Youthful Malt Not Considered Harmful

The cyclical nature of Scotch Whisky sales, forever moving from boom to bust to boom to bust, has occasionally led the industry into difficulties of its own making.

The slump of the eighties led in turn to an oversupply in the oughties of well aged malt, which the industry attempted to tackle by emphasising age as the one true mark of quality.

The (inevitable?) consequence of that tactic, of course is that during the most recent boom many producers have been reluctant to admit that they are bottling younger whiskies, resorting instead to the modesty blanket of a fanciful brand name, and taking advantage of the fact that they aren't actually obliged to state the age of a whisky.

This has led to much public argumentation between, broadly speaking, two camps. On the one hand there are those irate persons, generally not employed in the industry, who consider Non Age Statement whiskies to be a bad thing, and on the other the more emollient voices, often of those in the trade, who defend the practice as a sensible response to a shortage of aged stock.

(It has also, amusingly, led to Compass Box's clever dancing round the rules, and to Bruichladdich's rather more low-key activities in the same vein. Both of which I consider to be a good thing.)

But few bottlers have bitten the bullet and released young whiskies with prominently displayed aged statements. Which leads me to Càrn Mòr.

Càrn Mòr is the single malt brand of Morrison & Mackay, the Perthshire independent bottler and erstwhile maker of whisky cream liqueurs. I'm a fan of their whiskies for several reasons. Their labels are admirably clear and informative; young Peter Mackay, their envoy in the West, is an entertaining and charming fellow; their bottlings offer, in my opinion, good value for money; and most importantly, they generally bottle good whisky.

I expect I'm wrong (and please do correct me) but I believe they were the first bottlers in recent times to offer a malt with a '4' prominently displayed on the label, on a Glentauchers distilled in 2010 and bottled from a sherry puncheon in 2015. That was a fine dram; fiery, but also packed with marmalade and demerara sugar flavours, and ridiculously good value for money.

Tonight's bottle, by contrast, is a venerable five year old. It's from the blessed Glenburgie, and is a very fine example of the fruity style at which that distillery excels. The nose immediately shouts out "Fruit!" at you, and a deeper sniff reveals it to be Opal fruits. The palate is light, soft, fresh , and fruity. It's not complex, and there is a wee bite to it, but that fruit is just charming. A lovely wee dram, and very sensibly priced too. Oh, and it's really rather fruity.

I suppose I need hardly say that I wish more bottlers would follow the example of Càrn Mòr. I'm not that fussed about the age of a whisky, as long as it tastes good, but I don't care for smoke and mirrors. Or heritage and haggis and no age statement.

Whisky and Nitpicking

At the last meeting of Glasgow's Whisky Club a small dispute arose over how many Scottish whisky distilleries have ever used Lomond stills. Drink having been taken (ahem) and a challenge thrown down, I faced the prospect of public humiliation if I couldn't prove that there had been more than five.

The five that we weren't arguing about are Loch Lomond, Glenburgie, Miltonduff, Scapa, and Inverleven. And the Wikipedia article which lists these five also seems to offer a convenient definition of a Lomond still, as being the invention of one person (Alistair Cunningham), for one company (Hiram Walker), at a well established date (1955).

I knew, however, that somewhere or other I had seen another name associated with Lomond stills, so I sat up very late reading a big pile of whisky books (not much change there then) and roaming the maltier corners of the internet.

Bingo! Littlemill, according to both Misako Udo⁽¹⁾ and Ingvar Ronde⁽²⁾, had pot stills with rectifying columns from 1930 onwards. Great! I was mentally crafting my magnanimous victory speech when that date caught up with my brain. 1930. That's a full twenty-five years before Mr Cunningham invented the damn thing.

It gets worse. In re-reading The Scottish Whisky Distilleries I had come across a reference to Nevis distillery (not Ben Nevis, but another Fort William distillery of a similar name), to which Barnard⁽³⁾ was said to have attributed a kind of Lomond still⁽⁴⁾. That's sixty-nine years too early. What the heck?

And as I mulled that one over, it struck me that Alastair Cunningham, in 1955, probably didn't name his invention after a distillery which would not exist for another decade. Surely Lomond stills must have been named for the malt distillate of that name which came from inside the Dumbarton complex? Holy moly, Wikipedia is wrong! The world's turned upside down!

By now, if you are still reading, then you are either the person with whom I originally had the argument (Hi Greg!), or one of the Malt Maniacs. In which case I feel perfectly relaxed about introducing a table to summarise where we're at:

Distillery	Dates of 'lomond' stills	Ownership at this date	Actual 'Lomond' stills
Nevis	~1886	Donald P MacDonald	No
Littlemill	1930	Duncan G Thomas	No
Lomond (Dumbarton)	1955	Hiram Walker	Yes
Glenburgie	1958	Hiram Walker	Yes
Miltonduff	1964	Hiram Walker	Yes
Scapa	1959	Hiram Walker	Yes
Loch Lomond	1965	Duncan G Thomas	???

Clear as a glass of Loch Dhu, yes?

So, here are my conclusions:

• Six or more Scotch malt whisky distilleries have had pot stills with rectifying columns instead of plain swan necks
• Five or more Scotch malt whisky distilleries have had pot stills with rectifying columns which are adjustable. The jury is out on Littlemill.
• There were four Lomond stills, at Dumbarton⁽⁵⁾, Glenburgie, Miltonduff, and Scapa
• In a weird way Wikipedia is sort of right, since Loch Lomond does have lomond stills⁽⁶⁾. Just not Lomond stills. If you see what I mean.
• OTOH, Wikipedia is definitely wrong about Inverleven.
• I don't think I've won my bet, but neither have I lost it.

Once you start digging into it, there are all kinds of tweaks to the basic pot still process which are used to cause rectification. Glen Grant's purifiers, the boil ball, Fettercairn's waterfall effect, those extra bits of piping you see running down from the lyne arm at Ardbeg or Talisker, et cetera, et cetera. It's enough to drive you to drink.

Notes
(1) Udo, Misako, The Scottish Whisky Distilleries, Black & White Publishing, 2006
(2) Ronde, Ingvar, The Malt Whisky Yearbook, Magdig Media, 2011
(3) Barnard, Alfred, The Whisky Distilleries, of the United Kingdom, 1887
(4) Although I can't find him using the word 'Lomond' in my copy of the book, just a picture of something which does look uncannily Lomond-like, on page 145, and at the top of this post.
(5) Dumbarton was a large distillery which mainly made grain whisky. It also produced two malts, Inverleven and Lomond. It seems that the two malts shared a wash still, and that while Inverleven had a normal spirit still, Lomond had a pot with a rectifying column on top. You can see some pictures of Dumbarton on the Canmore website, which is a great resource for anyone interested in Scottish industrial architecture, amongst other things.
(6) Although not according to the SWA, if Neil Wilson is to be believed.

Further Reading
E-pistle 2007/024 – Lomond Stills & The Oil Enigma
Whisky Science - Scottish Pot Still Variations