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The Dalmore Distillery Visit- A Single Malt Scotch Whisky Distillery Tour

Last week I visited the Isle of Jura, The Dalmore, and Fettercairn distilleries in Scotland. These brands are all owned by White & Mackay. This post is about visiting The Dalmore distillery.

(The Dalmore distillery indicated by red dot. Map from Google Maps.)

From Jura, we took a boat to the mainland and then drove diagonally northeast to reach The Dalmore. It was a long and gorgeous drive into the Highlands that took the better part of a day. 

(The Dalmore distillery)

There are many things that make up the final flavor profile of a single-malt scotch, including the variety of barley, the peating levels of it, the water used in the mashing and fermentation, the size and shape of the stills, the size and type of barrels used to age it, where the barrels are aged, and of course the length of aging of the whisky. 

The water for The Dalmore comes from Loch Morie, and inland lake. The water then runs through a river to the distillery that is located on another body of water, the Cromarty Firth. As the water travels through a whole lot of peat on the way, by the time it reaches the distillery it is brown in color. This water, not filtered, is used in the mashing and fermentation, and to dilute the whisky to barrel proof for aging. 

You can see how it might add to the flavor of the whisky.

(Peat-filled brown water flowing into The Dalmore distillery.)

In the previous post I talked about Jura's tall stills that produce a light and fruity spirit full of high esther notes like pear. At The Dalmore the stills are quite differently shaped and this impacts the spirit.

Photography wasn't allowed in the still room so you'll have to make due with my artistic renderings below.

The stills for the first distillation almost look decapitated- they just stop with a flat top and the lynne arm is not a gentle curve from the top, but a tube sticking out from a foot or two below it.

 

(Artistic rendering of stills at The Dalmore. Not to scale.)

The still for the second distillation isn't quite as ugly, but it's even more interesting. I think this is the first time I've seen a water-filled reflux section on a still in Scotland. On the tubular pipe near the top of the still is a section that is rinsed with cool water inside.

This makes it difficult for light elements to reach the top of the still, leaving the more robust heavy molecules to cross over to the condenser. You get a spirit that's a lot less light and esthery, very much unlike Jura we'd visited the day before.

 

Thus The Dalmore comes off the still as a big bold heavy liquid before it goes into wood. It is then the job of the Master Blender, Richard Patterson in this case, to tame the spirit as it ages and shape it into the final product.

I thought that the role of the Master Blender was simply to take what was given to him- a bunch of scotch in barrels- and mix it together, but it is much more than that, at least at The Dalmore.

Patterson chooses the types of barrels (going to Jerez to pick out the sherry ones personally) in which the spirit will be aged, decides on the flavor profile he's seeking for a particular bottling, manages the aging process and checks up on the spirit to see how it is doing as it develops, and puts the blends together. It is product development, wood management, and blending.

Keep in mind that this is still just for a single-malt scotch whisky, a blend of whiskies from the same distillery. A vatted malt or a blend would involve whiskies from other distilleries and grain (column distilled) whisky also. Patterson does this for the Whyte & Mackay blended scotch whisky that is not available in the US.

On this trip I learned a great deal about the different roles of the master distiller and the master blender, and how some spirits need gentle nudging as they age to get them to the right final flavor profile, and others need an aggressive and more hands-on approach to bring them into line. Funny enough, the lighter, softer spirit is made on an island and the full-bodied bruiser comes from the Highlands.

Jura Distillery Visit- A Single Malt Scotch Whisky Distillery Tour

Last week I visited my 50th distillery/blending house at the Isle of Jura. What made it extra special is that we hit it at 1:30 in the morning.

Though the Isle of Jura is closer to mainland Scotland than Islay, to reach it you take either a plane or ferry to Islay then another quick ferry to Jura. (Jura is the red dot on the map below. Islay is the island to its left.)

(Map produced using Google Maps.)

Jura has far fewer inhabitants than Islay- I think around 200 compared with Islay's 3500- and just one distillery compared with Islay's eight. We arrived on the island after a drive and boat trip, then had time for dinner and a visit to the pub. 

It was after we left the pub (they kicked us out at 1:15AM) that we noticed the lights were on in the distillery. "Do you want to see it now?" asked Willie Tait, Jura's Master Distiller, to the last two journalists standing.

"Um, yeah!" we said, and in we went.

(Late night in the distillery.)

The next morning we gathered up everybody for the real tour. Tait calls Jura "A Highland whisky made on an island," which is short for "unpeated." Islay/island whiskies are known for their smoky flavor, which comes from drying sprouted barley with peat smoke.

In the olden days when the first Jura distillery was built back in 1810, the whisky would have been heavily peated as the barley would have been dried locally.

Jura had no distillery for a long time- the current one opened in 1963- and by then everything had changed. Most barley is dried in large commercial facilities then shipped to distilleries. Each distillery can specify the level of peatiness of their malted barley (in phenolic content), and Jura for the most part specifies none at all. 

(Malted barley ready for use at Jura.)

The barley is brought to the distillery, milled to break it up, then washed with hot water to release sugars, fermented, and distilled. 

The stills on Jura are quite tall- 28 feet- and this produces a spirit that is very light in body, emphasizing the high esther notes ("pear drops") in the whisky.

(Tall stills at Jura.)

Jura is aged in a few kinds of wood. Much of it is what Tait called "American oak." These casks are ex-bourbon barrels that also were used to age scotch and have been rebuilt into hogshead sized barrels that are a little bigger than the bourbon ones. Unlike "ex-bourbon" barrels that are also used on Jura, the American oak barrels aren't still soaking with bourbon and don't add as much character to the spirit- they just let it age slowly without flavoring it so dramatically. Jura also uses ex-sherry butts in smaller amounts.

Tait emphasized that with Jura the point is to get the distillation just where you want it, then not mess around with the spirit too much in the barrel. (You'll see how this is the opposite of what happens at The Dalmore in another post.) Most Jura starts off in American oak then can be finished in other casks to nudge it a little in one direction or the other.

The main Jura bottlings are the 10 and 16 year-olds. The 10 is full of pear flavor and Tait says he would even recommend it served on the rocks as a pre-dinner aperitif. The 16 is more full-flavored and rich, striking a nice balance between friendly flavors and the depth that comes with aging.

Jura does use some peated barley in its production. The Superstition bottling uses 13% malted barley peated to 40ppm phenol, with the rest un-peated barley. Tait calls it a gentle introduction to peated whiskies. I call it tasty. 

The last bottling, which is new to the US market, is the Prophecy. It was distilled in 1999 from all peated barley, and aged in some Limousin oak and Oloroso sherry along with the usual American oak and ex-bourbon casks.  It's bottled at 46% and non-chill-filtered. So I guess that one is an island whisky made on an island.

Much more to come from my trip in later posts...

Glasgow Bars: Blythswood Square

The last time I was in Glasgow Scotland, actually just a month ago, I hit all the cocktail bars I meant to except one.  I returned to Glasgow on another scotch trip last week (I know!), this time with Isle of Jura and The Dalmore, and luckily I got a second chance.

The bar is at the Blythswood Square Hotel and I think was previously a Royal Air Force club of some sorts. The bar program is directed by Head Bartender Mal Spence. Spence was previously in Edinburgh and hired his own staff locally and from Edinburgh to work here.

The cocktail list includes classics like the Clover Club, Cobbler, and Southside, plus originals including the Last Word spin-off the Donna Lee (gin, lemon juice, maraschino, Yellow Chartreuse, egg white and pink grapefruit) and the Duchess Of Bedford (Hendrick's Gin, Earl Grey Tea tincture, lemon, maraschino, St. Germain). There was a lot of grapefruit, maraschino, and Yellow Chartreuse in the original drinks (they lean toward refreshing rather than spiritous), and egg white is all over the place on the menu.

The drinks are very reasonably priced, starting at 3.50 (English Pounds) with several drinks at 4.5 pounds to encourage experimentation.

We only had time for one drink each and were there early in the night so I can't describe the scene, but it's a nice-looking bar and one I'd surely revisit when next in Glasgow. 

Camper Turns the Big 5-0 in Scotland

No, I'm not 50 years old, but I visited my 50th distillery/blending house here in Scotland at the Isle of Jura distillery. I'm lucky to have seen so many places around the world and look forward to seeing many more. 

I'll post more information about the trip later, but here's the glamour (note European spelling) shot.

 

Blending Scotch Whisky at Morrison Bowmore

After my visit to the Bowmore and Auchentoshan distilleries, our group stopped by the headquarters of their parent company, Morrison Bowmore. (This company is in turned owned by Suntory, and is distributed in the United States by Skyy Spirits.)

 

There we met with Senior Blender Iain McCallum, who is sort of a legend even though he’s less than 40 years old. He's engaging, fast, fun, and smart as heck. If given the opportunity to attend to an event he hosts, I highly recommend it. (If given the opportunity to go out drinking with him afterward, I recommend that too even though he may hand you a shot of Malibu mixed with coffee liqueur.)

In the aged spirits category, a brand may choose to promote its distiller (in charge of distilling), warehouse manager (in charge of aging), distillery manager (in charge of the whole process locally), or the master blender. We spent time with Bowmore's distillery manager on Islay and Auchentoshan's distiller in Glasgow.

The blender's job is (obviously) to blend whiskies from the various barrels into the final product to stay consistent with the desired flavor profile of the bottling. (Single malts are not single barrels, remember, and they may come from various years as long as they're distilled at a single distillery.) This person will not only assure quality of product, they'll have an incredibly good/trained nose and palate for doing this.

In the blending room, we sampled a few new bottlings coming out from Auchentoshan and Bowmore- but not for several months. More on those at a later date.

We also had the honor of tasting Bowmore Gold, which is every bit as wonderful as I remember it. The Black, White, and Gold Bowmore expressions are long-aged in Vault No. 1, the below sea level barrel warehouse on Islay. The thing about long aged Islay whiskies, particularly Bowmore with its lower phenol (smoky) content than other Islay whiskies, is that after a long time aging the smoke starts to dissipate and new flavors come through. 

I finally had the opportunity taste the Black Bowmore, one of the most thrilling (also expensive) whiskies I’ve ever tried. It had a few flavor notes in common with Bowmore Gold (I was again reminded of the “banana sandpaper” that doesn’t exist in nature ), plus papaya and mango notes, and a mysterious and slightly darker nature. Wonderful, wonderful stuff. 

(Iaian McCallum with a bottle of the original Black Bowmore.)

The only disappointing (I use this term very relatively) part about the visit is that I didn’t get the chance to try the White Bowmore. But that gives me a pretty good reason to come back.

An Auchentoshan Distillery Visit

On the last day of my trip to Scotland with Bowmore, we went to another distillery, Auchentoshan. This distillery is located just outside of Glasgow, on a former estate.

Auchentoshan is in the Lowland region of Scotland, one of just five single-malt-producing distilleries there. It’s also unique as the only scotch distillery that triple distills all of its whisky. This gives it a lighter flavor profile than most single malts, and a thinner body/mouthfeel. This makes it both an entry-level whisky for drinkers new to the category, and one  that can be easily mixed into cocktails.

Scotch whisky distilleries usually (always?) have stills in pairs for two distillations; a smaller one for the second. Rather than adding a third still at the end of the process, Auchentoshan has an ‘intermediate still’ between the other two. 

(I couldn't fit all three stills in the picture. They do exist, though.)

The spirit is distilled to a high alcohol percentage before the final distillation that will make the cut of the heads and tails. (Previous to that, they're mostly concentrating alcohol. The final distillation/cut will pick out the desired flavor elements for the whisky by discarding portions of the distillate.) According to Auchentoshan's distiller Jeremy Stephens, the higher level of alcohol sitting in the still forces the volatile aromatics in the alcohol to rise to the top first, rather than the heavier, oilier compounds that they want to avoid in this whisky.

After a trip through the distillery, we took a spin through the one of the aging warehouses then went for a tasting.

The Auchentoshan line includes the Classic, which bears no age statement but holds scotch most between five and eight years old, all aged in ex-bourbon casks. The twelve year old contains about 25% whisky aged in ex-sherry casks. We sampled the 18 and 21-year-old expressions as well, along with a 1988 Bordeaux finished bottle that I really liked. The Three Wood is matured in ex-bourbon, ex-oloroso sherry, and ex-Pedro Ximenez casks.

And then it was on to the blending room... see the next post.

Aging and Terroir on Islay

 

When we last spoke, I was talking about the distillation process of Bowmore, the Islay single malt scotch whisky that I visited a few days ago. The malting and distillation are only the first two weeks in the life of a scotch whisky: the aging time in barrels is where the liquid spends the vast majority of its existence- and where it gains much of its flavor.

At Bowmore, they use ex-bourbon barrels primarily from Heaven Hill, ex-sherry barrels, and miscellaneous ex-wine barrels for special blends.  

 

Different ratios and preparations of bourbon and sherry barrels are used for the various bottlings. The 12-year-old and 18-year-old expressions are a blend of scotch from ex-sherry and ex-bourbon barrels. The 15-year-old “Darkest” bottling is a 12-year-old finished for three more years in ex-sherry casks. 

Bowmore aging warehouses on Islay are located right next to the sea. The partially-below-sea-level No.1 Vaults are the most famous, as that's where Black, White, and Gold Bowmore are from.

The Terroir Question

Bowmore distills with a percentage of barley malted on site, along with a majority of commercially malted barley from the mainland. Distillery Manager Eddie MacAffer said that though there are differences in the flavor profile of the peat from Islay versus the mainland, he didn’t feel they were significant.

The aging barrels are also mixed: some Bowmore casks age on Islay and others on the mainland, but according to Eddie MacAffer this has more influence on the flavor of the final blend.

Camper English: At Bowmore you have the combination of the local peat, local malting with the stuff from the mainland and you have aging in both locations as well. Can you taste the place in Bowmore, do you think?

Eddie MacAffer: The fact that we do mature our whiskies in the old warehouses right beside the seaside, the sea air definitely has an influence on the maturation, with the slow, steady, and the cool situation that it's in, in my opinion definitely has an influence on the final product; the flavors and the tastes that come off from it.

Camper English: Do you think that's where you see the most influence of the location is there, as opposed to the peat or the local malting?

Eddie MacAffer: Obviously we  put the peatiness in , but definitely the location that it matures in is definitely gives it the biggest influence on the taste; right beside the sea. 

(Distillery Manager Eddie MacAffer shows where sea level is in the Bowmore No. 1 Vaults.)

A Visit to Bowmore on Islay in Scotland

Hello from Islay! I'm in Scotland on a trip with Bowmore.

 

After a first night of bar exploration and jetlag adaptation in Glasgow, I was ready for the press trip to begin. I spent the morning blogging about the previous night, then had a day to explore Glasgow. I can't say I learned a ton about the city, except that I love the look of Glasgow University and had a great time exploring the Kelvingrove museum. 

By the next morning I'd met up with the rest of the group and we flew together to Islay. To get there by car/bus and ferry apparently takes almost nine hours, but the flight was just 45 minutes from the Glasgow airport.  

Over the course of the day, the weather changed from the Islay/Scotland weather you see all the time- mildly raining with low visibility- to sunny and bright in the later afternoon/early evening. Islay always looked to me like it is built for dreary weather, with all white buildings as the one color that looks good in the fog, but when it's sunny it takes on a happy little seaside town feel. 

 

I should mention that we're in the town of Bowmore, the capital city of Islay, but are driving to various spots on the island to sample other restaurants and attractions.

But first, the distillery tour. As you probably know, Islay single malt scotch whiskies are known for a smoky/peaty flavor profile, often with seaside flavors like seaweed and salt. Bowmore has less of the seaweed/iodine flavors so present in Laphroaig, but to my palate is still dominated by a smoky charred flavor with a lurking sherry cask flavor present in different amounts depending on the bottling's expression. I didn't realize that there is actually a lot less phenol content- the amount of smokiness/peatedness in scotch- than other brands. Bowmore comes in at about 25 parts per million, whereas I believe Laphroaig comes in at 40 and Ardbeg at 60.

 

At Bowmore, like at Laphroaig and The Balvenie, they malt some of their own barley. This involves purchasing barley, soaking it in three cycles over a 24 hour period, spreading it out on a malting floor, and turning the malt over again and again until the grain germinates and sends out a little shoot about one-quarter the length of the grain. 

 

Germination is then stopped by drying the barley with a combination of hot air and peat smoke to the desired level of smokiness. I actually got to harvest peat from a bog, turn and rake some barley, and even step into the kiln after it had recently stopped blowing the peated air through it. 

 

At this point  the malted barley is ready to be fermented and distilled. Allowing the grain to germinate starts an enzymatic process that will convert starches in the grain to sugars when hot water is added again. The malted barley is ground to separate the floury innards from the husk, then this is washed with hot water in three cycles to release the sugar.

The grain is then discarded (sold to farmers as cattle feed) and the sugar water is fermented and then distilled. The new make spirit is then aged in ex-bourbon and/or ex-sherry casks for the different expressions. We took a look into Vault No. 1, where the barrels of Bowmore Gold were housed, some beneath sea level adjacent to the salt-crusted warehouse sea wall. 

 

More posts from Bowmore to follow!