THE RENAISSANCE

Blair Bowman revels in the eclecticism of the latest batch of inaugural whisky releases

It’s only when you pause – preferably over a dram – to reflect, that you realise how fortunate we all are to be able to witness this renaissance of malt whisky distilling happening across Scotland right now. We really are spoiled for choice. Personally, I feel incredibly lucky to have been able to follow all of these new distillery projects from inception right through to today and beyond.

Eagle-eyed readers of this column will recall that earlier this year I wrote about my excitement for the brand new inaugural whisky releases that had come of age in 2020, and were released to much fanfare in the midst of the pandemic no less. We are now six months on and further tranches of new inaugural releases have since become available with even more to come down the line.

To bring us up to speed, since my last piece on this we have now seen the inaugural releases from Dornoch Distillery, Torabhaig Distillery and Lindores Abbey Distillery. Meanwhile, the aforementioned clutch of inaugural releases flew out the doors from Raasay Distillery, Nc’nean Distillery and Ardnamurchan Distillery, and they are all running at full speed with core range releases flying off the shelves (both digitally and physically).

The reason that I’m most delighted about this is that, so far, each of these new whiskies has managed to find their own character to their whisky spirit. They have clearly looked at others for inspiration or ideas but the end result does not disappoint. Most have flavour characteristics inspired by their geographical location but with their own take on this. These new whiskies are also typically making both unpeated and peated spirits.

They are also putting a huge amount of emphasis and effort into their maturation, especially since many of them knew they were going to have to release a three-year-old whisky, as that was part of the business plan. This is leading to a really fascinating spectrum of flavour that whisky drinkers have not hitherto experienced – namely, young whisky matured in exceptionally high quality casks.

This gives me even more excitement for the years ahead as we start to see how these whiskies find themselves as their age gradually increases. It will be interesting to see if they choose to keep their whiskies in the younger age bracket, such as Kilchoman (founded in 2005) which predominantly releases non-age statement whiskies. Or if other distilleries’ core ranges start to add age statements as their aged stocks increase, such as Isle of Arran, which was founded in 1995.

Readers of my December 2020 column will recall that there are dozens of other distilleries that have been laying down spirit that hasn’t been released to the world yet. Having tasted new make spirit from a few of them there is one that I am particularly looking forward to, which is the inaugural whisky release of Clydeside Distillery, which I believe is due this year.

I’ve also recently been able to sample the new make spirit, one-year-old and two-year-old spirit of Lagg Distillery from Arran. I am very happy to see how well this is maturing and am looking forward to this inaugural release as well.

And that’s not all! Brora Distillery, the iconic ‘ghost’ distillery, has finally reopened after being mothballed 38 years ago. Having undergone a major refurbishment they have started filling casks again. However, it will be interesting to see how this develops and how the modern distillery equipment and modern spirit matches the old style whisky from the previously ‘lost’ distillery.

We should also mention Port Ellen Distillery and Rosebank Distillery, which are also undergoing ‘resurrection’ refurbishments.

Whisky is such a long-term business that the pandemic will merely be a blip in the grand scheme of things.

At the other end of the whisky spectrum in terms of age and rarity, Gordon & Macphail have announced that later this year they are going to release an 80-year-old Glenlivet. This will be the oldest whisky ever bottled. Put into the cask only five months into WWII, just imagine all the changes that the world has seen in that time, all while this cask waited patiently.

All of this leads me to believe that we are in an unprecedented and hugely exciting phase of whisky. Despite the challenges of the pandemic, the industry seems to be powering on, and long may that continue.

“Each of these new releases has managed to find their own character to their whisky spirit