Isle of Arran
At Whisky Live Paris I also had the opportunity to meet and talk with Euan Mitchell (Director of Sales) and Douglas Davidson (Managing Director) of Isle of Arran.
Euan Mitchell: The distillery opened in 1995 - the first middle cut of spirit was taken at 2:29pm on the 29th of June 1995, if you want to get specific. We celebrated the 10th anniversary last summer, but we delayed the launch of our 10 year old until spring of this year to ensure a good volume of stocks.
Kevin Erskine: What about cask? What types of casks are you using?
EW: The 10 year old, is bottled from a mix of bourbon and sherry casks, lot of refill sherry as well, we feel that a lot of first-fill sherry casks would dominate the Arran intrinsic distillery character - a lot of the aromatic, sweet fruity notes would be lost if you have too much heavy European oak character in there.
We still use about 15% first fill sherry each year - but the rest is split between bourbon and refill sherry. 60% bourbon, 40% sherry.
KE: And have you been laying a lot down?
EW: Yeah, We have considerable stocks - we've been planning for the future - we plan to bottle a 12, 15, 18 as the stocks mature. We are planning for the longer term so we're still holding back a lot of stocks, as well.We are making about 150,000 litres of alcohol per year. Working flat-out we could produce about half a million litres.
KE: What about blends? Are you producing for any blenders?
EW: No, we put some of our single malt in our own in-house blend; but we are not selling any for blending at all.
KE: You are not working a full year, I'm guessing.
EW: We tend to tie in with the tourist season. We get about 50,000 visitors a year and they want to see a working distillery. So we are in active production from March through the end of October each year.
Being the only distillery on the Island we don't have issues with water that some other places with more than one distillery have.
KE: Tell me a little bit about the Arran range.
EW: The 10 year old is our flagship. Bottled at 46% and non-chill-filtered. A standard that has developed across the range, Our new Arran 100 Proof - bottled at 57% (When we launch it in the States it will be 50%.
KE: And it's not age-labeled?
EW: No it's not labeled but it is 8 years old. A very concentrated version of the typical bottling. The Arran house style is fresh, fruity, citrus notes; baked apples, brown sugar.
We also do a number of special
cask finishes, this one here is a Sauterne cask finish - it's just
getting into the market; but we've done a whole range over the years:
Calvados, Rum, Cognac - we've got some more Cognac coming out later
this month. We've done Chateau Margeaux casks - a whole wide variety -
different types of sherry. They are always done as limited edition
bottlings - something to gather interest; keep people interested and
coming back for something new.
KE: And are these distributed or only available at the distillery?
EW: No we sell these in all of the markets we're in. We in
markets all across Europe, Scandanavia, Russia, Taiwan, Japan,
Australia and New Zealand. The U.S. - we've had a couple of false
starts there but we are starting to pick up sales - It's a vast market
and it is really going to be a key for the future. But with the
structure as it is - each state being separate and having to work your
way through the system - it takes time to work through the three tiers.
And it's a competitive marketplace - but we're building sales nicely there.
KE: Now you said you have your own blends. There are two of them?
EW: Yes we do, we have Robert Burns blend and one called Lochranza, which is the village where the distillery is based.
Our company is a member of the World Burns Federation who look after the legacy of Robert Burns, Scotland's national poet. So we are the only whisky company doing an official, authorized Robert Burns whisky. The Robert Burns blend which is a 5 year old blend. We also have a Robert Burns single malt, which is the Arran single malt at 5 years of age. And we sell a lot of it in Canada and ex-pat Scottish communities. We also sell a lot in Russia. It's a really small part of our business. We are a single malt house.
Like many independent distilleries, Isle of Arran offers cask for sale to the general public. Unlike many independent distilleries, Arran offers for sale casks which were filled as far back as 1998.
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