After I sat down in my assigned seat on the prepare at Manchester Deansgate Station, with a 6.5-hour journey forward of me, I discovered myself questioning what my two days at Dewar’s Aberfeldy Distillery could be like. Any scotch whisky fan who has visited various scotch whisky distilleries is liable to say that they’re much of a muchness – you could have seen one, you could have seen all of them.
After all, it isn’t so simple as that. Having visited a number of distilleries myself, I can say that every of them has its personal attraction. Nevertheless, smaller distilleries and producers usually discover themselves having to go the additional mile in an effort to impress travelling whisky followers. Over the last week of June, I used to be one such fan. And I needed to be impressed.
Arriving in Pitlochry
My prepare pulled into Pitlochry Station at 12:30 pm, simply in time for lunch, catered by the fantastic Ballintaggart at The Grandtully Resort. Greeted by a whisky highball and an expansion of scrumptious bites crafted from native substances, the journey was definitely off to a superb begin.
Then, we travelled on to our resort, the beautiful Dun Aluinn, positioned a few mile and a half from Aberfeldy Distillery. The gorgeous 5.5-acre property boasts a 9-bedroom home, all with en suite bogs, a separate lodge with further bedrooms, two lounges, a cinema room, an outside sizzling tub overlooking the River Tay, luxurious interiors, and an outside hearth pit. I chosen a bed room on the primary ground, with a steam bathe and a really snug four-poster mattress.
After freshening up in our rooms, we gathered downstairs for canapes and cocktails (made with Aberfeldy 12, after all) earlier than heading off to the distillery.
On To Dewar’s Aberfeldy Distillery
Situated on the aspect of the A827, Aberfeldy Distillery is sort of laborious to overlook. A big signal studying “Dewar’s Aberfeldy Distillery Excursions – Store – Cafe” shepherds you up the sweeping driveway and behind the nonetheless home to the doorway.
In true Scotland model, we walked into the reception space by drizzling rain and bagpipes enjoying ‘Scotland the Courageous’. Now could be when the really genuine journey by the historical past of Dewar’s and Aberfeldy begins.
Instantly as you enter the customer’s centre, you’re greeted by the distillery present store. A curated choice of Dewar’s, Aberfeldy, Craigellachie, and Royal Brackla whiskies are lined up alongside one wall. Glencairn whisky glasses, coasters constructed from oak cask staves, mini bottled cocktails, t-shirts. You named it, they’ve it.
On a big desk sits a cask of whisky with the classic 1999. Extra on that later.
To the left of the present store is the distillery bar with lots of the identical bottles as within the store open and prepared for drams to be poured. On the alternative aspect of the room is a restaurant providing espresso, truffles, and sandwiches.
We’re given a couple of minutes to browse and chat with distillery representatives earlier than we head to the museum.
The Dewar’s Aberfeldy Museum
The doorway to the Dewar’s Aberfeldy Museum is tucked away within the nook of the present store. Because the ceiling lowers you discover cask staves curved across the wall, guiding by the doorways and into the museum.
Inside you’re greeted by historic Dewar’s and Aberfeldy bottlings, displayed in rigorously lit glass instances. One such bottle is, so far as anyone is aware of, the oldest surviving bottle of Aberfeldy “Outdated Scotch Whisky”, distilled in 1899. There are additionally bottles of Diageo’s famed Flora & Fauna whiskies (white and black capsules) displayed within the instances, adopted by more moderen Aberfeldy bottlings.
Nevertheless, the doorway space itself is dominated by a scale mannequin of Aberfeldy Distillery’s pagoda roof, designed by famed architect Charles Doig. The ‘pagoda-style roof was designed by Doig in 1889 to higher ventilate the kilns through which malted barley was dried. Marrying practicality and aesthetics, these pagoda roofs started showing in distilleries throughout Scotland. The so-called ‘Doig Ventilator’ turned synonymous with the picture of whisky distilleries in Scotland, regardless of their near-redundancy in trendy distilling. The picture of the Doig Ventilator is even used because the image for the Malt Whisky Path on Scottish street indicators.
Shifting previous the pagoda, you enter the world of Dewar’s Aberfeldy. The museum, rigorously curated by a Dewar’s staff headed by World Heritage Supervisor, Jacqui Sargeant, boasts objects that intricately inform the story of Dewar’s from its inception in 1846. Such objects embrace the previous warehouse lock and keys, distillery clogs (to guard the employee’s toes), and a purchase order ledger signed by John Dewar himself for the majority buy of Islay whisky in 1860.
On the opposite aspect of the museum is a formidable duplicate mixing room, displaying guests the place scotch whisky makers would meticulously craft one of the best blends from malt whiskies sourced throughout Scotland. The mixing room is fronted by a big, shelved wall of previous pattern bottles. These commerce samples would have been utilized by Dewar’s to experiment with blends to attain the right whisky. Such commerce samples embrace a Macallan distilled in 1919, a 1924 St. Magdalene, and a 1909 scotch from Dalmore.
The spectacular curation of artefacts and data is offered by educated tour guides, by whom the legacy of Dewar’s is keenly felt. You actually do get the sense that every worker at Aberfeldy is immensely pleased with the legacy that was left by John, Alexander, and Tommy Dewar. Such a legacy is safely guarded by the staff at Aberfeldy.
The Warehouse Expertise
Following a manufacturing tour of the distillery we’re led to the aim of our go to: The Dewar’s Aberfeldy Warehouse Expertise.
Now, Aberfeldy doesn’t cooper on website, nor does the distillery retailer its casks on website. There is no such thing as a warehouse, as such. However, that’s not what the Warehouse Expertise is about.
We slip inside an unassuming door and are immediately greeted by a surprising sculpture. Reflecting the “stave wall” – because it was known as by Distillery Model Dwelling Ambassador, Mike McGinty – on the entrance to the museum, the area is lit up by big, sweeping cask staves lit up with LED lights. Along side the room is a small seating space, the place we’re invited to observe a brief video concerning the significance of cask coopering in whisky manufacturing.
Relying on who you ask, round 50-80% of a whisky’s profile comes from its cask. And, simply because Aberfeldy doesn’t cooper on-site (they supply from Speyside Cooperage), it doesn’t imply that the coopering course of is skimmed over. The cask is a particularly necessary vessel, with out which scotch whisky wouldn’t be the place it’s immediately.
The significance of the cask within the whisky-making course of is bolstered by a wall of cask heads to our proper, which World Model Ambassador, Single Malts at John Dewar & Sons Ltd, Matthew Cordiner, opens to disclose the shining star of the Warehouse Expertise.
The Aberfeldy 40 12 months Outdated Hand-Fill Expertise
Contained in the hidden room is a single cask of Aberfeldy single malt scotch whisky, aged for 40 years. Cask #5030, to be precise. Flanked by two backlit partitions of cabinets displaying empty bottles and containers, the cask invitations you to hand-fill your very personal bottle of Aberfeldy 40 12 months Outdated.
As any scotch whisky fan will know, getting older a whisky to 40 years is not any imply feat. It requires meticulous cask administration to make sure that the ABV doesn’t drop beneath 40%, subsequently stripping the liquid of its proper to be known as ‘scotch whisky’.
Along with this, the longer a whisky ages, the much less liquid there might be within the cask. That is because of the, on common, 2% per 12 months evaporation of the liquid within the cask often called the ‘angel’s share’. As such, the bottling yield might be a lot decrease for a 40 12 months previous cask than it might be for a ten 12 months previous cask, for instance. You possibly can think about, then, the way it felt for me to face in entrance of a cask of Aberfeldy 40. Particular, to say the least.
To get the possibility to hand-fill your individual 40 12 months previous single malt is a rarity certainly. Such rarity is bolstered by the truth that it is a single cask, and solely a really choose few guests will get the possibility to have this expertise earlier than the cask runs dry and one other takes its place.
The hand-fill expertise plus your very personal Aberfeldy 40 12 months Outdated (personalisation accessible) has a price ticket of £3,000.
A Symphony of Flavors
Now, onto the brand-new tasting expertise at Dewar’s Aberfeldy Distillery. Aberfeldy is, after all, a single malt model in its personal proper. Nevertheless, the distillery can also be the house of the Dewar’s model of blended whisky.
Grasp Blender, Stephanie MacLeod, was lately named ‘Grasp Blender of the 12 months’ by the Worldwide Whisky Competitors for a record-breaking sixth time. It’s no marvel, then, that Dewar’s is the world’s most awarded blended scotch whisky. Stephanie MacLeod is ready to seamlessly mix collectively the best whiskies from throughout Scotland to create a harmonious blended whisky. In reality, Stephanie herself compares whisky mixing to conducting a symphony within the subsequent a part of our tour.
From the warehouse room, we’re led right into a dimly lit but trendy area with what seems like a mixing desk on the entrance of the room. On the press of a button on a aspect panel, Stephanie strides into view and her projection explains to guests the complicated nature of whisky mixing. Like instructing musicians to work in concord, a whisky blender should rigorously select and match notes and profiles throughout quite a lot of whiskies, methodically choosing out which flavours will work finest collectively.
On this a part of the tour, you aren’t simply requested to take Stephanie’s phrase for this as a result of, as soon as once more, a secret door leads you to the subsequent a part of the expertise: the tasting.
The Dewar’s Aberfeldy Tasting Expertise
We’re led right into a small room embellished with cascading, glittering bronze partitions. On this room, Model Dwelling Customer Operations Supervisor Jonathan Wilson explains, company might be invited to take a digital quiz on one of many many tablets that can quickly be put in. The quiz asks you questions on your whisky data, your expertise with tasting, your choice for candy or savoury, and so forth. At first, it could seem to be a redundant train; a digital a part of the expertise to maintain company busy for 5 minutes. Nevertheless, whenever you enter the subsequent room, the aim turns into clear.
We stroll down a small hall and into the subsequent room, which is definitely a whisky-lovers paradise. The room is considerably harking back to a lecture corridor, solely way more heat and welcoming. Semi-circle tables and chairs all face a display screen on the entrance of the room.
I discover my seat and, to my delight, there’s a glass of Aberfeldy whisky and a whisky highball ready for me. The drinks had been chosen primarily based on the quiz that I had taken earlier within the day. I take into account myself to be one thing of a whisky explorer, who loves the classics, however isn’t afraid of a contemporary twist. And so, in entrance of me is a glass of 12 12 months Outdated and a whisky highball made with Dewar’s 12 12 months Outdated.
Additionally on our whisky-tasting desks are water jugs and pipettes, and tasting cubes with which you’ll be able to present your companions the notes that you’re tasting in your drink. Our beautiful tour information, Michelle, additionally shows a scotch whisky-tasting wheel on the display screen in entrance of us. The tasting wheel may be very helpful in case you are a whisky novice, and might help you to establish what it’s that you’re tasting in a selected dram.
The very best half about this room, I feel, is that the small, semi-circular tables permit you to simply see and converse to your tour companions about what it’s that you’re consuming. Straight desks, I think about, would make this area really feel way more like a classroom. And, I feel I’m secure in assuming, that none of us would significantly like to return to highschool. Michelle, our information, may be very a lot there to information and to not educate. She encourages us to style, discuss, style once more, and examine.
As a lady working within the whisky business, I do know from private expertise that getting into this usually patriarchal world might be daunting. In my first whisky tasting, I discovered myself nervous to talk for concern of getting one thing mistaken. (Spoiler alert: there aren’t any mistaken solutions). This tasting room at Dewar’s Aberfeldy isn’t too giant that you just really feel misplaced, however not so small that you just really feel uncovered. The environment is relaxed and comfy, which is how all people ought to have the ability to begin their whisky-tasting journey.
Dinner By Balllintaggart
Following our tasting expertise we had been led again into the museum the place, to my astonishment, the staff from Ballintaggart had arrange a stupendous eating desk full with flower preparations, candles, and charcuterie boards to start our night.
What adopted was a surprising three-course meal with whisky pairings supplied by Mike McGinty, Jonathan Wilson, and Matthew Cordiner. Of the three whiskies sampled, the Aberfeldy 21 12 months Outdated Argentinian Malbec Cask End was my favorite. Aberfeldy’s traditional honey and vanilla was accented by notes of tart blackcurrants and candy purple berries. A touch of spice results in an extended, candy, and clean end.
Again To Dun Aluinn
After dinner, we arrived again at Dun Aluinn the place our (quite costly) nightcap was a dram of the Aberfeldy 40 12 months Outdated that guests can hand-fill within the Warehouse Expertise.
It’s wonderful how a lot complexity can come from 40 years in oak. The liquid is multi-layered, with the normal honey and vanilla accented by notes of lavender, toasted oak, and cinnamon spice. The end is clean and barely drying, lingering on the palate for simply the correct amount of time. It was the right strategy to spherical off a jam-packed day.
Properly and really whiskied-out (and having been up since 5 am), I headed to mattress, with one other morning of whisky revelry to look ahead to.
To Be Continued…
My expertise at Dewar’s Aberfeldy was such that it’s just about inconceivable to suit all of it into one article. So, heading to mattress at Dun Aluinn looks as if a superb place to finish for now.
Control The Whiskey Wash to seek out out what I received as much as the next day, and browse my total evaluation of my go to to Dewar’s Aberfeldy Distillery.
