Brian's Malt Musings : Drams and Distilleries - my opinions!
Wednesday 18 April 2018
Distillery Visit - Glen Scotia
I visited the Glen Scotia distillery in April '18, this was my first time!
Glen Scotia is in Campbeltown at the bottom of the Kintyre Peninsula, about 3 hours drive from Glasgow.
The Scotia distillery was built in 1832 by Stewart, Galbraith & Co. It passed through a number of hands, just surviving the mass closure of Campbeltown distilleries in the 1920s. It did close in 1928 but was rescued and reopened in 1930 by Duncan MacCallum who unfortunately lost everything in a scam and committed suicide - his ghost is said to haunt the distillery. It reopened in 1933 again passing through a few different owners, being used mainly for blends. It closed in 1984 re-opened in 1989, was mothballed in 1994 and finally got somewhere near full production in 1999 with the help of the Springbank Distillery owners Mitchell & Co. The present owners Loch Lomond Group bought the distillery in 2000.
Glen Scotia is one of the smallest Scotch whisky distilleries in Scotland and still maintains much of its original design, including the fermenters, the stillroom and the dunnage warehouse dating from the 1830s.
Glen Scotia have a core range of aged malts, from 15-25yo, together with a couple of NAS releases and some distillery exclusive single casks.
Another wet April day saw me turn up for a tour with the friendly and knowledgeable Callam! I was also joined by Edd and Laurence who I'd met the previous day at Arran Distillery!
The wall next to the distillery can be seen to be the remains of a dunnage
warehouse from another distillery, there were quite a few along this road!
Glen Scotia buy all their malted barley from
the East of Scotland, it's delivered by truck
through this little grate in the pavement!
50 tonnes of malt finds its way into each of the storage silos.
The malt is milled in a...
...Robert Boby Ltd milling machine
The grist is then mashed in a covered Mash Tun in an 8 hour
process with two (website) or three (sign in distillery) lots of hot water
The Mash Tun is covered but has a viewing window to see the progress.
A rake ensures the grist and water mix perfectly
The wort is then transferred to one of six huge stainless steel washbacks
Yeast is added and gets to work creating 25,000 litres of wort in around 70 hours
Tools of the trade - a thermometer to
check the temperature of the wort
Callam explaining the process
Tools of the trade
The wash is transferred to the Wash Still for initial
distillation lasting around 9 hours...
...before final distillation in the Low Wines
and Feints Still
Callam explaining the angle of the dangle!
More process explanation from Callum as
Hector monitors the Low Wines & Feints Charger
The best polished Spirit Safe I've ever seen!
A computer keeps track of everything!
The 'Honesty Box' where stillmen were supposed to record the
reason each time the Spirit Safe had been opened!
GLEAMING!
The spirit is then casked and...
...left to mature in a warehouse...
...to turn into whisky!
A couple of fantastic samples were tasted in the
visitor's centre and a bottle purchased!
This has got to go down as my best ever distillery tour! Callam's enthusiasm and knowledge together with Hector's distilling insights made this a really enjoyable morning!
It was described as £5 for 45 mins but I think Glen Scotia have removed all the clocks in the distillery, I certainly didn't see any! By the time we made it back to the Visitor's Centre for a couple of Single Cask samples, both Laurence's and my wife had rung to ask where we were - we must have been there nearly two hours!
