Visit Strath Isla Distillery
Chivas Regal Distillery Tour
As part of my annual getting older celebrations, I recently visited the Chivas owned Strathisla Distillery to partake in their Chivas Blending Experience. After a brief tour of the lovely old production buildings we then went to the Warehouse.
It’s always nice sampling some whisky directly from the cask at cask strength in the warehouse, if I were to do this again I’d take 2 samples of the 25 year old Chivas Regal! At cask strength this stuff is particularly delicious!
After that we were taken into the ‘blending room’. At this point, it’s worth pointing out that Chivas is owned by Pernod Ricard which opens up a few other distilleries to play with.
Once you’ve taken your seat you have 5 bottles in front of you each containing a different style of whisky.
These ‘blending’ whiskies are all in themselves married flavour whiskies at 40% and chill filtered.
The flavour profiles are identified with the following words:
Floral – this is a Single Grain whisky from the Glasgow based Strathclyde Distillery. As an interesting side note, they get their water from Loch Katrine – somewhere I’ve been going since I was a boy! A very nice single grain whisky no age given but I’d expect it to be 10-12 years old.
Citrus – this is a Single Malt from the nearby “sister” distillery Glen Keith. This particular expression is a Non-Age Statement distillery exclusive (it’s rare to see Glen Keith at all). My tasting notes highlighted the grassy nose.
Fruity – We’re in Strathisla and we have their 12 year old sitting here. My tasting notes suggest this is a nice malt with a smidge of a sherry finish to it.
Creamy – Another of the Pernod stable is Longmorn, this is another Non-Age Statement distillery exclusive. I’ve long been a fan of Longmorn through the Scotch Malt Whisky Society. It’s another malt you rarely find outside of the Independent Bottlers – if you’re looking for it via SMWS it’s distillery 7. My tasting notes here I identified this distillery and considered this to be a very rounded dram. I’d have had this by itself!
Smoky – The final whisky here is the hard to read but easy to say Allt A-Bhainne (Alta-Vane) – I’ve enjoyed a few of these in Leith (distillery code 108). This was a NAS made in Speyside using smoked malt. The distillery has capacity to produce 4 million litres a year. The over-riding nose here is the smoke, the cask I’d guess mostly Bourbon which leaves the flavour quite a nice pure smokiness.
Blending Chivas Yourself!
They tell us the Chivas is a blend of up to 50 single malts plus of course the grain ‘superglue’. We were playing with 4 malts and some grain whisky. It was good fun and has inspired us to consider starting our own ‘Infinity bottle‘ here at YST HQ!
What we ended up with, was 2 unique bottles of whisky. The Chivas master blender had selected the whiskies to blend because they are complimentary to one another, almost regardless of how you put it together. But we have ended up with very different end products. Personally I’d love to have a go now with single cask, cask strength whiskies, hence the infinity bottle thoughts!
My own recipe, should you want to create my smoky monster for yourself was as follows –
55ml Grain Whisky, 25ml Citrus, 50ml Fruity, 30 ml Creamy and 50ml Smoky. I’m aware that this adds up to 210ml and the bottle we’re given is 200ml. But you have to sample as you go!!
Miss YST who was with me on this trip created hers with the following recipe; 80ml Grain Whisky, no Citrus, 50ml Fruity, 20ml Creamy, 50ml Smoky.
To the Bar!
From the blending room we were taken through to the bar and offered a dram or a cocktail. I took the dram and enjoyed a cracking example of the Allt A-Bhainne distillery. Miss YST took the opportunity to perk up a little with an whisky based espresso martini. Quite tasty but not my favourite way to cocktail whisky.
Blend your own!
If you’d like to have a go at this fun experience and would like someone knowledgable and experienced to drive and guide you on your trip then please do get in touch! We write single day and multi day distillery tours covering the whole country and every whisky region.
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