LESS HEARD OF BLENDED WHISKIES FROM DIAGEO AND OTHERS

RARE BLENDS FOUND IN REMOTE COUNTRIES

THE BENMORE BLENDED SCOTCH WHISKY

BENMORE PROFILE

Benmore has been a reasonably successful blend, the sales of which are now focussed on the Philippines and Thailand. It was created by Benmore Distilleries Company, the one-time owner of four distilleries including Dallas Dhu, whose malts were used as the base of the Benmore blend.

In 2011, Diageo, created a special Benmore Four Casks blend for Thai and Philippine whisky drinkers. It is aged in a combination of ex-Bourbon, Sherry, charred and refill casks, and filled into a smart embossed bottle featuring a stag. Its palate offers dried fruits, plenty of sweet vanilla and a faint whiff of smoke.

BENMORE HISTORY

Benmore was ‘the first of three new distilleries in Campbeltown,’ wrote Alfred Barnard after his great whisky tour in the 1880s. It was built in 1868 by the big Glasgow blender, Bulloch Lade, which went bankrupt in 1920. The distillery then became part of Benmore Distilleries Company Ltd, also from Glasgow, and operated until 1927 when it closed for good.

The company also bought Lochindaal in Port Charlotte on Islay in 1920 and a year later added Dallas Dhu on Speyside. Presumably the Benmore blend was created around this time and included malts from all three distilleries, though only Dallas Dhu was ever mentioned on the label.

By 1929 the Benmore Distilleries Co. and its eponymous blend had been absorbed into the Distillers Company, the forerunner of Diageo. In 1983, Dallas Dhu was closed for good by DCL and sold to Historic Scotland.

ABBOT'S CHOICE BLENDED SCOTCH WHISKY

In the 1960s ceramic monks filled with Scotch sold as far afield as Peru. Today Abbot’s Choice lives on as an occasional oddity in whisky auctions.

ABBOT'S CHOICE PROFILE

Over the years Scotch whisky has been bottled in everything from miniature golf bags to models of Nessie and Big Ben, so why not use a ceramic monk and employ his head as a stopper? Every time you felt like a dram you could decapitate the poor fellow and then put him back together again. Such was the thinking of John McEwan & Co Ltd of Elgin and Leith.

The blend may have contained Linkwood, which was licenced to John McEwan & Co by the DCL in the mid-20th century.

ABBOT'S CHOICE HISTORY

According to the yellow, parchment-style labels of Abbot’s Choice, John McEwan & Co was established in Leith in 1863. The firm owned other blended whiskies including King George IV and Chequers, all of which have since been inherited by Diageo.

The brand was originally called ‘McEwan’s Whisky – the Abbot’s Choice,’ and dates from some time before World War II. Among its European markets was Italy where it was imported by the Brescia-based firm of Samaroli, while it was also exported to Latin America. In 1937 DCL acquired John McEwan & Co and licensed its recently-acquired Linkwood distillery to the company.

A set of ceramic monks are part of the massive collection at Edinburgh’s Scotch Whisky Experience amassed by the Brazilian businessman, Claive Vidiz. The ‘Abbot’s Choice’ trademark was registered in the USA in 1953, and lapsed in 1995. John McEwan & Co was eventually dissolved in 2010.

BULLOCH LADE BLENDED SCOTCH WHISKY

A popular 20th century blend named after one of the great Glasgow whisky firms – Bulloch Lade.

BULLOCH LADE PROFILE

‘BL Gold Label – a whisky of fine character for the occasions of old-fashioned friendly hospitality’ declares an advert in Punch from 1923, beneath a cartoon of a salmon fisherman pouring himself a large dram while his gillie looks on eagerly.

Bulloch Lade & Co, once a key force in the industry and owner of distilleries including Caol Ila and Loch Katrine, went bust after the First World War. But

its name lived on for decades through its BL Gold Label blend that was sold from New York to Italy, where it was still popular in the 1970s.

The Royal Warrant bestowed upon Bulloch Lade by King George VI was continued by Queen Elizabeth II and attached to BL Gold Label during the 1950s.

BULLOCH LADE HISTORY

Founded in 1830, Bulloch Lade & Co. had become a major whisky blender and distillery owner by the end of the century, when it was a serious rival to the Distillers Company Ltd. (DCL). However the lean years that followed the downturn in the Scotch industry at the start of the 20th century proved too much and the firm went into voluntary liquidation in 1920.

It’s likely that the BL Gold Label blend was created before then, though this is unclear. What is known is that the firm was bought by a consortium of whisky producers including DCL, which then acquired it outright in 1927.

Bulloch Lade & Co continued to operate as a subsidiary of the DCL, with the BL blends attributed to the blender. In 2007, Bulloch Lade & Co was finally dissolved.

Chequers BLENDED SCOTCH WHISKY

A sister brand to Abbot’s Choice, Chequers was an off & on deluxe blend from John McEwan & Co.

CHEQUERS PROFILE

British Prime Ministers have been escaping to their 16th century country retreat of Chequers since 1917, though whether this inspired John McEwan’s blend is unknown.

The Leith-based blender was best known for his Abbot’s Choice brand, while Chequers evolved into a deluxe 12-year-old whisky that described itself as ‘an especially harmonious blend of 100% choice Scotch whiskies’. Before then, Chequers was launched as a standard blend in the US with a series of lavish adverts in Life magazine in the late 1960s. No doubt Chequers came to feature Linkwood as one of its constituent malts, the Speyside distillery being licensed to John McEwan & Co Ltd when it became part of the DCL. Today the trademark is owned by Diageo.

CHEQUERS HISTORY

Life magazine adverts invariably featured images of Linkwood, though it was not mentioned by name. It was simply referred to as ‘our distillery by Elgin in Morayshire,’ with John McEwan & Co Ltd given as ‘proprietors of the Chequers brand’. In truth this old whisky firm, which was founded in 1863 in Leith, had been part of the Distillers Company (DCL) since 1937, five years after DCL acquired Linkwood.

Since the 1960s Chequers has been labelled ‘The Superb’, ‘Superb De Luxe’ and ‘Mas de 12 años’ – a hint as to its core Latin markets. The no-age-statement Chequers de Luxe’ may still be available in Venzuela. In 2010, John McEwan & Co was dissolved.

Linkwood DISTILLERY

Linkwood Distillery-Way Up North

Linkwood is another of the light Speyside camp. The new make has the aroma of a spring meadow – mixing cut grass, apple and peach blossom.

SPEYSIDE SINGLE MALT SCOTCH WHISKY

When mature, however, although Linkwood's freshness is retained the palate reveals a thick texture which slows the whisky down in the mouth. It is this combination of texture and delicacy which makes it prized by blenders – and much loved by malt whisky aficionados. The fragrance is achieved by creating very clear wort, having a very long fermentation and distilling (slowly to maximise copper conversation) in pairs of stills in which the spirit is larger than the wash, allowing even more copper contact.

LINKWOOD HISTORY

Located on the outskirts of Elgin (though now within its ever-growing suburbs) Linkwood was established in 1821, but only started production in 1824. Owner Peter Brown was the factor [manager] of the Linkwood Estate and wisely kept his nose clean until the 1823 Excise Act was on the stature book. In 1897, Linkwood Glenlivet Distillery Company was created to control the distillery’s operation.

It was completely rebuilt in 1874 by his son William and existed as an independent distiller, run by an Elgin-based whisky broker, until 1932 when it joined the DCL stable. It has remained in production ever since, with regular upgrades taking place, most significantly in 1972 when a new distillery was built opposite the old buildings. 

Both plants ran until 1985 when the original ceased production, although it was still used as an experimental site – it was here that a lot of Diageo’s research into copper, reflux and the effect of worm tubs took place. In the late 1990s it was on the shortlist to become the Speyside representative in The Classic Malts range.

In 2012, the old building was demolished as part of yet another upgrade. This time six new washbacks were installed in a new distillery along with two new stills. Capacity is now in excess of 5.5m litres per annum.

Linkwood is bottled as a 12-year-old in Diageo’s Flora & Fauna range, and for many years quasi-official bottlings have come from Gordon & MacPhail of Elgin – often from ex-Sherry casks. Other independent bottlings appear fairly regularly.

OTHER RARE TO FIND SCOTCH WHISKIES

Port Ellen 39 Year Old Untold Stories: The Spirit Safe

70cl 50.9% ABV

Description
Distilled in 1978 at the iconic Port Ellen distillery on Islay, this limited edition has been produced from the original distillery's last remaining stocks. Set to re-open in 2021, Port Ellen was almost lost to history when it closed in 1983.

This expression has been aged for 39 years in a combination of American oak ex-bourbon casks and refill European sherry casks. Limited to just 1,500 individually numbered bottles, Port Ellen 39 Year Old Untold Stories: The Spirit Safe is presented in a stunning case complete with two sets of keys, in homage to the real spirit safe at the distillery.

Product details

Distillery/Brand                                    Port Ellen

Classification                                        Scotch Whisky

Region                                                 Islay

Style                                                   Single Malt

Benromach 1981

70cl 54.2% ABV

Description

Distilled at Benromach in Forres in May 1981, this expression survived the distillery's mothballing in 1983 to be bottled by new owners Gordon & MacPhail in August 2006. The firm had decided that Benromach should make an older style of Speyside malt – one with a little touch of smoke, medium in body and fruity – with the new equipment they had installed. Despite the stills being smaller, Gordon & MacPhail’s new make bore a striking resemblance to that made under DCL’s stewardship. Quite how this happened is one of the mysteries surrounding Scotch and goes some way to adding to the belief that there is something about a distillery’s own microclimate which influences the character of the spirit.

This 25-year-old Speyside single malt has been matured in refill sherry butts and is presented at a natural cask strength of 54.2% ABV free from chill filtration and artificial colouring.

Product details

Distillery/Brand                                   Benromach

Classification                                       Scotch Whisky

Region                                                  Speyside

Style                                                     Single Malt

Ben Nevis 1996 Authors' Series Leo Tolstoy

70cl 55.5% ABV

Description

Introducing a stunning 19 year old Ben Nevis from the limited edition Authors' Series featuring products selected from rare single casks. This single malt whisky is limited to 255 bottles and has been bottled at a cask strength of 55.5% volume. Bottled in 2015 from a sherry butt.

Leo Tolstoy was born into the Russian Aristocracy in 1828, and is regarded as the father of realist fiction. After achieving initial notoriety with his transparently honest, semi-autobiographical novels recounting the Crimean War, he later found fame with his world renowned epics War and Peace and Anna Karenina. Also a keen playwright and philosophical essayist, Tolstoy was a trailblazer of non-violent resistance, with his moral views later influencing the likes of Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi.

Tasting Notes

Nose - A lovely fresh bouquet lots of fruit, apricot, peaches and cream some sponge cake and fresh almonds. Typical Ben Nevis character is unleashed with a bit of water as grassy and herbal notes join in. Taste- rich with grassy and cereal flavours from the outset, becoming earthy and mossy, (more Ben Nevis traits). Citrus fruits and some nutty toffee lead us on to a pleasant okay finish with a touch of pistachio nut salt tang.

Product details

Distillery/Brand                                   Ben Nevis

Classification                                      Scotch Whisky

Region                                               Highland

Style                                                 Single Malt

DIAGEO’S EXCLUSIVE GLOBAL TRAVEL RELEASE

Johnnie Walker Black Label: Origin Series

Diageo has released a new series of Johnnie Walker whiskies exclusively into travel retail this July, three months before rolling the range out to domestic markets. The Johnnie Walker Black Label Origin Series includes four blended whiskies, each honouring a different whisky region of Scotland.

To coincide with the release, Diageo successfully executed high-profile activations at Singapore Changi, DXB (Dubai International), Hong Kong International and Paris Charles de Gaulle airports. Diageo Global Travel will be activating a full 360-degree global campaign this October. The Johnnie Walker Black Label Origin Series will take the four corners of Scotland to the four corners of the world. Whisky fans and global travellers will experience the sights, smells and tastes of the four corners of Scotland with the immersive retail experiences that champion not only the limited-edition series, but also key historic distilleries from each of the four whisky-producing regions in Scotland.

The Johnnie Walker Black Series L-R Highland: Speyside: Lowlands: Islay

The Origin Series has been created ahead of the 200th anniversary in 2020 of what is, according to the IWSR, the world’s best-selling premium Scotch whisky. The series comprises four 12-year-old blended 42% ABV whiskies: Islay, Highlands, Lowlands and Speyside, with each blend consisting solely of whiskies from that region. All four blends were exclusively released to global travel retail in 1-litre bottles at US$46. The Speyside and Lowlands blends will then be released into certain domestic markets in October before Islay and Highland are introduced to domestic markets in early 2020.

These four expressions are giving consumers insight into Johnnie Walker Black Label to begin to understand what is behind it. Traditionally blends are what they are and the rest of it is a secret, whereas each of these has their own story and are collectively a part of the Johnnie Walker Black Label story that opens up the conversation.

Johnnie Walker Black Label Islay Origin has been created to embody the smoky side of Johnnie Walker Black Label. Being able to use different smoky whiskies together brings a balance of maritime smoke, bonfire smoke and that sweetness in the background, with a lovely lingering smoky finish.

The Johnnie Walker Black Label Highlands Origin uses European oak and sherry casks to take in the rich fruits in Johnnie Walker Black Label. Black Label talks about rich fruits, raisin, dried fruits and a touch of marmalade. That was the inspiration for this one, also using a little bit of ex-European oak and sherry casks within this blended malt to highlight and emphasise some of those rich fruit notes. There’s not just sweetness but also a spiciness on the finish.

The Johnnie Walker Black Label Lowlands Origin is a traditional blended Scotch whisky that embraces creamy vanilla flavours, according to Harper. “In terms of flavour, we are talking about creamy vanilla and smooth flavours like toffee and caramel; there is a slight hint of fresh fruit. It is held together by a very smooth, sweet base; we have done that by pairing the malts and grains and thinking about wood types, so for this one we are talking about American oaks and ex-bourbon casks,” he commented.

The final variant in the series is the Johnnie Walker Black Label Speyside Origin; this blend is inspired by the fresh fruits of Johnnie Walker Black Label. Harper said: “When I nose Black Label, the fresh fruits of pear drop or freshly-cut apple are the first thing that jump out at me so I wanted to recreate that. When thinking about what Speyside offers to black label, it is fresh fruits, orchard fruits, freshly-cut apples, pears and the vibrant fresh fruit flavours.”

NEARING THE HUNDRED YEAR MARK OF PROHIBITION IN THE USA

SNIPPETS ON SPEAKEASIES OF THE USA

Ramesses III

The Sumerians (the ancient inhabitants of Mesopotamia) are said to have discovered the beer fermentation process quite by chance. They must have liked it: They had a goddess of brewing, Ninkasi, and a hymn to her, which was the beer-making recipe put to music. Their successors, the Babylonians, knew how to brew 20 different types of beer. The recipes were recorded by scribes as early as 6,000 B.C. The ancient Egyptians made note of Ramses III, the Pharaoh whose annual sacrifice of about 30,000 gallons of beer appeased ‘‘thirsty gods.’’The modern term bridal joins the words bride and ale; a bride’s ale was brewed by a young woman’s family in preparation for wedding festivities.

The significance of beer in the average person’s diet was demonstrated at the landing of the Mayflower at Plymouth, in what is now Massachusetts. The Pilgrims were headed for Virginia, but the ship was running out of beer. So they halted, went ashore and drank water that the seamen might have more beer.

Beer production and sales played colourful parts in U.S. history. The first American brewery was opened in Lower Manhattan by the Dutch West Indies Company in 1632. The crude streets of New Amsterdam (today’s New York City) were first paved to help the horse-drawn beer wagons make better progress, which were so often stuck in the mud!

Alcoholic beverages, often in combination with herbs, were considered the only liquids fit to drink, with good reason. Household water was commonly polluted. Milk could cause milk sickness (tuberculosis). But beer, ale, and wine were disease-free, tasty, and thirst-quenching, crucial qualities in societies that preserved food with salt and washed it down with a diet of starches.

In England the public house, or pub, developed during Saxon times as a place where people gathered for fellowship and pleasure. An evergreen bush on a pole outside meant ale was served. Each pub was identified by a sign with a picture of, for example, a Black Horse, White Swan, or Red Lion. These early ‘‘logos’’ were used because most people could not read.

When Europeans migrated to America, they brought the tavern with them. It was considered essential to a town’s welfare to have a place providing drink, lodging, and food. 

Mowbray Tavern Massachusetts

In Massachusetts in the 1650s, any town without a tavern was fined! Often the tavern was built near the church so that parishioners could warm up quickly after Sunday services held in unheated meetinghouses. A new town sometimes built its tavern before its church. As towns grew into cities and roads were built connecting them, taverns followed the roads. 

It was also in the taverns that the spirit of revolution was born. These were the rendezvous spots for rebels, where groups like ‘the Sons of Liberty’ were formed and held their meetings. The Boston Tea Party was planned in Hancock Tavern, while in the Green Dragon, Paul Revere and 30 companions formed a committee to watch the troop movement of British soldiers.

When Americans pushed westward taverns sprang up along the routes west. As towns appeared the tavern was often the first building. Homes and merchants grew up around it. Drinking places without lodging started to appear. These kept the name tavern, while more elaborate inns adopted the term hotel. But the hotel kept its barroom; it was often a showplace, with a handsome mahogany bar and a well dressed bartender.

PROHIBITION

Prohibition was one of the two best things that could happen to the Scotch whisky industry and they were quick to capitalise on it. Prohibition in the United States was a national ban on the sale, production, and transportation of alcohol imposed on January 16, 1920, and repealed on December 5, 1933. One anomaly of the “Prohibition Act” (Volstead Act) was that it did not actually prohibit the consumption of alcohol; consumers quickly stockpiled liquor for their own use in late 1919, before sales of alcohol became illegal the following January.

The production of alcohol, although not necessarily its consumption, remained legal in neighboring countries. Canada imposed prohibition nationally from 1918 to 1920. Canadian provinces enacted their own prohibition for varying periods between 1901 to 1948. Distilleries and breweries in Canada, Mexico, and the Caribbean flourished as their products were either consumed, were legal by visiting Americans or smuggled into the United States. The Detroit River, part of the border with Canada, was notoriously difficult to police and control, and soon became a bootlegger’s highway. Nassau, in the Bahamas, became a major center for the stockpiling of hard liquor destined for the American market and a staging ground for “rum runners.” When Washington complained to the London that British officials in Nassau were undermining its law, London refused to intervene. The province of Ontario enacted a prohibition on alcohol consumption from 1916 to 1927. The Ontario Temperance Act was the opposite of the Volstead Act. It prohibited the domestic consumption of alcohol, but continued to allow its manufacture and transshipment for export outside the province.

The Volstead Act had broad exemptions for the use of ethanol or grain alcohol for “fuel, dye and other lawful industries and practices, such as religious rituals.” Ten licenses were authorised for the production of “medicinal whiskey”, but only six companies applied for them. All of the companies had been in production prior to Prohibition and had stocks to sell.

The law allowed physicians to “prescribe” up to one pint of whiskey per week to their patients for “medicinal purposes.” The American Medical Association subsequently lobbied the U.S. Congress to remove the limit on the amount of whiskey that could be prescribed on the basis that physicians were “better qualified to determine the therapeutic value of a substance and the proper rate of its prescription.” In addition, there were a variety of liqueurs, especially bitters, which were successfully reclassified as “medicines” and thus exempted from the Volstead Act. The Scotch malt whisky Laphroaig, a heavily peated, smoky, phenolic whisky from the Isle of Islay, a whisky that is often described as being “medicinal” in flavor, successfully had itself reclassified as a “medicine” by the Bureau of Alcohol, Fire Arms and Tobacco. So too did the blended Scotch, White Horse, which prominently features another phenolic, single malt from Islay, Lagavulin. The two Scotch brands were the only ones that could be legally imported during Prohibition and were available for sale at pharmacies. Their purchase required a prescription from a doctor.

Prohibition had predictable results on the Scotch whisky industry.The copious  quantities of home brewed “bathtub gin”notwithstanding, demand for hard liquor remained strong. This demand was met largely by bootleggers, many of whom were part of organized crime rings that flourished during this period. A combination of British and Scottish liquor producers, domestic Canadian spirit producers, and various Caribbean rum producers, largely met the bootleggers demand. The Scotch whisky industry, far larger than their Canadian and Caribbean competitors, and already far more sophisticated in its marketing and distribution than their foreign rivals, was ideally positioned to capitalize on the burgeoning American demand.

Whisky producers stockpiled inventory in locations convenient for smugglers. Whisky exports to the Bahamas, for example, increased from 944 gallons in 1918 to more than 386,000 gallons in 1922, and they continued to increase as Prohibition progressed. Similar Scotch “depots” were established in Havana, the Turks and Caicos Islands, and on Grand Cayman. Comparable warehouses were set up in St. Johns, Newfoundland, and the French islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Scotch was also shipped to the province of Ontario for transshipment to the United States. The Detroit River was a major thoroughfare for the smuggling of illicit liquor. It was difficult to police despite the number of revenue agents assigned to patrol it. In 1927 for example, records from the Ontario provincial government show that boats carrying a total of 3,388,016 gallons of “hard liquor” had left Windsor, Ontario for Detroit. In that year, US agents were able to seize only a paltry 148,211 gallons—roughly four percent of what was shipped.

The economics of bootlegging were not unlike those of the contemporary drug trade. Smugglers would pick up stock in an offshore “depot” like Nassau and proceed to the mainland where they would wait just outside the US 12-mile territorial limit. As long as they remained outside of US territorial waters they were technically exempt from US jurisdiction. In reality, aggressive Coast Guard patrols often stopped and boarded smugglers and seized their goods as contraband.

Fast motorboats from the mainland would go out to the “mother ship” to pick up cargo and deliver it to shore. Landed on the coast, prices would double again. Delivered to a warehouse in a major city and from there to a local “speakeasy” would see another doubling at each stage. By the time a bottle of Scotch had traveled from Nassau to a “speakeasy” in New York, the price could have increased by a factor of 16 times. If the liquor was diluted the profits were even larger.

Most Scotch whisky exports were in the form of bottled stock. That made it more difficult to tamper with the contents and to adulterate them. The result was that of all of the illicit liquor being smuggled into the United States, Scotch whisky consistently had the higher quality. Exports from Canada and the Caribbean were usually in barrel form and were bottled after arriving in the United States. This made it easier to dilute the contents and the quality of the resulting product suffered accordingly. The Scotch whisky industry was also in an ideal position to increase production to meet the American demand. The superiority of Scotch among the other smuggled hard liquors would serve the industry well when Prohibition was repealed, and led to an immediate increase in the relative market share enjoyed by Scotch whisky in the American market. To this day Scotch whisky has maintained a dominant market position in the United States.

NO SHORTAGE OF DISTILLERIES IN SCOTLAND

NEW DISTILLERIES ON THE ANVIL

Plenty of distilleries are lining up to cash in on the Whisky Boom, mainly Single Malts. This post is best read along with its predecessor, published in 2017. Some of these are: 

Annandale The Annandale distillery was closed in 1924, but production resumed in 2014.

Arbikie Arbikie is a large estate near Dundee. In 2014 they decided to build their own distillery.

Ardnamurchan Distillery

Ardnamurchan The bottler Adelphi called itself a distillery long before they actually built one.

Ardnahoe  a wholly Stewart Laing family-owned business Hunter Laing & Co. Ltd. at Islay. First runs of distillation began in October 2018 with Cask number 001 filled on the 9th November that year.

Ballindalloch Ballindalloch is one of Scotland’s smallest distilleries.

Daftmill The Daftmill micro-distillery has chosen not to release any of its whisky just yet.

DALMUNACH DISTILLERY

Dalmunach Pernod Ricard / Chivas built the Dalmunach distillery in 2015 - and it’s beautiful.

Dornoch Dornoch distillery is a crowd funded project near the Dornoch Castle hotel.

Eden Mill The Eden Mill whisky distillery was established in 2014 - but it’s also a brewery.

Falkirk Development by Falkirk Distillery Company happens where Rosebank used to be.

Glasgow The Glasgow Distillery Company hardly seems like a ‘proper’ distillery right now.

GlenWyvis GlenWyvis says they will be the world’s first community owned distillery - eventually.

Harris The new Harris distillery on the Isle of Harris is also located on the Isle of Lewis.

Kingsbarns The Kingsbarns distillery started producing whisky in January 2015.

Loch Ewe Loch Ewe is kind of a ‘model’ distillery / tourist attraction. Whisky was never bottled.

The gigantic Roseisle Distillery, currently producing 10m litres per annum

Roseisle The massive Roseisle distillery was founded in 2009 and began test production that year. It was officially inaugurated in 2010.

Strathearn The Strathearn micro-distillery was producing malt whisky by the end of 2013.

Torabhaig The construction of Torabhaig on the Isle of Skye started in 2014 - and is unfinished.

MORE ABOUT ROSEISLE DISTILLERY

ROSEISLE HISTORY

SPEYSIDE SINGLE MALT SCOTCH WHISKY

INTRODUCTION

Any distillery can make more than one style of whisky – and many do. Diageo’s Roseisle however was, with Grant’s Ailsa Bay, part of a new wave which has been specifically designed to produce a range of different characters of spirit.

Roseisle is a distillery of Speyside single malt Scotch whisky, in Roseisle, near Elgin, Morayshire, in the Strathspey region of Scotland. It is the first new major distillery to be built in Scotland for 30 years and is the first malt whisky distillery to generate significant renewable energy from its bio co-products. The distillery is owned by multinational drinks company Diageo. The distillery opened in 2010 and is the largest-ever built at 3,000 sq m and a cost of £40million. 

HISTORY

Roseisle was mired in controversy even before the first sod was cut to start construction. The largest distiller building a large distillery signalled some doom-mongers to predict that parent firm Diageo would use Roseisle’s opening as an excuse to close down some of its smaller sites. It soon became the equivalent of a whisky Death Star.

In reality its size, at 10m litres per annum, was smaller than Glenfiddich, and its construction was merely the first stage in a £1bn investment by Diageo in increasing capacity across its estate. Rather than closing anything down, Roseisle ushered in a new era of distillery building.

A biomass plant means it generates much of its own energy, while a heat recovery system allows waste heat from the distillery to help run the maltings at nearby Burghead and across the road at Roseisle.

PROFILE

Six of its seven pairs of stills can switch between stainless steel or standard (copper) shell and tube condensers. If a light grassy spirit is required, long fermentation (in excess of 90 hours) is used, along with slow distillation with air rests, and condensing in the copper condensers. Conversely, if a heavy style is needed then the stainless steel condensers will be used. The lack of extended copper ‘conversation’ will add the requisite weight to the spirit. A nutty (malty) style could also be produced by shortening mashing and fermentation regimes. The grassy style which is currently produced is different noticeably to that from other Diageo sites such as Glen Ord or Royal Lochnagar.  

Innovating with Bioenergy in Scotch Whisky

Diageo, a world's leading premium drinks is focussing on putting the principles of sustainability and responsibility into practice as key to its growth; from domestic value creation to addressing the carbon emissions challenges within its operations. Diageo aims to manage climate change mitigation as part of its overall risk management process, including a company-wide reduction plan which is reported against every quarter.

Diageo’s new Roseisle Scotch whisky distillery in Speyside is setting new standards for environmentally sustainable Scotch whisky distilleries. The company invested £17m in a state of the art bioenergy plant at Roseisle which uses by-products from the distilling process as a feed source of renewable energy for the plant.

Roseisle is the first malt whisky distillery to generate significant renewable energy from its co-products making its environmental impact significantly lower than a distillery of an equivalent size. Overall 50% of the distillery’s energy consumption is made up from renewable sources generated in the onsite bioenergy plant.

Roseisle utilises a combination environmental technologies that is unprecedented in distilling, such as biomass boilers to raise steam from the spent grains, and waste water treatment by anaerobic digestion and membrane filtration.

Recent results from the Roseisle distillery are:

Approximately 10,000 tonnes of CO2 per annum is being saved from the use of renewable fuels.

3,000 tonnes of CO2 saved from off-setting fuel at the malting plant.

Over 50% of the distillery’s energy is produced from sustainable renewable sources.

Water consumption has been minimised by introducing a closed loop on the distillery condensers.

Environmental impact from effluent discharge is now lower than existing outflow before the distillery was built – Roseisle Distillery can therefore be said to have virtually no environmental impact to the discharge waters.

Renewable energy is generated by the anaerobic digestion of distillery by-products.

Roseisle is the first malt whisky distillery to generate renewable energy from all the co-products and has proven the technology for implementation at other sites