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KWM Advent 2018 Day 18 - Cadenhead Ord 13 year Quaich Cask

Posted on November 12, 2023

by Evan

Day 18's Advent bottle is another from Cadenhead, but this isn't another selection bound for the French market. This Cadenhead Glen Ord was selected and bottled for the group known as the Companions of the Quaich. The Companions have three main chapters in Canada: one in Toronto, one in Victoria, and the other right here in Calgary.





It is hard to believe that Cadenhead, the oldest independent bottler in Scotland, was celebrating its 175th Anniversary last year at the same time we were all being so patriotically cheering our young country turning 150. There has been plenty of history talked about in other Advent posts when it comes to Cadenhead and its storied past and present, and there is not much that I can add on that subject. So let's talk about Ord.

Ord Distillery was founded in 1838 by Thomas Mackenzie at the Muir of Ord in the Northern Highlands (that would be just four years before Cadenheads was established in 1842). Thomas was the Laird of the area and did not run the distillery himself, instead, he leased it out to numerous failed partnerships and renters, none of which managed to keep the distillery in operation for very long, along the way the distilling licence was also sometimes not paid for and it became an illicit operation.

The distillery was sold for the first time in 1855 and suffered a fire that destroyed a newly-built stillhouse in 1878. In 1896 it was sold again to Dundee blending firm James Watson & Son. It was closed from 1917 to 1919 during World War 1, sold once more in 1923 to John Dewer & Sons, and then went through a period of company name changes and amalgamations to eventually be owned by the company that would eventually be called Diageo, whom still own it today.

[caption id="attachment_7789" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Glen Ord Distillery - Courtesy of Whisky.com"][/caption]

Currently, the distillery is massive, capable of pumping out 11 million litres of spirit annually according to the 2019 Malt Whisky Yearbook. It doesn't just distill spirit either: Ord is one of only three distilleries in Scotland that produces the entirety of its own malt requirements (Springbank and the quite new Roseisle. Ord doesn't just provide its own malt though - it also supplies malt for owner Diageo's other northern distilleries plus Talisker and sometimes even supplementing Port Ellen in supplying malt for Islay.

Ord is a large production for good reason. Diageo uses the distillery to make spirit earmarked for its many blends including Jonnie Walker and also as one of the three single malts that get bottled under the company's Singleton Label. The Singleton Brand is either a clever idea or a cheat depending on your bias...

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KWM Advent 2018 Day 17 - Springbank Visitor Center 10 Year

Posted on December 7, 2024

by Andrew

Anyone who knows anything about Kensington Wine Market knows WE LOVE SPRINGBANK! They are Scotland's most traditional distillery and are stubbornly so. We love how they cling to traditions and practices with a reverence for the old ways. Our only regret is that Scotland’s oldest family-owned distillery doesn’t make more whisky. But that which it does is generally excellent.



Springbank Distillery was licensed and established in 1828 by William Reid, though we know his family was distilling illicitly well before this. A Campbeltown-based coppersmith made no fewer than 400 “sma’ stills” between 1811 and 1817, with a number of them purchased by Mitchells and Reids. Reid proved to be less adept at legitimate business than illicit distilling and sold to his in-laws, the Mitchell’s, in 1937. The Mitchell family had deep roots in Campbeltown and distilling, having moved there from the Lowlands as settlers in the 1660s. Some members of the clan were respected maltsters.

By 1814 there were 22 licensed distilleries, and many more illicit stills on the southern Kintyre Peninsula. In 1825 Archibald Mitchell became a partner at Rieclachan Distillery in Campbeltown. The Springbank Distillery was built three years later on a site which Archibald had previously used to distill illicitly. It became the 14th legal distillery in the town proper. Archibald's sister Mary Mitchell built the Drumore Distillery, also in Campbeltown, in 1835, as demand for legal whisky continued to rise. John and William Mitchell, Archibald's sons, took ownership of the distillery in 1837. The following year they sold a certain John Walker of Kilmarnock 188 gallons of whisky.



The brothers remained in business together until 1872 when they allegedly had a falling out over sheep, as was often the case at this time in Scotland. William left to found the Glengyle Distillery (refer to Day 8) and John was joined in the business by his son Alexander; hence the parent company name J&A Mitchell & Co. The decades following were a prosperous and dizzy time for the town of Campbeltown. At its peak, the town and surrounding area had no fewer than 35 licensed distilleries, making it the undisputed whisky capital of Scotland. Proximity to Transatlantic shipping routes and the discovery of a coal seam at Machrihanish on the other side of the peninsula helped fuel the industry.  In 1891, near the peak of not just the distilling boom, but also the height of the British Empire, Campbeltown and its fewer than 2000 residents, was reputed to be the wealthiest per capita town in the UK.



Boom turned to bust, as it almost always does. The first decade of the 20th Century saw the closure of no fewer than 50 distilleries in Scotland. Campbeltown&...

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KWM Advent 2018 Day 16 - Cadenhead Small Batch Miltonduff

Posted on November 12, 2023

by Andrew

If you’ve been to one of my tastings or follow me on Social Media, you’ll know that I have a soft spot for Miltonduff. The whisky is one of Pernod Ricard's workhorses for Blended Scotch Whisky, and there has only ever been a handful of official bottlings. Earlier this year Pernod released single malts from Miltonduff and two other lesser known distilleries, Glentauchers and Glenburgie, under the Ballentine’s Single Malts brand. I had high hopes, but they were bottled at 40% and the reviews have almost universally been lacklustre. I am a self-confessed fan of all three distilleries, but only thus far from independent bottlers.
Miltdonduff is, in my opinion, one of the most underappreciated single malts in Scotland.



 

Miltonduff Distillery - Credit goes to Whisky.Com for the photo


The vast majority of its production goes into blends like Chivas Regal and the aforementioned Ballantines. Ballentine’s is the world’s second bestselling Blended Scotch whisky. In 2017 the brand shifted 77 million bottles at a time when the Blended Scotch whisky category is in decline. My love affair with the whisky started with the Scotch Malt Whisky Society, which has consistently bottled some of the best middle-aged Miltonduff, 18-30+ years of age. We’ve also had excellent Miltonduff, both young and old from Cadenhead, and a beautiful young Distillery Label 10 Year from Gordon Macphail. An opportunity to squeeze a Miltonduff into the KWM Whisky Advent Calendar is not to be missed!

Miltonduff Distillery is located south of Elgin and is said to sit on the site of a meal mill connected to the Pluscarden Abbey. Founded in 1230 by Scotland’s King Alexander II, Pluscarden Abbey was originally a priory. A stone at the distillery has been retained from the original Abbey. An illicit farm distillery called Milton Distillery operated on the site before going legit. The name was changed to Miltonduff when the Duff family acquired the farm and distillery. A license was acquired in 1824 by Andrew Peary and Robert Bain, shortly after the passage of The Small Stills Act, which made it much easier to get a license. The distillery changed hands twice in the following century. In 1936 it was acquired by Canadian firm Hiram Walker  Gooderham & Worts.

Hiram Walker shortly thereafter transferred the distillery to another recently acquired subsidiary, George Ballantine & Son. As the whisky boom of the 1960s got going the distillery was equipped with a Lomond Still. Lomond Stills were quite in vogue for about a decade and a half. By manipulating plates within the still you could dramatically change the spirit character of the whisky you produced. The downside of the Lomond stills is that they...

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2018 KWM Whisky Calendar Day 15: Spey Beinn Dubh Ruby Black Flying Scotsman

Posted on August 2, 2024

by Andrew

Evan, observant as ever, noticed that we have our second Black Mountain whisky in this year's Whisky Calendar, as Beinn Dubh is Scots Gaelic for Black Mountain. Beinn Dubh is a whisky produced by the Speyside Distillery, in the region of the same name. This has created quite a bit of confusion in the market, as there are some 60 distilleries operating in the Speyside, and a lot of undisclosed Speyside single malts. So if your whisky is called Speyside, in this day and electronic age, it is sure to get lost. Accordingly, the owners of Speyside Distillery sell most of their whisky under the brand Spey.

The Speyside Distillery only dates from 1990, but its origins as a croft and barley mill go back to the 1700s. The distillery sits on a piece of land near Drumguish, Kingussie, just off the A9. The land was acquired by George Christie in 1956. The following year he opened a grain distillery in Alloa. In 1962 Christie commissioned the construction of Speyside Distillery, the work would take 25 years to complete. The mill continued to operate until 1965, and after a change in ownership in 1986, the distillery was finally completed the following year.

The first single malt from Speyside Distillery was bottled under the Drumguish label in 1993, and in 1999 a bottling of Speyside 8-Year Single Malt was released. The distillery's ownership changed again in 2000, with a group of private investors taking over. It was sold again to Harvey's of Edinburgh in 2012, and that is when the distillery's fortunes began to improve. John Harvey McDonough has strong connections if the Far East, in particular Taiwan, where the rebranded Spey is one of the top-selling whiskies.

Production, at just over 600,000L, makes Speyside one of Scotland's smaller distilleries. The distillery is reputedly hard to find, tucked into the woods nearer to the headwaters of the River Spey than any other distillery in Scotland. The owners are apparently opening up a visitor center in the nearby tourist town of Aviemore, called The Snug.

The Beinn Dubh range replaced Speyside's old Cu Dubh - or Black Dog whisky. Cu Dubh was itself a controversial replacement for Loch Dhu, The Black Whisky, a bottling of Mannochmore originally produced for the Danish market. The producers claimed the colour was a result of double charred casks, but it is hard to see how the whisky could have achieved such a colour, especially at a young age, without the addition of caramel colouring or leaving copious amounts of sherry in the cask. The Beinn Dubh Ruby Black Flying Scotsman is supposedly produced without adding E150 caramel colouring”, which given the hue of the whisky is an impressive feat. I will let the producer discuss the origins of the wood which flavours and colours the whisky:

"Tanoaria Josafer Lda are experts in the art of cooperage and suppl...

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KWM Advent 2018 Day 14 - Cotswolds Single Malt

Posted on November 12, 2023

by Andrew

For the second year in a row, we have an English single malt whisky in the Kensington Wine Market Whisky Advent Calendar. Last year we had the English Whisky Company, this year we have the Cotswolds distillery. Cotswolds is part of a boom in English distilling, one of at least 13 distilleries in England laying down casks of whisky. While most of the distilleries in England are laying down Scottish style single malts, they aren’t bound by the same rules as the Scotch whisky industry. Cotswolds is already experimenting with laying down rye spirit and distilling its own rum.



The distillery was founded by Dan Szor in 2014 on an estate with two old stone buildings he acquired in the idyllic North Cotswolds. The site was in poor condition at the time of purchase. The buildings were quickly brought back to working and fitted into the region’s first full-scale distillery. The doors opened in 2014 and have seen visitors every single day since.

The distillery is said to have the feel of a cozy country cottage with the entire distillery including its tasting room neatly fitted into the two cottages. A new and larger visitor center and shop was slated to open late this year. The distillery operates with two pot stills as well as a Holstein still. The latter is used for the production of gin and other spirits. The Cotswolds Dry Gin was released in 2014 and in short order, it began racking up awards. The first release of single malt whisky followed late in 2017.

 




The distillery makes much of its sense of place in rural England, nearby are Shakespearean sites in Stratford upon Avon and Winston Churchill’s childhood home, Blenheim Palace. The distillery is an integral part of the local community, with townsfolk helping with bottling and peeling fruits for the gin. The spent grains from the mash feed local cows.
The Cotswolds Single Malt is made with locally grown floor malted barley. The distillery has a long fermentation of 90 hours, with a focus on generating a fruity profile. The first casks were laid down in 2014 into a mix of First Fill Ex-Bourbon and Reconditioned Red Wine Casks. The whiskies are bottled without colouring or chill-filtering at 46%.



 

 

Image courtesy of @frombarreltobottle


Cotswolds Single Malt – 46% - American Oak & Ex-Red Wine Casks –

Andrew’s Tasting Note

Nose: warm, buttery, almond paste filled croissants; big orange citrus and Scottish shortbread cookies; beer nuts and maple glazed almonds; malty and herbaceous.

Palate: round, chewy and very malty; the barley really shines on the palate; the whisky is young but the spirit very elegant;...

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