FIRST DISTILLERY ON ISLE OF HARRIS

 THE HEARACH FINALLY MAKES ITS DEBUT

      

Scotland's Isle of Harris Distillery has finally launched its inaugural single malt whisky. The whisky – called The Hearach, after the Scottish Gaelic name for a native of Harris – is the first legal whisky to be produced on the island and has been distilled, matured, married, and bottled on-site.

The Hearach is the first to revive the distilling traditions lost during the Pabbay clearances of the 1840s. The dram is the result of a considered conversation between people and place, coming together to create an elegant spirit of complexity and character. The work of the island's men and women intertwines with the natural world to weave together an Outer Hebridean whisky of distinction. Every drop of this new dram is being distilled by local people to produce a special spirit which has been matured, married, and bottled here in this elemental place, and nowhere else. The Hearach is bottled at 46% abv, non-chill filtered, and free from artificial colouring.

It was officially launched during an event at the distillery in Tarbert on 22 Sep 2023. A village cèilidh with live music played, with the whisky available to buy at the event and at village bars from 7pm that night. The Hearach then went on free sale from 10am GMT on Saturday 23 September at the distillery shop and at harrisdistillery.com, before being made available at specialist retailers in the UK and globally in subsequent months.

The bottle – created by specialist spirits design agency Stranger & Stranger – was first revealed then. It’s been 15 years since Burr Bakewell formed the Isle of Harris Distillery Company, and they always said that the whisky would be ready when it’s ready, so it was a big moment to finally announce a launch date, on the distillery’s eighth birthday.

The Hearach’s launch, eight years after the distillery opened, is a tribute to the efforts and support of many people: the designers and builders of the distillery, the countless people from the island community and beyond who gave support over the years, investors who supported a long-term vision of regeneration predicated on the creation of a distinctive whisky, and the team that brought the distillery to life who, notwithstanding the many challenges, have remained passionately focused on achieving product and service quality – now embodied in The Hearach single malt.

THE INFLUENCE OF AN ISLAND

The owners believe that the water, sourced from Abhainn Cnoc a’ Charrain, is the softest of any Scottish distillery. Only very low sodium and chlorine minerals are measured, likely derived from the sea spray that blows over our village isthmus.

The rivers and streams of north Harris flow over Lewisian gneiss, some of the oldest rocks on earth, dated by radiometric techniques at between 2.4 billion and 2.6 billion years old. Its hardness helps ensure the extremely low minerality of the source water.

After longer fermentations and hands-on distillation in bespoke copper stills, the oak casks, chosen when visiting Kentucky and Spain, are brought to use. The chaos in the casks then ensues by the shores of the Atlantic, near the west-coast village of Ardhasaig. Despite the northerly latitude, the island’s oceanic climate benefits from the currents of the Gulf Stream. This system keeps seasonal temperatures remain remarkably stable, which benefits the maturation process.

The final, hard to define, element of our whisky making is the natural way of working which requires patience, from fermentation to marrying. This is a slow whisky and the hierarchy looks forward to sharing it at a different pace.

Every bottle is presented in bespoke packaging. The box is debossed throughout including a Gneiss rock pattern taken from stone near the water source on the front panel. The bottles, designed by world-leading agency Stranger & Stranger, will be accompanied by the personal tasting notes of someone from Harris, with different batches offering slightly different tastes depending on the marrying period and variations in individual casks. Photographs of people from Harris feature on the reverse panel. There are four combinations and panels are allocated to bottles at random. The inner panels contain a poem/song in Scottish Gaelic called 'Eilean Na Hearadh' (Isle of Harris). A small booklet is enclosed containing the story of the whisky.

To reduce waste of materials, a bottle coaster is also included, made from excess materials created during the production process. All packaging is 100% recyclable including the biodegradable tamper-proof seal.

On 23 September 2023, Isle of Harris Distillers launched its long-awaited single malt Scotch whisky, The Hearach, to record queues at the distillery in Tarbert and online – where stock sold out in just four and a half hours.

25,000 eager purchasers joined the online queue to bag the first eight batches of The Hearach until supplies were exhausted after just 4.5 hours. At the same time, one thousand people queued happily outside the distillery for up to three hours to buy a first release bottle, travelling from as far away as Canada for the occasion. Local man, Murdo MacLeod was first in the queue having camped out since 2am that morning and becoming the first Hearach to purchase The Hearach at the distillery.

Those who missed out on purchasing The Hearach on launch weekend are, however, still in with a chance of becoming part of whisky history, with specialist retailers and bars and restaurants across the UK putting The Hearach on sale from October 2023. International markets will follow later, with The Hearach available in over 20 countries globally. Meanwhile, visitors to the distillery will be able to purchase The Hearach while stocks last.

The first whisky released by Isle of Harris Distillers, The Hearach is an elegant, highly drinkable single malt, with fruit and floral notes and a long, slightly smoky, finish. The whisky, handcrafted by a team of locals from Harris, has been distilled, matured (in first-fill bourbon, oloroso and fino sherry casks), married and bottled (at 46% ABV) on the island.

The distillers describe it as ‘complex and utterly delicious’, reflecting in part its use of the softest of water and the Harris climate, second to none for the maturation of spirit. The launch of The Hearach follows the success of the Isle of Harris Gin, which is now available in 25 countries worldwide and recently celebrated its one millionth bottle coming off the production line at the Tarbert distillery.

Conceived by Anderson Bakewell, who has a 50-year relationship with Harris, the distillery opened in 2015 to act as a symbol of hope and optimism for the Harris community - creating sustainable jobs for local people and supporting the wider island economy for generations to come. Starting life with a team of just 10 locals, today the distillery family numbers some 48 full-time staff. The Hearach single malt whisky, supported by Isle of Harris Gin, will enable the distillery to continue supporting the local community and provide exciting job opportunities for islanders.

The Hearach has an RRP of £65/-

LVMH MAKES SCOTCH PRICES SKYROCKET

LVMH UPS GLENMORANGIE SINGLE MALT SCOTCH WHISKY PRICES
FIRST POSTED IN 2009 FOR COMPARISON

THE LASANTA

The last phase in the production of Scotch whisky is the maturation of the new make in wooden barrels. The result is called wood-finished whisky, because it picks up distinctive flavours from the barrel wood. Wood-finishing has been the hottest trend in Scotch for the last few years. Often the results are sweeter and fruitier than traditional Scotch and more appealing to people who are new to its craggy style, but connoisseurs also are attracted by wood finishes because they can show a surprising new side to a well-known brand. Glenmorangie has been the best selling single malt in Scotland almost continuously since 1983, and produces around 10 million bottles per annum, of which 6 to 6.5 million are sold in the UK.

Glenmorangie Distillery is located in the Northern Highlands Scotch distillery section of Scotland, UK, 65 km north of Inverness, overlooking the lonesome waters of Dornoch Firth. It claims credit for the popularisation of the idea of 'finished malt whisky' - although it is not certain if they were also the first to apply the technique of double maturation in another cask. Macallan and Balvenie are also well established promoters of 'finishing malt whisky' in a cask that housed another spirit.

According to the Glenmorangie Company, the earliest record of the production of alcohol at Morangie Farm is dated 1703. In the 1730s a brewery was built on the site that shared the farm's water source, the Tarlogie Spring. Distillery manager William Matheson acquired the farm in 1843 and converted the Morangie brewery to a distillery, equipped with two second hand gin stills. He later renamed the distillery Glenmorangie. The distillery was purchased by its main customer, the Leith firm Macdonald and Muir, in 1918. The Macdonald family would retain control of the company for almost 90 years, up to 2004. It also bought the now-off now-on Ardbeg distillery in Islay in 1997. With their stock of old whiskies maturing silently in the darkness, they had hit pay dirt! Sure enough, Ardbeg prices started to spiral.

Glenmorangie, like all distilleries and breweries in Britain, suffered terribly between 1920 and 1950, with Prohibition and then the Great Depression in the United States reducing whisky sales. The distillery was effectively mothballed between 1931 and 1936. The depression ended with World War II, but the war effort left fuel and barley in short supply and the distillery was again mothballed between 1941 and 1944. Exports of whisky were important during the war, but enemy action disrupted and destroyed deliveries to the United States and Canada. Towards the end of the war and in the immediate post-war period, the distillery recovered to increase production and was running at full capacity by 1948.

The number of stills was expanded from two to four in 1980, which was also the time they stopped malting their own barley. In 1990 the stills were expanded again to a total of eight. Those eight stills enable Glenmorangie to produce four million litres of pure alcohol each year, confirming them as a worldwide brand. In 2009, Glenmorangie distillery added two pairs of brand new stills to the eight already in use, increasing production capacity from 4,000,000 litres of alcohol per year to 6,000,000 litres of alcohol per year. Together with Bunnahabhain and Isle of Jura, Glenmorangie has the tallest pot stills in the industry at 26 ft 3 in (8.00 m) tall, with 16 feet 10.25 inches (5.1372 m) necks.

First released more than 175 years ago, the original Glenmorangie 10 year old was known for its mellow tones and delicacy of flavour. All these years later, The Original remains at the heart of Glenmorangie. To give Original a delicious, go-anywhere finesse, they make it in their high stills, then age it for 10 years in bourbon casks to absorb all manner of delectable flavours. The result is a smooth welcoming whisky with a rush of citrus, then layers of luscious flavour, from orange to honey and creamy vanilla, with bursts of peach. This whisky is their bestseller in Scotland.

Around 1995 Glenmorangie released four different ' wood finishes' - a Port Finish, a short-lived Madeira Finish (stopped in 2007), a Sherry Finish and a Sauternes (Burgundy) wine finish. Later on some more finished 'limited releases' were bottled. The bottles actually hold single-malt Scotch, but the Glenmorangie in each has been "finished" for two years in barrels that once held wine, after ageing 10 years in the traditional second-hand Bourbon barrels.

The Tall Copper Stills at Glenmorangie

Some of the most knowledgeable in wood finishing are distilleries such as Edradour, the smallest distillery in Scotland, and Isle of Arran. A lot of big names are doing wood finishes as well, including Glenfarclas, Bowmore, Macallan and Springbank. Springbank's 11 year “Madeira Wood”, for example, was matured entirely in ex-Madeira casks. So far, at least 33 of the 95-odd active malt distilleries in Scotland have issued one or more wood-finished whiskies.

In the 1970s, Scotch distillers concluded that finishing in sherry barrels overpowered some of the natural flavours of Scotch, so they switched almost entirely to American Bourbon barrels. That said, some distillers still felt that some desirable flavours could be had from used ex-wine seasoned wood, so a series of experiments were tried at a low scale over five years, studying the effects of different woods. Eventually, they decided that full maturation in ex-Bourbons barrels, followed by finishing the maturation in other wood for shorter periods gave the best results. The first release was a 12-year-old Glenmorangie finished in Port barrels, the Quinta Ruban. This is now a 14 Year Old.

It was undeniably tasty, but Scotch lovers cherish tradition, so there was a fierce controversy. Well known spirits writers first decried and denigrated wine-finished Scotch as either a way of covering up flaws in whisky or a cheap gimmick aimed at unsophisticated people who like sweet, fruity drinks. But in the 2004 edition of his book, spirits writer Michael Jackson acknowledged that wood finishes had become an established part of the single-malt market. Soon thereafter, the company was sold to the French drinks company Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton for around £300 million. The prices of the Glenmorangie and Ardbeg range of Whiskies saw an immediate rise of $10.00 per bottle, followed by periodic hikes. A $49.95 Nectar d'Or now sells at $77.00 in most liquor stores. It is now a NAS whisky at 46% ABV.

Glenmorangie uses a number of different cask types, with all products being matured in white oak casks manufactured from trees growing in Glenmorangie's own forest in the Ozark Mountains of Missouri, USA. These new casks are left to air for two years before being leased to distillers Jack Daniel's and Heaven Hill for them to mature bourbon in for four years. Glenmorangie then uses the barrels to mature their spirit. The Original range will mature entirely in ex-bourbon casks, while the Extra Matured range of bottlings are transferred into casks that were previously used to mature other products such as wine, port or sherry for finishing. Rum casks are also used in finishing.

Glenmorangie also obtains small batches of other casks for finishing and release limited edition bottlings from these. Following acquisition by LVMH, Glenmorangie produced a rare limited edition aged in casks previously used to mature Château Margaux, the Glenmorangie 18yo 'Extremely Rare' (43%, OB, Bottled +/- 2010). These bottlings are now extremely hard to find and are priced accordingly.

Approximately 85 per cent of the whisky that is distilled at Glenmorangie is sold as a single malt. The rest is used in blends like Highland Queen. Glenmorangie previously bottled Drambuie in a joint venture with the Drambuie Company. (This arrangement ended in 2010).

Port Finish: Glenmorangie Quinta Ruban.

Sherry Finish: Glenmorangie NAS 'Lasanta'.

Madeira Finish: Glenmorangie Madeira Wood Finish, a fruity, creamy whisky with a slight orange hue. (Stopped in 2007).

Sauternes (Burgundy) Wine Finish: Glenmorangie Nectar d'Or

American Contribution

To an American, this is a little disorienting. The Scots have always credited their noble spirit to peat smoke, sea air, water filtered through granite and heather and the like; in brief, to environmental factors that a French winemaker would consider terroir. We Americans have been the ones to dwell on the flavour whiskey picks up from the barrel.

American law spells out exactly what kind of barrel you have to use if you want to call your whiskey Bourbon. It has to be made of American white oak, charred on the inside, and brand-new. Once you've aged any whiskey in it, it can never again be used for Bourbon.

As a result, there are always a lot of used Bourbon barrels lying around. Scotch distilleries have long bought them up for ageing their whisky. To anybody who asked, they've explained that the Bourbon has helpfully extracted all the barrel flavours that would obscure the subtleties of Scotch.

How things have changed! These days many Scottish distillers are exploring the effects of used wine barrels, which add unfamiliar fruity notes. Some are even experimenting with new Bourbon-type barrels, which contribute the familiar vanilla and caramel flavours of Bourbon.

Wood finishes are also spreading from single malts to blended Scotches such as Grant's and the Famous Grouse. (The Grant's aged in ale barrels has a very attractive roundness and fullness -- too bad we can't yet get it in this country.) 

About half the distilleries making wood finishes are in the area east of Inverness known as Speyside. Since Speyside is close to wood-finish pioneer Glenmorangie and known for the delicacy of its whiskies (compared with the smoky island malts), this area is an ideal place to explore the world of wood. The Speyside most familiar to Americans is the Glenlivet, the top-selling single malt in the United States. Glenlivet is aboard for the idea of adding nuances from barrels, but strikes a classical tone, dubious about all these wine flavours.

First posted in 2009.

The Whiskies of the World

 The Whiskies of the World Awards 

The Whiskies of the World Awards is a worldwide whisky competition, hosted annually by the Whiskies of the World team. Each year, a variety of whiskies are judged on a 100-point basis with a focus on aromatics, flavour and finish by a panel of the top tastemakers and influencers in the beverage industry.

Hundreds of entries are received from brands around the world and one entry is chosen as Best In Show. Whiskies of the World medals are acknowledged by both professional and consumers alike as a premier standard in the spirits space.

                                                           2023 BEST IN SHOW

 

Product Name	Location	Category	ABV %	MEDAL
Indri Diwali Collector's Edition 2023	HARYANA INDIA	MALT PEATED	60	Double Gold Best In Show

                                                        2023 BEST IN CLASS

Product Name	Location	Category	ABV %	Medal
Balcones Texas 1 Single Malt	Texas	AMERICAN SINGLE MALT	53	Double Gold Best In Class
Morris Signature Australian Single Malt	Australia	MALT: WINE CASK INFLUENCED	44	Double Gold Best In Class
Old Elk Straight Wheat Whiskey	Fort Collins, CO	WHISKEY WHEAT	50	Double Gold Best In Class
Arran Quarter Cask "Bothy"	Isle of Arran, Scotland	MALT: HIGH PROOF	56.2	Gold Best In Class
Arran Sherry Cask "Bodega"	Isle of Arran, Scotland	MALT: WINE CASK INFLUENCED: HIGH PROOF	55.8	Gold Best In Class
Filey Bay Flagship	England	MALT	46	Gold Best In Class
Mclean's Nose Blended Scotch	Scotland	BLEND	46	Gold Best In Class

                                                      2023 DOUBLE GOLD

Product Name	Location	Category	ABV %	Medal
Amrut Fusion	India	MALT: PEATED	50	Double Gold
Macaloney's An Aba	British Columbia, Canada	MALT: PEATED	46	Double Gold
Wolfburn Aurora	Scotland, Thurso	MALT: WINE CASK INFLUENCED	46	Double Gold

                                                                                       2023 GOLD

Product Name	Location	Category	ABV%	Medal
Balcones Lineage Single Malt	Texas	AMERICAN SINGLE MALT	47	GOLD
Courage & Conviction Sherry Cask	Virginia	AMERICAN SINGLE MALT	46	GOLD
Macaloney's Cath-Nah-Aven	British Columbia, Canada	MALT: WINE CASK INFLUENCED	46	GOLD
Macaloney's Siol Dugall	British Columbia	MALT: PEATED	46	GOLD
Morris Australian Single Malt Muscat Cask Finish	Australia	MALT: WINE CASK INFLUENCED	48	GOLD
Glen Breton Ice 10 Year Old Canadian Single Malt Whisky	Canada	MALT: HIGH PROOF	45.5	GOLD