distillery, meaning that the distillery could not expand.

The tour guide who showed us around was Irianna, a young lady from Cuba who had settled in Scotland. She knew her subject matter well, and answered questions well.

Because Oban distillery is so small, malting does not take place here, so the malted barley is delivered from a supplier. The malt has been dried with peat, but is only lightly so. It is crushed here to create the heist and fed into the single mash tun.

The wort from the last mash is used as the liquid for the first mash in the next mash. The mashing produces 32,000 litres of wort which then gets fed to the wash backs. The 4 washbacks are made of Douglas Fir, each lasting about 45 years. 2 are due replacement soon. Fermentation takes up to 6 days, with the long fermentation giving the citrus notes to the spirit. The wash is typically 9% abv.

Both the wash still and spirit still are lamp glass shape, with the Spirit charge being 11,000 litres. The low wines from the wash still are about 24% abv. which then feed into the spirit charger and onto the spirit still, the charge measuring approximately 6,500 litres. The foreshots come out of the still at 90% abv, but this isn’t desirable nor is it drinkable unless making yourself blind is one of your life goals. The heart of the distillation is taken at 65-70% abv. The feints (the spirit too weak to make whisky) is put back into the spirit charger along with the foreshots for the next charge of low wine into the spirit still.

The waste products of the stills (pot ale from the wash and spent lees from the spirit still) are treated and sent to waste.

The Oban Distillery uses worm tubs to cool the vapour from the stills, which have the disadvantage of not having as much copper contact as a shell and tube condenser. This means the spirit is a bit heavier, more meaty. This is counteracted by running the worms hotter than normal, and leaving the access door to the still open after the distillation of a batch to ensure that the copper of the still rejuvenates quicker. Copper contact is vital for taking out some of the impurities out of the spirit, such as sulphur. I noted that the Lyne arm from the wash still was slightly canted upwards which would help with reflux and filter out more of the undesirable parts of the spirit.

Illustration of still and worm tub tubing

The final spirit is diluted to 63.5% before being placed into ex bourbon casks, which impart the honeyed note that is also part of Oban’s whisky. Most of the production is matured off-site due to the space restrictions. It is unknown where the maritime note of sea salt gets into the whisky, but perhaps it is from the barrels that are stored on site.

As we move toward the end of the tour, we are led into an old warehouse which has some barrel parts with coopering tools. There were a couple barrels which had whisky in them. The guide would then use a valinch to remove enough whisky to give each one of us a small dram. This was whisky that isn’t sold at all by the distillery and was a nine year old Cask Strength (58.1%) whisky.

What struck me at this point was if I was to have had a ‘Copper Dog’ with me, I could have had a much better portion as the cask was left unguarded as the guides back was turned. And I so wish I could have, as this for me would prove to be the best dram of the day, despite only getting 10ml of it. Plus, regardless of its strength, I found this very palatable with no water, and very little burn. A strong honey flavour in the taste, with a light smoke, and salty smoke in the medium finish.

Very little colour and not enough liquid!

We finish up in a tasting room, where we are all shown the distillery range, and whereupon the Diageo Game of Thrones range was pushed upon us a wee bit. Having never seen a single episode, I’m not that interested and especially when when we were told it is a 60/40 mix of two of their range, which if I remember correctly was Oban Distillery Edition and Oban 14. A dram of 14 y.o was given out and that was the end of the tour.

I find it funny that the big push to buy something when the next stop is the gift shop, but I decided to give that a miss to begin with, and headed to the impressive whisky bar upstairs which gave a full range of Oban produce as well as some other Diageo offerings, including most of the currently produced remnants of the Flora and Fauna range (I’ll have to do a blog post on that sometime!). I went for another Oban 14, to get the essence of it, then an Inchgower 14 F&F which I am familiar with, but rarely taste.

Both 14 year olds are very palatable but the Oban is a heavier whisky, whereas Inchgower is much more delicate – probably the most delicate thing to come from the fishing port of Buckie! It made my mind up to buy a drinking bottle of Inchgower, and I also had to purchase a 20cl bottle of Oban 14 and Clynelish 14. The Clynelish I have had before and it is absolutely fantastic.

The 14 year old Oban was good enough, and apparently most of their produce of this bottling is sold in the USA. I’ll do a taste review on this later in the week. In conclusion, this is a good tour to do. If you can look past the corporate side of things, it’s brilliant to see a small distillery rather than a massive spirit factory. The staff are really friendly and helpful, and I thoroughly recommend a visit.

Slainte Mhath!

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Do you have any Irish in you?

Do you want any?

Of course I mean do you want any Irish Whiskey inside you. And why would you not? Although Irish whiskey is currently 5% of the global market, it certainly seems to be on the cusp of a massive renaissance. I have to be very honest, I’m somewhat lacking in the knowledge and experience of Irish whiskey, so a visit to Teeling Distillery in the Liberties area of Dublin was an excellent way to make a start.

Walter Teeling started out distilling at his Marrowbone Lane Distillery in the Liberties area of Dublin. This eventually merged with William Jameson’s distillery, also on Marrowbone lane. Due to financial difficulties, the whole enterprise closed in 1923.

The whiskey industry in Ireland used to be massive with 37 distilleries in Dublin alone. The last distillery in Dublin, the Powers distillery closed in 1976 when it relocated to Cork.

However, this was not to be the end of Teeling. In 1987, John Teeling bought a facility in Cooley, Co. Louth, which had been used to make industrial alcohol from potatoes. This was converted to a whisky distillery and opened in 1989. John sold the distillery to Beam Suntory in 2011, but the stock in the warehouses was not part of the deal. His sons, Jack and Stephen has also worked at the Cooley plant, and in 2015 established the Teeling Distillery again on Newmarket, in Liberties area.

The distillery visit

As is common with many whisky distillery visits, there are different packages you can get as part of your tour. This just varies how many products you get to taste at the end. We picked the Trinity tour which included three samples (Small Batch, Single Grain and Single Malt). This cost €22ea, the cheapest option was the Small Batch, which included a sample of Small batch and a seasonal whiskey cocktail, which costs €17 and the Distillery Select tasting allows you to taste the Single Malt, Small Batch, Distillery Select and the Small Pot Still whiskies. This was €30.

The distillery tour starts in an open plan space with 7 large information boards and whiskey collectables. Once the introductions are done, you are taken to see a short video, then through a door into the distillery area.

One impressive thing I noticed straight away is that being a new distillery and also one which had a visitor experience in mind, the distillery is fully accessible to those in wheelchairs. There is a lift at the end to get back down to ground label, but the journey to the production area is all on ramps.

The malted barley or grains are put into a mill to be converted to grist and are fed into a stainless steel mash tun.

Mash Tun

There are three washes of water rinsed over the grist, with the first mash being at 78C, the subsequent rinses being with hotter water. The output of the mash tun is wort, and contains all the sugars needed for the yeast to convert into alcohol. The wort goes into the washbacks but are known here as Fermenters. Unusually, the first 2 fermenters are wooden and the remaining fermenters are stainless steel.

Fermenters (wash backs)

Both of the wooden wash backs were open, one worn fermenting sugars and the other which had wort only in it. Fermentation takes between 3-5 days.

Once fermentation is complete, the wash is fed into the first still (the wash still). The wash is boiled at 88C. The out put from this still is known as the Low Wines. The low wines are fed to the intermediate still, which boils its liquid at 84C. The output of the intermediate still is known as feints and is fed to the final still, which is the spirit still, the output of which is known as New Make. The strength of the New Make is 84% abv.

Irish whiskey is typically triple distilled, whereas with a couple of exceptions, Scottish whisky is double distilled. Auchentoshan is a Scottish lowland Malt that is triple distilled and Benrinnes is a Speyside malt that used to partially triple distill by re-distilling the output of the spirit still. I’ve a Bruichladdich that has been quadruple distilled but as it is only 3 years old I’ve no urgency to try it yet.

The Stills

An interesting fact is that the Italian manufactured stills are named after the daughters of the founders. In order of process they are Alison, Natalie and Rebecca. Zoe has her name on the first cask filled at the new distillery.

You don’t get to see the warehouses at Teeling, rather just a mock up of rack storage. There are display bottles of the spirit as New Make, 6 months old and 6 years, which then gives you an idea of how the barrel changes the spirit over time.

The whisky supplied comes from the stocks produced at the Cooley distillery as the produce at Teeling has only just reached the age at which it can be called whiskey – 3 years old as is in Scotland. However where it is made is of little consequence at the moment, as it is still very tasty.

New Make,6 months and 6 years old spirit

After this stage, you are taken through for a tasting. Depending on what tour you purchased determines who many samples you get. As said previously we went for the Trinity tasting which gave us three samples (Small Batch, Single Grain and Single Malt). You get a small wrist band to identify which tasting you get but a word to the wise – don’t tighten it unless you have scissors to cut it off! I had to make do with nail clippers!

Small Batch, Single Grain and Single Malt.

I’ll give a taste test on the three whiskies sampled later as I couldn’t take good photos of the colours and didn’t get time to make notes, however I did get a Trinity tasting set to do this at home.

And this concludes the tour. I’ve been brief, as I wouldn’t want to spoil your experience if you visit, but if in Dublin I could thoroughly recommend it.

https://teelingdistillery.com/