Blair Athol Distillery Tour

Pitlochry, Scotland. Thursday 31-December-2024.

As part of our New Year break in Pitlochry we booked a tour and tasting at Blair Atholl distillery. Fortunately it was only 15 minutes walk from our hotel and so no designated driver was required. Notwithstanding, a couple of our party booked the driver’s pack option which meant you could have the tiniest sip and take the rest home in dinky little bottles.

On the walk down aeroplanes provided us with a serendipitous saltire in the sky.

One key difference between whisky and gin production is the sourcing of the raw spirit. Gin distillers in the UK buy in the alcohol from one of a few grain spirit producers and then add flavours through a supplementary distillation. Whisky producers distill the alcohol from the raw fermentation and then add flavours through maturation in casks. The time and cost of the maturation accounts for the difference in price between the two.

The first step is to make a mash from malted barley. This vat keeps it warm and stirred whilst converting the starches into sugar. Next step is extract the sugary liquid (the wort) and ferment it into a beer-like brew at approx. 9% ABV.

Various implement from the olden days when they used to sprout and malt the barley in-house, now outsourced locally:

The copper still where the alcohol is evaporated out. Apparently Scottish whisky is typically double distilled (first to 20%, then to 60% aka cask strength) whereas Irish whiskey is often triple distilled and bourbon is also double distilled.

This device is where the different fractions are triaged. There are moveable spouts to allow testing and redirection as appropriate. The first distillates (the heads) are recycled back in, the middle fraction goes forward for the next stage and the thirds distillates (the tails) are also recycled back.

After the second separate distillation the cask strength alcohol is put into a variety of different casks (sherry, Madeira, red wine, bourbon) to mature for years or decades. They lose about 2% per annum due to evaporation through the wood (aka the angels’ share) which also adds to the cost of older whiskies because of reduced yields.

The river that supplies the water comes from the hills behind and is pure because of the absence of farming and other human activities that might pollute it.

At the end of the tour we got a “nosing” as whisky tasting is called. 

Three different casks and ages to show the effects of maturation.

A small group, they limit the tours to twelve people at a time. As always preferences varied.

Each person got a glass to take home so we now have a pair of dinky little whisky glasses to add to our collection. Interesting and well worth the visit. Recommended.