The Scotch Blog

New Swedish Distiller

This is from Ulf Buxrud - author & whisky guy extraordinaire.

Hven Distillery.

A new, the second in order, Swedish malt whisky distillery came on stream May 7, 2008.  The distillery adapted its name from the Norse spelling of the island where it is situated, ‘Hven’ .

The state-of-the-art distillery, which will thrive on local cultivated barley and water, is built on a small island in the middle of the strait which separate Denmark from Sweden.  The island is the former home of the medieval Scandinavian astronomer Tycho Brahe, but was also a stronghold for Vikings.

Initially the cereal is travelling back and forth from Scotland for process, including malting, peating and crushing. Casks for maturing will predominantly be made by US cooperage from selected stocks of American white oak. The micro climate on this ‘island-in-the-stream’ is expected to contribute with a maritime influence to the whisky during its maturation.

Bushmills celebrates 400 years. Sort of.

Today's story is a guest piece by whisky-guy extraordinaire, Ian Buxton.

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If you’ll excuse the lazy national stereotype, no-one loves a party more than the Irish - and what better excuse than a 400th anniversary?

I refer, of course, to Bushmills, which celebrates its 400th anniversary in April this year.  Except, of course, there’s a fair bit of the blarney in there (“blarney” is Irish for “marketing” I think).

The claim’s based on the 1608 licence to distil granted to Sir Thomas Phillips by King James’ representative in Ireland, Sir Arthur Chichester, the so-called Lord Deputy.  This allowed Sir Thomas or his servants (perish the thought he’d do any manual labour himself)  “to make, drawe and distill such and soe great quantities of aquavite, usquabagh and aqua composita, as he or his assinges shall think fitt”.

Problem is, Sir Arthur was just a royal servant looking to cash in on this lucrative new territory by replacing the old Catholic gentry with good Protestants, loyal to the crown and willing to pay ready money for such licences – in fact, only the previous month, he had granted patents to distillers in Galway, Munster and Leinster.

The Lazarus Syndrome

I recently had a chance to chat with Dr. David Thomson, who is the chairman of MMR Research, a professor at Reading University, and the new owner of the long silent Annandale distillery.

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A brief history of the Annandale Distillery

Originally established in 1830 by George Donald & Co., Annandale was run by the Donald family until 1882 when it was leased to John Gardner. Alfred Barnard visited the distillery while it was under the purview of Mr. Gardner, and his impressions are included below.

In 1893, the expanding John Walker & Sons acquired a distillery called Cardhu (which is still a primary single malt ingredient in their ubiquitous blends). In 1896, John Walker & Sons acquired their second distillery - Annandale. But they didn't hold onto it for very long in the grand scheme of things - mothballing the distillery in 1919 and closing it for good in 1921.

The site became a fram and the distillery itself has remained shuttered until this acquisition.

You can read more about Annandale in Brian Townsend's Scotch Missed and in Misako Udo's The Scottish Whisky Distilleries.

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Barnard's Take on Annandale (circa 1885-1886)

ANNANDALE DISTILLERY, ANNANDALE, DUMFRIESSHIRE.
PROPRIETORS, JOHN S. GARDNER & SON.

After resting and refreshing ourselves at Dumfries, we resumed our journey southwards, and made our next stoppage at Annan, the capital of Annandale. It stands on the high road from Dumfries to Carlisle, is a royal burgh, and one of the cleanest and pleasantest towns we have seen in the Lowlands.

Annandale, from whence the distillery takes its name, is really the valley of the river Annan, commonly called the How of Annandale, and one of the most garden-like districts in Scotland. The soft bright landscape of luxuriant green, of clustering foliage, of rich verdant pastures, gives to this valley the appearance of English scenery. The river Annan, which rises in the Hartfell mountains, runs a course of thirty miles through this valley into the Solway Firth. We drove 11 miles from the hotel to the Distillery, along a pretty country road, from which we diverged down a private carriage-way, crossing a bridge over the Annan Burn, and found ourselves at the gates of the works.

Stranahan's Colorado Whiskey

This past March at Binny's Whiskies of the World expo (Chicago), I had the opportunity to meet Jess Graber, the man behind Stranahan's Colorado Whiskey and sample his wares.

I also had the opportunity to chat briefly with him the next night at the Chicago Whisky Fest. But it wasn't until very recently that I had a chance to sit down with Jess without people jamming a glass in his face.

There's a growing number of non-bourbon, non-rye American whiskies hitting the shelves. Yep. Single malt American is becoming a category - but Jess disdains the term "Single Malt Whisky" (even though that is exactly what his product is) and instead prefers the simple moniker of Colorado Whisky.

Stranahan's exudes an elegant ruggedness (or a rugged elegance, if you prefer), much like the state in which it is produced. If you've spent any time in Colorado, this statement will make sense. The people of Colorado revel in the fact that they are surrounded by some of the most incredible natural beauty in the world. Yet Colorado also provides some of the most genteel and sophisticated amenities you'll find anywhere.

The Package

That elegance starts with the packaging. According to Jess, "The bottle says 'Colorado'", and you can see what he means. The labeling is minimalist, allowing the whiskey to speak for itself; the bottle ia tall and slender while the neck and mouth are crowned by a tall metal cap. That cap is more than mere decoration - it's meant to replicate the look of a frontier closure - but it also serves a more mundane, and useful purpose - it conveniently doubles as a 3 ounce tasting cup. Coloradans spend a lot of time outdoors and by providing the tasting cup, Jess effectively turns the bottle into a flask.

Springbank wants to get you some learnin'

You can't swing a dead cat without hitting a whisky school now-a-days, and why not? The more schools that pop up, the more likely you are to spend some quality production time at the same place your favorite dram is made.

Springbank, a perennial fan favorite and the distillery that literally put Campbeltown back on the whisky map, has announced their own Whisky School.

The "headmaster" will be Springbank’s Director of Production Frank McHardy, who will be on hand throughout each of the five-day “terms” to pass on the extensive knowledge he has gained during 44 years in the whisky industry.

Frank McHardy explained:

Springbank’s status as the only distillery in Scotland to carry out 100 per cent of the whisky-making process on-site, from malting the barley through to bottling its own whisky, makes it the ideal location to learn the craft which has been practised in Scotland for hundreds of years.

Lyons goes to Speyside - Roll out the barrels

Will Lyons writes for Scotland on Sunday and has done some fantastic pieces on the Indian situation. Recently he paid a visit to Benromach Distillery and even put in a day's work.

Today's guest story was originally posted on Scotland on Sunday, but Will told me it would be fine to repost here.

As a complementary piece, check out my story on Benromach - though Will's is better.

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Roll out the barrels

Will Lyons

AT A TIME of day when most of us are just about managing to negotiate a bowl of cornflakes, Mike Ross, the stillman at Benromach distillery, is already at his post, pouring two tonnes of malted barley into a mash tun full of warm water.

"We have to be very careful not to get this wrong," he says, staring straight ahead at a small temperature gauge on the opposite wall.

Handing the controls over to me, he adds, "A slight miscalculation at this stage and we could end up with either not enough sugar or too much sugar." A strong smell of Horlicks fills the room as I tentatively spin the lever, careful to keep the temperature at 64.5ûC.

Beyond the industrial sound of rushing water, the distillery manager Keith Cruickshank paces down the floor. "How we doing?" he asks. "Make a mess of this and you'll throw the whole operation out."

Welcome to Speyside - the engine room of the Scotch malt whisky industry. As the three of us peer nervously into a churning mash tun, around us the region hums with the noise of hundreds of distilleries, many of them working 24 hours a day, seven days a week, sweating it out to meet the growing demand for Scotland's golden spirit. These are good times for Scotch whisky.

Last year exports of Scotch generated a record £2.5 billion, with nearly 90 million cases exported worldwide. To put that into context, for every second in the day the equivalent of 33 bottles are shipped overseas, earning the industry £78 - or £6,739,200 a day. Laid end to end, those bottles would stretch from Perth, Scotland, to Perth, Australia.

Industry analysts say this could be the beginning of something even greater. On the horizon lie India and China, two of the biggest spirits markets in the world. In just ten years, growth in China has risen from 0.7 million litres to 5.7 million litres, fuelled by a burgeoning middle class which has acquired a taste for whisky. In India the potential is even greater. While the Chinese still predominantly drink beer, India is largely a brown-spirit-drinking culture. Attend a dinner party in Mumbai and you are more likely to be served a glass of whisky than wine or beer. The prize is massive.

To China and India can be added renewed demand from South America, eastern Europe, Russia and, of course, the United States. Suddenly, owning a distillery doesn't look such a bad investment.

Cases of Kilchoman

I was recently notified that Kilchoman Distillery has stopped offering casks for sale.

They are instead offering a limited edition release of their Single Malt at five years of age.

There will be 1,540 cases available at a cost of £165.00 per (a case of whisky is 6 - 700 milliliter bottles).

The offering is for a 2006 distillation run, which will be bottled in 2011.

GENERALLY these offers are not extended to the US, as it is a phenomenal pain in the ass getting liquor into the country (due to our ridiculous laws), but the offer doesn't mention any geographic exclusions. I'd check with Kilchoman.

Interested? Here is the order form or you can email Thomasina Glover for more details.

Australian for Whisky

Hellyers Road Distillery is the largest single malt whisky distillery in Australia, but they've only started bottling within the last 12 months. The distillery itself is actually located on Tasmania, an island best known (in the US, at least) as the home of the Tasmanian Devil.

And now for the geography portion of our program . . .

Tasmania is located approximately 240 kilometers off the coast of Victoria, almost directly south of Melbourne. Tasmania  has a population of around 500,000 with approximately 200,000 living in the capital, Hobart. The island is the smallest Australian state with a coastline of 3200 Km and a total north south distance of approximately 300 Km.

Back to the good stuff . . .

Whisky Tasmania was established in 1997 in Burnie (on the north west coast of Tasmania far from Hobart) and trades as Hellyers Road Distillery. Hellyers Road Distillery is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Betta Milk Co-operative Ltd. Established in 1956, Betta Milk (100% owned by Tasmanian farmers) processes and supplies fresh milk to the Tasmanian market.

In Vino, Veritas.

Tyler Colman, also know as Dr. Vino, writes one of the best wine blogs out there. He was recently  invited to sample the Bowmore line and wrote about it on his site.

It's great to see the views of someone who is a real wine connoisseur - and get his take on the water of life.

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A warming whisky on a wintry day

On a frigid day last week, I traversed the frozen tundra bundled in a coat, scarf, hat and gloves to attend a tasting. It wasn't the ordinary type of tasting I attend: a man with a kilt greeted me. I didn't ask him if he was, um, wearing the proper insulation given the fact that it was 20 degrees below freezing. But since he was a Scot and his bare knees were visible, I doubt it. [shudder]

The tundra was actually mid-town Manhattan and, fortunately for me, the tasting was of warming single malt whisky. The producer Bowmore is introducing some new packaging, new single malts and extended an invitation to me. Even though my bailiwick is wine, I figured it was worth a shot to check it out in the name of exploration. After all, I just went to cognac so why not explore another of the oak-aged spirits?

Bowmore, fully-owned by Suntory since 1994, is a top 10 whisky brand and has experienced 222 percent growth in recent years compared to a five percent growth for whisky overall. Despite this torrid growth, management is preparing a 20 million pound advertising campaign in the next few years.

Father of our country; Whiskey peddler

I was invited to the opening ceremony for the George Washington Distillery on Friday March 30th in Mount Vernon, Virginia.

It was a very nice event - yet a little too politically focused for my tastes. There were way too many speeches - the Director of Historic Mount Vernon; the head of the Mount Vernon Ladies Association; The President of the Distilled Spirits Council; the chairman of the Virginia Alcohol Beverage Council; a  Virginia State Senator; John Manfreda from the Alcohol Tax & Trade Bureau; and more. Yet somehow Virginia Governor Tim Kaine didn't deem it important enough to attend.

F'ing politicians.