Like this for the range of whiskies and price. Also the food reccomendations are interesting. I loved the Old Pultney 21 year old, my Birthday present to myself last year. The Asyla was this year's present, also very respectable.
Friday 23 November 2012
Wednesday 21 November 2012
Glenkinchie
It is a strange anomaly that of the major malt whisky brands and distilleries so few of them are located in the Lowlands. The only other distillery of note in the Lowlands is Auchentoshan, which is to the north of Glasgow and draws it's water from North of the Highland line.
So if you want to try a real Lowland Malt, Glen Kinchie is probably the one. If you're visiting Edinburgh and want to visit a Scottish distillery, Glen Kinchie is probably also the one, being located in Pencaitland, about fifteen miles south of Edinburgh's city centre.
The Scottish Malt Whisky Society provide a nice bit of background at this link -
Glen Kinchie - Scottish Malt Whisky Society
Anything in quotes is taken from this article unless otherwise stated.
Historically, we are in the Kingdom of Lot (from whence the region, Lothian, takes it's name). It is a lowland landscape with rich arable, barley growing land. To the south are the limestone Lammermuir Hills, the start of the Southern Uplands and the source of the hard clear water that flows into the Kinchie Burn, the source of Glen Kinchie's water.
A licence to operate a distillery at Glenkinchie was granted to George and John Rate in 1837 ('Kinchie is a corruption of the Norman name de Quincey, a family which once owned the surrounding land'). In 1890 the distillery was taken over by a consortium of Edinburgh Brewers and Distillers. In 1914 this company joined with other lowland distillers to form Scottish Malt Distillers which today is part of United Distillers.
Glen Kinchie is now the Lowland representative in the United Distillers Classic Malts Range.
Originally, the barley used for the malt would have been grown on the surrounding land and the casks matured on site. Nowadays, the modern world being as it is, the malted barley comes from Morayshire, prepared to the distillers 'lightly peated' specification. The three Glenkinchie warehouses are full and so the filled casks are matured in a huge modern complex in Alloa.
'One thing is constant: the water that is drawn from the Kinchie Burn, Diamond bright and diamond hard, it rises in the Lammermuir Hills, running over rich limestone deposits. And the chalk makes Glenkinchie the driest of all Lowland malts. It is this water and this climate, drier and sunnier than the Highlands, which gives Glenkinchie and the other Lowlanders their quiet, distinct character. Lighter and drier than their Highland and Island cousins, the soft sweetness of the malt is allowed to come through.' - Scottish Malt Whisky Society
Visiting the Distillery
I visited the distillery on a late October day, after one of the worst summer's we've had and we've had a few rotters in recent years. Even in the prosperous East Lothians, grain yields are down, potatoes left rotting in the fields.
Still, it was a beautiful autumn day. The distillery nestled in a dip in the landscape, with the Firth of Forth and Edinburgh to the North and the Lammermuir Hills to the south.
The distillery is brick built, Victorian, with a 'model village' in the same brick surrounding it.
As the malted barley is now brought in from outside, the old malting floors are now used as an exhibition space. This includes a large scale model distillery showing all the various stages in the process of creating a whisky. It's worth allowing an extra half for your visit, to have a look round. My tour cost £6 and lasted about 40 minutes.
The Production Process
Both malting and maturing of the whisky now take place off site, the malted barley being brought in by lorry four or five times a week,.
The production process is a batch process, using nine tonnes of malt at a time. First the malted barley is milled into grist and water, from a spring under the distillery, is added. This watery porridge is then heated in a stainless steel mash tun to between 76 and 84 degrees Celsius before being separated into wort and draft.
The wort is the sugar rich water to be distilled, the draft the solid wastes.The draft is used as animal feed and the wort, with yeast added, is put into large wooden tubs called washbacks, where it is fermented for about sixty hours until it turns into strong beer.
The Glenkinchie washbacks are made from Canadian Larch or Oregon Pine.
The distillery uses two 30,963 Litre capacity washstills to convert the strong beer to spirit by a double distillation process. The Glenkinchie stills are the largest stills in use in Scotland.
The first still produces low wines, which are 23% alcohol by volume. The low wines are then put through the second still and produce a liquid that is 70% alcohol by volume.
The Glenkinchie stills are not only large, but tall and the height contributes to it's distinctive light and gentle flavour.
The spirit from the second distillation passes through a Spirit Safe where the head (the first part) and the feints (or tail) are removed leaving the 'heart' of the spirit which will be watered down to 63% alcohol by volume.
To become Scottish Whisky this spirit must be matured in oak casks, for at least three years, in Scotland.
The casks used are either American oak ex- bourbon casks (which are reused for up to 50 years) or Montellado sherry casks. For example a Glenkinchie whisky might be matured for twelve years in a bourbon cask, before being finished in a sherry cask.
Only 8% of the Glenkinchie production is used for the production of Glenkinchie Single Malts. The rest is used to produce blended whiskies. Johnie Walker, Dimple, White Horse, J&B are all whiskies that contain whisky from the Glenkinchie distillery.
Tasting notes
Well, it was a long process to get a proper sit down and taste of the Glenkinchie. I bought a small, 20cl, bottle of the twelve year old when I visited the distillery. I spent that night with a friend in the Borders who had turned tea total and managed to leave the unsampled bottle at his house. He was leaving for Australia, but passed it on to a friend who lived in Roslyn. Suffice to say, I didn't reclaim it for a couple of months.
Tasting conditions, I would have to say were ideal. After a muddy, entertaining and tiring walk with a friend round Roslyn Glen, on a cold February afternoon and after a hearty wholesome meal of bangers and mash.
I found it a dry ('Protestant' I called it), spare kind of dram, not full of sherry flavours or sweetness - dry and cold like the day. Peaceful, it rounded off the day finely, a stick of shortbread as accompaniment would have perfected it.
I have a theory that a good whisky should convey a sense of peace, that relaxation of water that comes from sitting still in a quiet place for a number of years.
I really enjoyed this one, but then it was a particularly fine moment for a dram and I give it a rating of eight out of ten.
So if you want to try a real Lowland Malt, Glen Kinchie is probably the one. If you're visiting Edinburgh and want to visit a Scottish distillery, Glen Kinchie is probably also the one, being located in Pencaitland, about fifteen miles south of Edinburgh's city centre.
The Scottish Malt Whisky Society provide a nice bit of background at this link -
Glen Kinchie - Scottish Malt Whisky Society
Anything in quotes is taken from this article unless otherwise stated.
Historically, we are in the Kingdom of Lot (from whence the region, Lothian, takes it's name). It is a lowland landscape with rich arable, barley growing land. To the south are the limestone Lammermuir Hills, the start of the Southern Uplands and the source of the hard clear water that flows into the Kinchie Burn, the source of Glen Kinchie's water.
A licence to operate a distillery at Glenkinchie was granted to George and John Rate in 1837 ('Kinchie is a corruption of the Norman name de Quincey, a family which once owned the surrounding land'). In 1890 the distillery was taken over by a consortium of Edinburgh Brewers and Distillers. In 1914 this company joined with other lowland distillers to form Scottish Malt Distillers which today is part of United Distillers.
Glen Kinchie is now the Lowland representative in the United Distillers Classic Malts Range.
Originally, the barley used for the malt would have been grown on the surrounding land and the casks matured on site. Nowadays, the modern world being as it is, the malted barley comes from Morayshire, prepared to the distillers 'lightly peated' specification. The three Glenkinchie warehouses are full and so the filled casks are matured in a huge modern complex in Alloa.
'One thing is constant: the water that is drawn from the Kinchie Burn, Diamond bright and diamond hard, it rises in the Lammermuir Hills, running over rich limestone deposits. And the chalk makes Glenkinchie the driest of all Lowland malts. It is this water and this climate, drier and sunnier than the Highlands, which gives Glenkinchie and the other Lowlanders their quiet, distinct character. Lighter and drier than their Highland and Island cousins, the soft sweetness of the malt is allowed to come through.' - Scottish Malt Whisky Society
Visiting the Distillery
I visited the distillery on a late October day, after one of the worst summer's we've had and we've had a few rotters in recent years. Even in the prosperous East Lothians, grain yields are down, potatoes left rotting in the fields.
Still, it was a beautiful autumn day. The distillery nestled in a dip in the landscape, with the Firth of Forth and Edinburgh to the North and the Lammermuir Hills to the south.
The distillery is brick built, Victorian, with a 'model village' in the same brick surrounding it.
As the malted barley is now brought in from outside, the old malting floors are now used as an exhibition space. This includes a large scale model distillery showing all the various stages in the process of creating a whisky. It's worth allowing an extra half for your visit, to have a look round. My tour cost £6 and lasted about 40 minutes.
The Production Process
Both malting and maturing of the whisky now take place off site, the malted barley being brought in by lorry four or five times a week,.
The production process is a batch process, using nine tonnes of malt at a time. First the malted barley is milled into grist and water, from a spring under the distillery, is added. This watery porridge is then heated in a stainless steel mash tun to between 76 and 84 degrees Celsius before being separated into wort and draft.
The wort is the sugar rich water to be distilled, the draft the solid wastes.The draft is used as animal feed and the wort, with yeast added, is put into large wooden tubs called washbacks, where it is fermented for about sixty hours until it turns into strong beer.
The Glenkinchie washbacks are made from Canadian Larch or Oregon Pine.
The distillery uses two 30,963 Litre capacity washstills to convert the strong beer to spirit by a double distillation process. The Glenkinchie stills are the largest stills in use in Scotland.
The first still produces low wines, which are 23% alcohol by volume. The low wines are then put through the second still and produce a liquid that is 70% alcohol by volume.
The Glenkinchie stills are not only large, but tall and the height contributes to it's distinctive light and gentle flavour.
The spirit from the second distillation passes through a Spirit Safe where the head (the first part) and the feints (or tail) are removed leaving the 'heart' of the spirit which will be watered down to 63% alcohol by volume.
To become Scottish Whisky this spirit must be matured in oak casks, for at least three years, in Scotland.
The casks used are either American oak ex- bourbon casks (which are reused for up to 50 years) or Montellado sherry casks. For example a Glenkinchie whisky might be matured for twelve years in a bourbon cask, before being finished in a sherry cask.
Only 8% of the Glenkinchie production is used for the production of Glenkinchie Single Malts. The rest is used to produce blended whiskies. Johnie Walker, Dimple, White Horse, J&B are all whiskies that contain whisky from the Glenkinchie distillery.
Tasting notes
Well, it was a long process to get a proper sit down and taste of the Glenkinchie. I bought a small, 20cl, bottle of the twelve year old when I visited the distillery. I spent that night with a friend in the Borders who had turned tea total and managed to leave the unsampled bottle at his house. He was leaving for Australia, but passed it on to a friend who lived in Roslyn. Suffice to say, I didn't reclaim it for a couple of months.
Tasting conditions, I would have to say were ideal. After a muddy, entertaining and tiring walk with a friend round Roslyn Glen, on a cold February afternoon and after a hearty wholesome meal of bangers and mash.
I found it a dry ('Protestant' I called it), spare kind of dram, not full of sherry flavours or sweetness - dry and cold like the day. Peaceful, it rounded off the day finely, a stick of shortbread as accompaniment would have perfected it.
I have a theory that a good whisky should convey a sense of peace, that relaxation of water that comes from sitting still in a quiet place for a number of years.
I really enjoyed this one, but then it was a particularly fine moment for a dram and I give it a rating of eight out of ten.
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