by Iain Banks
Round here they have the Whisky Trail (they have a Castle Trail too, which both Les and I feel we should do one day, but one interest at a time) and round here it seems you can barely drive a mile without seeing a distillery; sometimes the whole thing, strewn across a hillside, sometimes just the pagoda roofs poking up above the trees or the steam-bannered chimneys standing out over the long roofs of a few acres of bonded warehouses. Sometimes all you see is a brown tourist information sign, pointing the way, and sometimes there’s just a very discreet sign by the roadside, for trade visitors and contractors, if a distillery is not set up to accommodate tourists. A lot are, though, and personally I find them very civilised places to be.
There is now a kind of Visitor Centre Vernacular, a recognisable, getting-on-for industry-wide style of layout and furnishing that might seem twee if you’re one of these minimalist people who like their houses to look like operating theatres, but which kind of suits the nature of the process that goes to make whisky, and which is anyway changing gradually.
There will probably be lots of wood and sometimes quite a lot of exposed stonework, there will be a darkened area where you can sit or stand and watch a visual presentation which will tend to major on sparkling streams gurgling across moody moors and over bulbous boulders, swaying sunlit fields of barley, gleaming great stills, old buildings wreathed in steam and atmospherically lit barrels in dark warehouses. Often there will be an example of an old illicit still, sitting glistening in a coppery sort of way in a corner, usually in a mocked-up bothy setting. Frequently there will be lots of old distillery tools, from when each concern was more self-contained than today: adzes, malt shovels, rummagers and the rest.
Almost always there will be impressively massive old ledgers and enormous leather-bound books that are the genuine articles from a hundred years ago, detailing aspects of the distillery’s processes and general book-keeping. In the bit where you do the tasting there will definitely be lots of wood, various seats, benches and tables – almost always in wood – and sometimes there will be couches and chairs, usually in leather.
These are intensely comfortable places to be. Ideally you want to be able to sample the product as well, to have a decent taste or two and not have to worry about driving, but even if you’re unable to indulge there are few more pleasant public spaces. For all the slightly formulaic feel of a standard Visitor Centre – and this may well be something that you’ll only recognise if, like me, you’re doing them by the dozen – there is a sort of honesty about them, just because they are so close to the production process itself.
They are in the end anyway all different, just as the malts themselves are all different. The people who staff them add an extra flavour to the mix as well: the awkward but knowledgeable ones who you can tell really just want to be back doing the technical stuff, opening valves, sniffing the air outside the spirit safe, waiting for the time to take the best cut of the spirit, but who can answer any production question you ask them; the totally enthusiastic types who really want you to know what a great thing they do here and how wonderful their particular whisky is; the usually slightly diffident manager or even owner who’s unsure quite how to modulate their enthusiasm and how much depth of knowledge to go into; and the slightly wacko characters who at their best keep you wide-eyed and laughing and at their worst still make you laugh, even if they do seem to be part of some bizarre care-in-the-community light-industrial outsourcing programme. I’m sure I’ve encountered somebody on a tour or behind the counter in a Visitor Centre who was just plain boring and uninterested, but obviously I’ve succeeded in forgetting about them.
One of the plusses of going round lots of distilleries is meeting up with people who know each other, or are related to each other. It is a small industry; less than a hundred distilleries, each one often only employing a dozen people in the actual physical process and usually fewer than that in the onsite office. The skills involved are very transferable within the industry as a whole, and because a lot of the distilleries are owned by larger concerns, people are able to move round within that company’s sites and see how it’s done elsewhere. I lost count of the number of times I bumped into somebody’s mum, dad, son, daughter, brother or whatever, once I’d told them that I had been to all these other distilleries. ‘Och, you’ll have talked to so-and-so …’
Come to think of it, when you’re a writer, especially one who’s managing to keep the wolf from the door, there aren’t many professions you encounter which make you think, Hmm, actually this must be quite a decent job. I wouldn’t mind doing this … but working in a distillery is arguably one of them. That’s not to suggest that it must all be sweetness and light incessantly, or that in the end you don’t have bosses, who may well be as stupid and/or as malicious as bosses everywhere can be, or that your job isn’t subject to the vagaries and volatilities of the market and the changing tastes of the international public, but given that most of this applies to most jobs, it could be argued that working in a relatively safe environment in some of the finest scenery in one of the world’s more beautiful countries while helping to make something to be proud of, within a tradition stretching back hundreds of years, can be quite rewarding.
Put it this way; I never did meet anybody who couldn’t wait to get out of the industry and away. I’m sure they have existed, but maybe they’ve all already left to become fashion photographers or skateboard wizards or party planners to the superrich or far-eastern golf-course designers or something.
Wandering round Cardhu distillery – heart of Johnnie Walker, Scottish larch washbacks rather than the more usual Oregon pine – watching some ducks silently preening themselves on the neatly clipped grass by the side of the gently steaming pond where the cooling water goes to relax, looking round the smart, cream-coloured buildings, listening to the quiet hissings and distant creaking noises of the place, surrounded by sloped fields and lines of budding trees, a pleasant glow manifesting itself after a modest tasting – Les was driving – Speyside suddenly seemed like one of the best places in the whole damn world.
Stand-out distilleries? Architecture first. The Tormore is my favourite. Bit old fashioned, given that it was built in 1958, but fabulously dramatic; fountains, manicured lawns, topiary, ornamental curling pond (what?) and an enormous great black chimney sticking up at the back that looks like a super-gun barrel (the original idea was to make it look like a giant whisky bottle, which would have been even more insane). Brilliant building, and nicely matched outbuildings. Why this place doesn’t have a Visitor Centre and tours is beyond me. The whisky itself has been criticised as being too metallic, though the 15-year-old I tracked down seemed all right to me; moderately voluptuous, in fact.
The Chivas Brothers’ Allt-A-Bhainne (1975) reminds me of a Catholic seminary for some reason; severe and inward looking, but elegant. I haven’t tracked down a single malt from it yet.
Auchroisk distillery (1974) is quite beautiful in a modernist kind of way, all steep roofs and interesting angles. There’s a slightly gratuitous-looking sort of ground-floor turrety thing that I’m not so sure about but otherwise visually it’s a peach. This is where The Singleton is produced; a very pleasant, smooth, medium-bodied dram, like an allsort that’s been briefly dipped in sherry.
I was kind of hoping to find a genuine undiscovered gem in amongst the folds and rolls of Speyside, a hugely flavoursome shy beauty that hardly anybody has heard of, but it was not to be; the stand-out whiskies, on taste, aroma, feel and general all-round wonderfulness were ones that any malt drinker will know well. I have yet to find any Speyside whisky that is less than drinkable and perfectly pleasant, but of all the drams we tasted during that first week on Speyside, two of the best came from Glenlivet and Glenfiddich, and one of them produced an expression that went instantly into my personal top ten. Another exceptional pair were Aberlour and Balvenie, which may not be exactly household names but they’re hardly unknowns either.
It’s hard to overemphasise how important Glenlive
t was not long ago, not just as a whisky but as a defining standard, even as a region. The primacy of the whisky itself remains, but its nomenclative dominance has gone, and probably just as well for all concerned. One of the books I picked up second-hand for the reading part of this book’s research was a 1976 paperback of David Daiches’ 1969 Scotch Whisky, Its Past and Present. Professor Daiches is one of the world’s most respected and authoritative figures on whisky, so it’s interesting that in the maps at the back of the book, there is, as usual, one map for the whole of Scotland with the various distilleries numbered, and another inset map showing all the Speyside distilleries of the time, except the area isn’t called Speyside, it’s entitled the Glenlivet Area. If there was ever a better symbol of the importance of the Glenlivet name at the time, I’ve yet to see it.
Not so long ago you could go into a bar which had a lot of whiskies, ask for a Glenlivet and something like this would happen:
‘A Glenlivet? Certainly sir. Which would you like? We have Glenbogus Glenlivet, Glendokery Glenlivet, Glenmunchkin Glenlivet, Glengeneric Glenlivet, Glennowherenear—’
‘Do you just have the Glenlivet?’
‘Hmm.’ (Bar person strokes chin.) ‘Not sure I know that one …’
Glenlivet was known as a fine whisky when it still had to be smuggled to its markets, and its name was being taken in vain even then. When Scotch started to go legit, Glenlivet’s owner, George Smith, was the first person to apply for one of the newfangled licences; this did not, it has to be said, meet with the universal approval of his peers, and necessitated Mr Smith carrying a pair of loaded pistols everywhere. His son was the J. G. Smith whose name appears on the bottles to this day, and who moved the distillery from its earlier even more remote location a mile away on the shoulder of the hill to where it is today.
It’s not a very inspiring set of buildings, but the Visitor Centre is one of the best in Scotland, the tour is, amazingly, free, and the whisky is still one of the absolutely definitive Speyside malts; light and fresh but rich at the same time, and with a scent like a summer meadow. The one I went for was a 21-year-old Archive, which was all that plus with a delicious hint of roast chestnut about it; refreshing and warming at the same time. When we finally started sampling this bottle in July, Ann, Dad and I found this expression far too easy to drink; one of those worryingly superb almost overly approachable drams that even people who don’t usually like whisky are probably going to like to the extent of asking for another. And this, to be brutally frank, is only ever an unambiguously good thing if you are a person of an exceptionally good, kind and generous nature. Which I have ambitions to be – it’s what my dad is – but have not yet really achieved.
Whatever; the Glenlivet is whisky to put a smile on your face.
Aberlour is one of those distilleries which exemplify something of a contradiction in whisky-making. It’s often the distilleries which physically stand out which are the least bottled as single malts, the vast majority of their production going into blends (95 per cent is the figure you hear bandied about most often), while the distilleries which seem to shy away from attention – which, in other words, blend in to their surroundings – are the ones most likely to be bottled purely as single malts. I guess it’s partly age, and size. The last heroic age of distillery-building in the sixties and seventies produced some very striking and prominent buildings which from the start were always going to produce whisky almost exclusively for blends.
Aberlour is at the other end of the spectrum; practically camouflaged amongst the other rather nondescript buildings at one end of Aberlour town. If the buildings are undistinguished, though, the whisky is anything but. This is one of the best Speysides you can buy; enormous – but not unbalancing – amounts of sherry, buckets of fruit, layers and weaves of spiciness, all of it silkily burnished; if Fabergé made whisky, you suspect this is what it would taste like. The a’bunadh – batch No. 8 – I got (no age given but generally reckoned to be a mixture of barrels between eight and fifteen years old) is a stonker; a powerfully, opulently spicy-sweet cocktail of flavours that makes your head reel.
The Balvenie is owned by the same people who own Glenfiddich, next door. This seems almost unfair, but there you go. Standing more or less in the shadow of the ruins of Balvenie Castle, the distillery still has its own maltings, which makes it unique on Speyside. One word starts to tell you about Balvenie, and that’s honey. Only starts to, though, because this is one of the most complex, balanced, elegant and harmonious whiskies on Speyside, packed with exquisitely proportioned amounts of gingery sherry-cum-port, fruit and spice, like the best Christmas cake in all the world. If there is one of the fairly-well-knowns that is arguably still undervalued and deserves even greater exposure, praise and appreciation, the Balvenie is it.
Glenfiddich presents as a trim, neat, well-manicured concern with everything positioned nicely in its place; it has its own bottling plant, unusually, and a splendid shop; worth taking photographs of all by itself. It was where we found one bottle priced at five thousand pounds, which Les and I assumed must be some sort of record for a bottle you could buy over the counter at a distillery retail outlet, until we found one nearby priced at ten grand. Kind of suspect they’re not the real ones out there on display.
There are a lot of stills here; 28 at the last count, with the spirit stills so small they need two per wash still (this small-still thing may be important – we’ll come back to this with Macallan, later). They’re coal-fired too, which is very traditional, and also unusual these days.
Glenfiddich is the best-selling single malt in the world, and it comes as a surprise to discover that it isn’t owned by one of the big multinationals. It’s really another family business, owned by William Grant and Sons, and they pretty much pioneered the single-malt revolution in the early sixties. Respect is due for that alone, but the whisky has remained a standard; floral (like most Speysides) with an accent on heather and a depth of honey that can make it seem halfway to a liqueur at times (a trait it shares with the Balvenie). They’ve kept innovating, too, which I think is admirable; there are various different finishes, all of them excellent, and one which is, to my taste, simply astounding.
It’s the Gran Reserva – originally Havana Reserve – a 21-year-old finished in old Cuban rum casks. This is a colossal, fabulously rich, endlessly, smokily sweet and succulent whisky, bursting with flavour, strong on the nose, long in the throat … just magnificent. And, as though this wasn’t enough, there should be more of it to go around than we have any right to expect, because it’s banned from the USA. The States’ punitive, mean-spirited and just generally disgraceful trade embargo against Cuba means that this particular Glenfiddich can’t be bought between Canada and Mexico. Well, I’m sorry for US single-malt fans, but, frankly, hallelujah; all the more for us. It is my firm intention to buy a crate of this stuff in the next week or two, on my next visit to Speyside, if I can’t find it closer to home. I might even buy two crates and give bottles out as Christmas presents.
The quest for the Perfect Dram very much continues and there are some very strong contenders indeed still to come – Macallan, Springbank and Highland Park to name but three – but as I write, this stuff is joint number one with the fino-finished Ardbeg tasted straight out the barrel as Best Dram So Far.
Zapping between the distilleries, we end up spending a lot of time on a wee road that parallels the A95, which has road works at a bridge necessitating these detours. On this wee road there are signs saying, ‘Slow. Young pheasants.’
These are the subjects of some discussion.
‘Do you think they’re meant to say “Slow, young peasants?”’
‘Maybe they’re directed at the pheasants, telling them to be slow.’
‘What they mean is, don’t kill these young birds with your cars; leave them for us to kill with our shotguns. Bit cheeky if you ask me. Typical toff arrogance. If I see one I’m going to aim for it.’
‘What, a toff or a young pheasant?’
‘No comment.’
7: Break for Curry
ANN HAS DECIDED to join us. We head south and west back to Glenfinnan – to feed the cat, basically – then loop further south to the lower edge of the Campsies, north of Glasgow, to take in the Glengoyne distillery before following a succession of interesting B-roads over to Fife.
In the meantime we’ve found time to squeeze in a visit to the Speyside Cooperage, just outside Craigellachie, which is geographically pretty much the centre of the Speyside whisky industry. This is worth seeing; what we basically have here is Barrel City; this is the Wonderful World of Cooperage, a veritable cathedral of Barreldom. You can sit in giant barrels in the grounds, sit around barrels, sit on barrels, sit in barrel-seats, and buy barrel-related products, including – but not limited to – barrels.
There’s a tour, and you end up in a sort of gallery over the main floor of the workshop, watching these guys – a lot of tartan shirts – wheel barrels around, whack them with hammers, manoeuvre them into big machines that do unspeakable things to them (the barrels, that is), pick up their hammers and bash them some more, and just generally hit, split up, force together, rip apart, remake, compress, rasp, plane, pressurise to near bursting, singe, sear, kick, wallop and carbonise barrels as though they had something against wood in general and barrels in particular. You ever want to get an idea how resilient wood is, you come here.
It sounds noisy, even through the glazing protecting the viewing gallery. Actually, it even looks noisy. Some of the guys wear ear defenders, some don’t. I think I would. They have little sort of miniature anvils on metal posts on which they balance the metal hoops that go round the barrels and hammer away at those as well. These bashing-blocks are I-shaped in cross-section, like they’re made from lengths of railway line. I find myself wondering whether these were taken from old torn-up railways in the neighbourhood, and whether each guy has to rip a length of line off with his teeth as some sort of cooperage initiation rite.
