Spirit of Speyside
Scotland's famous whisky-producing territory offers stunning landscapes and gourmet dining as well as a fine wee dram.
By Estella Shardlow on Thursday 1st March, 2012
The earth is coloured differently here. The Cairngorms are cloaked in purple heather, forming an endless, undulating mass of deep mauve across the horizon, and before them the fields are alight with fiery orange gorse. Slicing through all this is the River Spey, a thick ribbon of freezing silvery water, which snakes down from the loch in Corrieyairack Forest and, after 107 miles, spills out into the Moray Firth.
Its these waters and soils that we have to thank for the region's most celebrated export: malt whisky. Half of all Scotland’s distilleries lie along the glens of the Spey and its tributaries, taking all those raw materials at their fingertips – barley, peat and mountain spring water – and alchemically distilling them into spirits that are coveted the world over.
It was in search of a fine dram that I boarded the Caledonian Sleeper train – depart from Euston at 21.15, wake up in Inverness at 08.30, although it's another thing whether you can manage to doze off in the rather cramped, wobbling bunks – and travelled to this corner of the Highlands, which is home to the world’s only Malt Whisky Trail.
Knockomie Hotel is perfectly poised for such a tour, located on the frontier of the Trail in the historic market town of Forres, about 40 minutes east of Inverness. Built in 1914 in the Arts and Crafts style for a wealthy family of Indian tea plantation owners, today Knockomie is a boutique hotel of 15 individually decorated rooms. The hotel capitalises on the Scotch tourism niche with an impressive Malt Library that consists of more than 80 single malts and blends, along with an in-house expert running personalised tastings to help guide the uninitiated.
I must admit that until now I had experienced whisky only as something sinister diluted and disguised with Coca Cola, or as sips of a relative’s throat-scorching Islay dram, all peat and smoke. Yet, Speyside whiskies, I’m told at the hotel, are generally lighter, sweeter and more delicate than their smoky relatives in the Hebrides. As two whisky novices, both with a sweet tooth, it seemed that I'd chosen a good place to begin my education.
Our first port of call was Benromach, both the closest to the hotel and the region’s smallest working distillery. I was guided around the site – eerily quiet on a grey mid-winter weekend – by a genial Aberdonian named Sandy, who had worked in the whisky industry for 48 years. First, he sat us down to watch a short film on the company’s history (school field-trip memories sprang to mind at this point), which tells of the distillery’s phoenix-like story: founded in 1898, it ran into trouble in the 1980s and closed down for 15 years, until Gordon & MacPhail took over, set about an extensive renovation programme and had it reopened in 1998 by Prince Charles.
Then it was on to where the magic happens. Inside the lofty main building we clambered along walkways between the gleaming copper vats and pipes. The pervasive smell was of warm yeast. Sandy lifted a lid on one of the fermenting pools and let me peer inside. The steaming mixture looked like simmering porridge. Clearly there was a long way to go until it got into the connoisseur’s cabinet. Made from purely malted barley and spring water (if other types of grain are mixed in it becomes a ‘blended’ rather than single malt whisky), it’s amazing what variety of flavour and scent is achieved in different bottlings. At Benromach there are just two pairs of hands putting these two raw materials through a centuries-old distillation process consisting of four main stages: malting, brewing, distillation and maturation.
The first three of these steps are pretty standardised, soaking the grain to turn the starch into soluble sugars before a series of mashing, heating and finally drawing off the condensed spirit. It’s the final stage – in which the new-make whisky, at this point a clear liquid, is filled into oak casks and aged for anything between three and sixty years – that decides whether the malt will end up smoky or citrusy, pale and light or intense and peaty as it leeches flavour and colour from the wood. I learn that whisky is seldom stored in new casks as it takes on too much of the wood’s taste, which explains why in Benromach’s warehouse I spot old Bourbon barrels from America and others that once held sherry stamped with Spanish labels.
Now we reach the final and most anticipated stage of the tour, an opportunity to sample a few of their whiskies. First up is their 10 Year Malt, a pale amber spirit that’s aged in old sherry casks. I really can discern the sherry flavour, along with surprise hints of sweet chocolate, vanilla and cinnamon notes. Meanwhile, Origins No.2 unloads lots of red berry and orange peel, whispering of the port pipe in which it was matured.
Next came the 25 year, a creamier, rounded malt lifted with citrusy notes and aromas. The star of the show, though, is the darker copper-coloured Benromach Vintage 1961, in which sweet apples and pears harmonise with burnt aniseed notes. We mix it with a little water – not ice, as this stifles the flavours and aromas – and it develops into something more treacly and floral.
From the bijou Benromach we drove across to Scotland’s largest distillery, Glenfiddich, at the other end of the Whisky Trail map. A more commercial operation with a vast merchandise shop and on-site cooperage, tourists mill around the various outbuildings and pose for group photos under its iconic stag logo. Despite being bigger and slicker, the distillery is actually one of very few Scotch whisky companies to remain in the hands of the family who founded it, William Grant and Sons Ltd.
Guided tours are free but we upgraded to the ‘Connoisseur Tour’ with a tutored nosing of some vintage single malts for £20. For me, the winner was Glenfiddich 21-year-old; there’s a caramel sweetness that really stands out thanks to its spending four months in reclaimed Caribbean rum barrels. My sweet tooth is sated with the fig, fudge and banana aromas, while the palate is a deliciously rich mix of vanilla, toffee and spice.
A similarly pudding-like treat came with their baked apple and cinnamon-laced 18-year-old scotch. The rather special Glenfiddich Rare Collection 1937 was sadly off limits to our group, so I’ll just have to take the word of the tasting notes that it tastes like crème brulee and almonds.
As much as I was relishing my initiation into Scotch connoisseurship, man cannot live on whisky alone (indeed, a few wee drams coupled with bracing walks along nearby Findhorn beach works up a formidable appetite), so back at Knockomie we tucked into a feast of regionally sourced treats in The Grill Room. The oak-smoked Scottish salmon with home-pickled fennel, beef farmed at nearby Dallas (him) and linguini with cep (me) were worthy of any top London restaurant. We shifted from grain back to grape for dinner, taking advantage of the restaurant’s serious wine list. A bottle of Amalaya Malbec Blend 2009 was all velvety, juicy cherry-laced indulgence.
We ticked off two more distilleries during our long weekend – Dallas Dhu Glen Grant, with its distinctive light floral malts, and Strathisla, the oldest distillery in the Highlands – of the possible eight on the Whisky Trail. The remaining three are Cardhu, Glenlivet and Glen Moray, plus Speyside Cooperage if you’re feeling particularly thorough. I wouldn’t recommend visiting every single site for all but the most devoted whisky scholar, as there are only so many vats of yeast and boxes of barley one can stare into with a convincing degree of interest. Instead, picking a couple of contrasting producers, as we did with Glenfiddich and Benormach, avoids the risk of distillery fatigue.
One final note: far be it from me to suggest that motoring and spirits make for a wise combination, but the classic car collection of Knockomie’s proprietor Gavin Ellis really is worthy of mention. The highlight is a unique 1925 Galloway 25/30 Tourer, which has seen the hotel become a hub for veteran car clubs and enthusiasts. Continuing with the theme of Scottish heritage, Galloways were made at an ex-wartime aero engine factory in Dumfries from 1920 onwards and Gavin has one of Britain’s five surviving Galloways – not to mention its being the only overhead valve example in the country. Gavin certainly has some enviable routes in which to exercise his Tourer; if there was ever a place to embark on a scenic drive, it’s surely the swooping Loch side roads and mountain passes of the Highlands.
Adapted from the original article published on the Arbuturian.
