Keepers of the Quaich

One of the starkest changes to single malts that I have seen in the last 10 years is the dramatic rise of their retail prices. I suppose it’s the natural response to an increase in demand but that doesn’t mean I have to be happy about it. Lagavulin 16, for example, is currently retailing at Binny’s for $94.99. If memory serves me, 10 years ago Lagavulin 16 retailed at Sam’s for about $55.00; this is about a 75% increase over 10 years. I think all hosts would agree with me that the price increases have really put a strain on our quarterly meeting budgets, but perhaps there is some hope out there.

Although many single malts have vacated the “affordable” price point for the $60-$80 price range, thankfully, there remain some excellent value buys out there. I set my “value buy” price ceiling at $45 and decided to see what you could still buy out there; if anything. I felt the psychological pain of the $50 price point and wanted to keep the prices closer to $40 then to $50 which is why I settled on my limit as $45 and I found a number of excellent single malts with unbelievably good value. Each of these high-quality single malts can be purchased at Binny’s for less than $45 some of them are under $40 even!

“Bop’s Select”
• Highland Park 12
• Clynelish 14
• Old Pulteney 12
• Glen Moray 12
• Glenfiddich 15 Solera Reserve
• The Macallan 12

The Whisky Exchange
I wanted to introduce you to the most recent link now usable on our site: The Whisky Exchange (TWE). TWE is an on-line retailer who, although in the UK, should be, along with Binny’s, one of your key sources of single malts. As I have said in the past, one of my goals for the KOTQ site is to help facilitate the purchasing of single malts; whether for our quarterly tastings or for your individual needs. From a sourcing standpoint, unless you have other sources I need to be aware of, your purchasing outlets probabaly should be:

• for distilleries actively marketing expressions (really any distillery with an ‘Active’ status in our database) —> shop local at Binny’s or somewhere like Main Street Liquors in LaGrange if you have such a local spot
• for rare malts and “silent” distilleries—> order on-line at TWE and have it shipped to you here in the States

The WOW Factor
To give you some idea of the breadth of offerings of rare bottlings at TWE consider that they have an offering for every single one of the 27 “silent” distilleries in our database. In fact, the only one that has only one bottling, somewhat surprisingly, is Littlemill. Of the remainder, most have at least 4 or 5 and quite a few have more than that. Here is a good example.

On the other end of the spectrum, they have much better access to newer distillery’s offerings than we can ever hope to have through our local outlets such as Binny’s. If you have an interest in the distilleries “building stock”, and just can’t wait to try one, you should check out TWE from time to time and see what they might have. Here is a good example of what is available now. Finally, rare bottlings of active distilleries are very likely to be at TWE and not at your local Binny’s. Here is a great example of that. Another nice thing is, although the default currency used at TWE is GBP, they have a handy currency converter link at the top of every page so it’s easy to see the cost in USD.

The only chink in the armor that I’ve seen is in regard to those “distilleries” which our database refers to as “Stills Removed” (Mosstowie, Glencraig, Killyloch). Their offering of those is limited; they only carry Glencraig of which they have only one expression. The only other thing I can think of is, and this may really be a backhanded compliment, since their offerings on rare bottlings is so complete, that their marketing presence doesn’t reflect their actual inventory; but that will remain to be seen. For now, I have to take their offerings at face value.

Integration with our Site
I have included a direct link to TWE from our distillery summary display. The bottom row of the distillery display now reads (L to R): @Binny’s, @TWE, @Master of Malt. The fourth cell will either display a link to its KOTQ Tasting Comments or Malt Madness’s mapping function depending on how you get to the distillery display. I am so impressed with TWE’s depth and breadth of single malt offerings that it clearly trumps even Master of Malt as an on-line resource. You should view the links to Binny’s and TWE as purchasing sources (local and on-line respectively) while the link to Master of Malt (although a fine on-line retailer, their site is a better implementation of Malt Whisky Yearbook’s data on each distillery) should be used as a “further information” link for the distillery history and details.

How Best to Utilize TWE
Whether you are using the distillery filter to help you plan a tasting lineup or you have a special event coming up that you wish to commemorate with a special single malt I recommend that you look to the @TWE link on our distillery display as a terrific sourcing option. Here’s what you may find if you carefully review TWE for a potential order:

Hosts wanting to include a rare malt as a special expression in their tastings
• several bottlings are priced within our budgets (full attendance please), even with overseas shipping from TWE, to be included individually in any tasting
• other, a bit more expensive, bottlings are available to the host who doesn’t mind paying his own premium (above budget) to essentially get a rare expression at a discount as he retains the leftovers after the tasting
Individuals who wish to order their own rare expressions
• several are available in the $90 – $250 range (all-in price w/shipping included from TWE) which is comparable to walking into your local Binny’s and buying an 18+ yo expression
• many others are available in the $750 – $5,000 range for those who may have the means and proclivity to: “invest” in a collectable, or enjoy owning and drinking a $1,000 bottle of single malt scotch once in their life (“bucket list” stuff?!?), or have a special occasion to which they wish to match a very special single malt

I came across a posting by Brother Lakeview following the 06Q4 tasting (sushi paired tasting at Bluff’s) where, after much discussion, a number of future homework assignments, considered to be of interest to the group, were posted. For the most part we haven’t touched these ideas much at all. One of them was “what are Scotland’s three officially oldest distilleries?” I think this question may have sprang from Balblair, a very old distillery, finding its way to a tasting for the first time in 06Q4.

Deciding which distilleries are the oldest largely lies in the definition of “official”. Based on the following factors, which you may or may not agree with, I have formulated a list of the three oldest distilleries. I also annex to this list three other stories of distilleries and their claims to which I will let you decide their merits in overwriting the “official” list. One other item of note, I find in the data that the older distilleries tend to be on the smaller end with respect to capacity. This makes sense to me for a number of reasons (building technologies, scale, demand, etc.) and may be a factor in the demise of old distilleries like Littlemill (isn’t bigger always better?!?).

Factors in establishing “old distilleries”

Rule: Distillery = physical plant; not (brand) name
Implication: Producing spirit in the same building is the single most important consideration even if the enterprise changes names along the way

Rule: Name<>Distillery
Implication: Just because a distillery shares a name with an earlier, separate, and older distillery doesn’t mean that there is a historical connection to that older distillery

Rule: Distillation does NOT require an official license and may be founded before the Excise Act of 1823.
Implication: Illicit and/or established whisky production is considered in the chain if documented and remaining in the same building

Rule: Active NOT Dismantled/Demolished
Implication: To be the oldest “distillery” you have to be currently “distilling” spirit

So, with the above rules in mind, here are…
SCOTLAND’S THREE OLDEST DISTILLERIES

Bowmore, 1779
From the Malt Whisky Yearbook: “Founded in 1779, by John Simpson, Bowmore is Islay’s oldest distillery”
Capacity: 2,000,000 litres/year

Strathisla, 1786
From the Malt Whisky Yearbook: Strathisla is the oldest distillery in the North of Scotland
Capacity: 2,400,000 litres/year

Balblair, 1790
From the Malt Whisky Yearbook: One of Scotland’s oldest distilleries, Balblair was founded in 1790 by John Ross.
Capacity: 1,330,000 litres/year

I give you the following list as alternatives to the above “official” listing. I will leave it to the reader to decide where these place on the “official” list.

For You To Decide

** Undocumented Evidence **
Glenmorangie, “early 18th century”

From the Malt Whisky Yearbook: The Glenmorangie distillery was established in 1843, on the Durnoch Firth by brothers William and John Mathesen. The site originally held a farm distillery under the name Morangie. There is evidence that distillation was carried out at this site during the early 18th century. Officially documented production began in November of 1849.

** Distillery refurbished after dismantling…is it the same? **
Glenturret, 1775

From the Malt Whisky Yearbook: The owners claim the distillery is one of Scotland’s oldest and it is certainly rumoured that distillation was carried out in the area during the early 18th century. Whisky smugglers establish a small illicit farm distillery named Hosh Distillery in 1775. John Drummond is licensee from 1818 until 1837. In 1875, the Hosh Distillery takes over the name Glenturret Distillery and is managed by Thomas Stewart. Between 1921 and 1959 production ceases and the buildings are used for whisky storage and later agricultural storage. 1957 James Fairlie buys the distillery and production restarts in 1959.

** Very old but now demolished **
Littlemill, 1772 (or perhaps the 1300s?)

From the Malt Whisky Yearbook: There are rumours that Littlemill is Scotland’s oldest distillery, possibly even the oldest in the world. Of course, such things are hard to say for certain, though Littlemill has indeed had a long history. The site may have been used for distillation as early as the 1300s. The distillery proper was founded in 1772 by George Buchanan of Glasgow following the acquisition of the Auchterlonie estate.

One of the missions of our KOTQ website is to not only facilitate knowledge about single malt scotch but to make it personal and facilitate decision making around single malt purchases for group or individual enjoyment. Availability may be the ultimate factor in whether or not most of us even have a dram of certain single malts. Therefore, I have found it important to be able to identify rarer single malts using our distillery filter so that, throughout our walks of life, we might better sieze opportunities to sample rare single malts; be it from a retail shelf or a fine restaurant’s spirits menu.

The flip side of the coin is true as well. Our distillery filter should also be able to highlight those distilleries which are active and commonly available vs. active and with a small capacity thereby making those bottlings potentially harder to come by. Rarity can also be a factor in whether or not you opportunisticly buy an independent bottling or patiently wait for the “official” distillery bottling to show up at your local Binny’s.

So, in order to best understand the data, I thought you would need to know what the industry definitions were for the operational statuses in our database. These operating statuses often correlate to rarity or at least would be a component in a distillery filter setting you specify in trying to understand if that bottle you saw/see at Binny’s is rare enough to invest in. These operational statuses are written in my words but follow closely the statuses used by the annual Malt Whisky Yearbook. There are essentially two categories of operations: “Active” and “Not Active”. I have provided three classes of status within each of these two categories:

1. Active: fully operational distillery producing malt for its various bottling and blending purposes
2. Building Stock: new distillery which has commenced a continuous production of spirit but is too new to have matured any whisky for active status
3. Mothballed: temporary stoppage of production. Can recommence production quickly, if needed, to match demand. Relatively common practice in the industry, however, some mothballed distilleries never make it “off the mat” and do end up dismantled.

1. Stills Removed: refers to sets of stills, that created their own brand of single malt, that existed entirely inside of another’s distillery. Distilleries with this status, despite having their own distillery brand name, never had their “own distillery” or distillery building
2. Dismantled: distillation equipment removed, but the exterior building remains; somehow re-purposed. Although sometimes continuing to be used within the scope of the whisky industry (warehouse, maltings, visitor center, museum) usually it’s to be used outside the scope of the whisky industry entirely (condo, restaurant, studio, live music venue, etc.)
3. Demolished: entire building, and all of its contents, are destroyed and are no more

If you’ve played with the new Distillery Filter much you will have noticed that one of the “Operational Statuses” for the distilleries is “Building Stock”. As I look out on the single malt landscape over the last 10 years and then turn and look into the next 10 years, one of the exciting things that I see is the onset of brand new distilleries producing single malts. As you know, however, one of the requirements for a spirit to be scotch is that it must age a minimum of 3 years. Yet, as you also know, standard single malts, which are mature enough for discriminating palattes, are typically aged 10 or 12 years. So, these new distilleries have a challenge of establishing a brand yet telling their customers not to show up with their money for 10 years. This is why I have included the “building stock” operational status. Until they’ve released that first standard distillery bottling at around 10 or 12 years I will not be updating their status to “Active” as they are literally building up their stocks for bottlings far down the road. Little did we know that single malts were such a “young man’s game”!

Since there are quite a few of them I wanted to provide a summary to perhaps picque your interest some in these new arrivals on the single malt scene. Here are the ones that I believe are, in fact, building stocks and are real, serious, and viable distilleries that will be showing up on our radars in 5-10 years, you can take a look at these new operations as well as some less-firm distillery projects here:

– Kilchoman an Islay
Owned by the Kilchoman Distillery Co Ltd, the distillery was built and started producing spirits in 2005. As seen in my previous post, Kilchoman is an “artisan” distillery using locally grown ingredients from their own farmland. They are striving to produce the new signature taste of Islay by delivering a highly charactered single malt. You can see more about them here.

– Port Charlotte an Islay
Owned by the Bruichladdich Distillery Co, who is introducing their new brand with the heavily-peated PCx series of bottlings, the distillery is in the process of becoming much more than a brand extension of Bruichladdich. The new Port Charlotte distillery is sometimes referred to as the “Phoenix distillery” as it is currently in the rebuilding process using the old Lochindaal distillery building and the stills from the Inverleven distillery.

– Abhainn Dearg a Highlands Island
Owned by Mark Tayburn, the distillery was built and started producing spirits in 2009. This distillery, located on the Isle of Lewis and Harris, is particularly exciting I think because it is a brand new “Island malt” from a new isle. The Isle of Lewis and Harris is west of Skye and Abhainn Dearg will be the westernmost distillery in Scotland. You can see more about them here.

– Daftmill an Eastern Highland
Owned by Francis and Ian Cuthbert, the distillery was built and started producting spirit in 2005. Daftmill will easily be the smallest distillery in Scotland, producing a mere 20,000 litres/yr, and is practically a “micro-brewery”. I think the Eastern Highlands are an interesting region and one that the KOTQ should really know more about than our collective “Glen Garioch experience” so it is exciting to see a brand new Eastern Highland on the scene. You can see more about them here.

– Glengyle / Kilkerran a Campbeltown
Owned by J & A Mitchell, the distillery was revived and started producing spirits in 2004. Glengyle is part of the Springbank family of distilleries but is its own operation and enterprise. I believe it will be producing a single malt under the brand name of Kilkerran. You can see more about them here.

– Roseisle a Speyside
Owned by Diageo, Roseisle is a huge distillery and the first large one built in Scotland since the 1970s. The distillery was built and started producing spirits in 2009 and, I believe, will mostly be used to supply Diageo’s blended scotch whiskies.

One last thing before I leave this topic, some of you may remember some news or talk about a new distillery opening on Shetland, an island north of the Orkney Islands, called Blackwood. Unfortunately, the news is not as good on this front as it appears that the Blackwood distillery is no more and there are no known plans to revive it.

They are Port Charlotte and Kilchoman!

Port Charlotte currently an extension of Bruichladdich, will be the refurbishing of the long-closed Lochindaal distillery (thanks to Brother Balgam for that), and will be using the dismantled equipment from the Inverleven distilleries as well as Bruichladdich’s maltings. Bruichladdich has kicked off the brand by bottling a heavily-peated single malt called PC5, PC6, PC7 & PC8 until the new Port Charlotte distillery becomes operational in the next few years.

Kilchoman (pronounced kilhoman) is an artisan distillery operating on its own farmland (Rockside Farms) and only using local ingredients. Its aim is to be a highly charactered single malt heavy in peat (40 ppm) and become the new classic taste of Islay. Its August 2009 release (a 3yo) won a cask strength award (the BIG award) last month.

I thought there might be some interest in the Whisky Explorer’s Club. Short story: it’s a membership club where they ship you a flight of 4 whiskies (“from around the world”) 6 times each year. You taste them blind and enter your tasting notes into their website to see what the whisky actually was. There are 3 membership levels and the one I just described costs $120/year.

You can read more about it here and/or join right away. I have to say I’m about 99% sure that I am going to do this.

This excerpt is from Whisky Mag’s on-line forum:

“Probably it’s nbs. (new bottle syndrome. ) Just give your dram plenty of time to breathe. Nasty sharp, bitter, sulpur and other off notes go away. Several bottles I hated in the beginning became better and better along the way. A fellow forum member whose name I forgot opens his 105 for a couple of months then closes it and waits a week or so before drinking it.”

Or just another attempt by the English to keep their “subjects” in line economically? You judge for yourself but England is now in the “whisky” business with an operating and distributing distillery for the first time in more than 100 years. The only spirit produced by the St. George’s distillery (by the River Thet, nestled among the farms of Norfolk, eastern England) is 3 years old, aged in old Jim Beam bourbon casks no less, and so is now technically “whisky”.

This sort of reminds me of the English’s sudden interest in manufacturing fine linen when they say their Irish “subjects” actually making money off of it in the 18th and 19th centuries. However, from a regional standpoint if you come across a bottle of St. George’s somewhere it may be interesting to sample it to see if it is an extreme lowland, an extreme eastern highland, or maybe something new altogether.

Here’s an excerpt from the article in the event, from an archiving point of view, that the link above goes dead:

“After three years maturing in charred white oak casks, the first English whiskey in more than a century is finally ready to flow out to excited and curious drinkers around the world. While Scotch is famous across the globe, there has not been a single whiskey distillery south of the border with England in more than 100 years. But at St. George’s Distillery by the River Thet, nestled among the farms of Norfolk, eastern England, the first casks have come of age.

The English Whisky Company’s first run of single malt spirit officially became whiskey on Nov. 27 as it passed the magical three-year mark, and will go on general sale from Dec. 16. Matured in casks used by Jim Beam bourbon whiskey in Kentucky, between 150,000 and 200,000 bottles will be produced per year, while some of the 1,040 barrels produced so far will be stored to mature for up to 20 years. They are currently being bottled by hand, with chairman James Nelstrop stapling the cardboard cases together as black Labrador Bert, the distillery dog, watches on. A bottle of English whiskey retails in Britain for about 35 pounds.”

This story caught my eye and is news-worthy for our KOTQ page.

Apparently a British explorer in the early 1900s, Sir Ernest Shackleton, had a crate of McKinlay & Co whisky on hand during his 1909 expedition in the Antarctica. The expedition was abandonded at some point, and the explorer left behind his stock.

Whyte & MacKay, who currently owns McKinlay & Co, has commissioned New Zealand’s Antarctic Heritage Trust to use special drills to retrieve these 100+ year-old bottles. The intent is not so much to drink the spirit, but rather to determine if reproduction of the storied whisky is worthwhile.

Here’s a link to the original story