The Bugattis of the whisky world

The Bugattis of the whisky world

Alex Kraaijeveld

The blue car on the left is a Bugatti Type 35, the black-and-yellow car on the right a Bugatti Type 50. These cars, first built in 1924 and 1930, respectively, belong to one of the most passion-invoking car brands in history. The Bugatti factory where Ettore Bugatti, later joined by his son Jean, designed and built most Bugatti cars was situated in the Alsatian town of Molsheim. The Bugatti company was taken over in 1963 and that was the end of a famous car ‘marque’.

The first attempt to bring the marque back to life occurred in the 1990s in Italy. The Bugatti EB110 (the blue car on the left) was the result. However, financial problems caused the business to fold, until the marque was bought by Volkswagen in 1998. A new factory was built back in Molsheim and the Bugatti Veyron, the black-and-yellow car on the right, is the first commercial production. Are these new cars real Bugattis? To some they are, to others they most definitely are not. A few web-sites maintained by Bugatti enthusiasts simply don’t make any mention of the new models. The new cars certainly sport the famous oval badge, but the question for many is, in true Sex and the City style: “Does a badge make a Bugatti?”

By now you’re probably scratching your head and wondering whether the celticmalts.com domain has been hacked by a Bugattista. No, it hasn’t. The world of whisky has a phenomenon which is not dissimilar to the situation with the old and new Bugattis. Single malt whiskies bottled under the names of long-gone and long-closed distilleries are, in a way, the “Bugattis of the whisky world”.

This is an issue which gets people pretty excited. To many, the names of old and long-closed distilleries should be laid to rest and respected; not re-used on a bottle containing whisky which has nothing to do with that distillery. Like the Bugatti badge on the EB110 and Veyron. Funnily, the excitement seems to be limited to Scottish whiskies, as no one seems to be bothered by the fact that, for instance, ‘Jameson’ and ‘Tullamore Dew’ are not distilled in Dublin and Tullamore anymore. In the US, the number of long-closed distillery names appearing on labels is far too high to even attempt to list here. No one bats an eye-lid about this re-using of old distillery names, however.

A handful of independent labels have re-used names of long-gone distilleries, without there being any link whatsoever between the name on the label and the whisky behind it. Examples are ‘Glenluig’, ‘Kincaple’, ‘Glenfoyle’, ‘Ben Wyvis’ (bound to cause confusion, albeit briefly) and ‘Ferintosh’ (would I like to taste a sample from an original!). Two exceptions exist in the indie category, where there is a link between the name and the whisky; geographic in one case, flavour-wise in another. The geographic case is a bottling of ‘Lochindaal’. Lochindaal is an alternative name for the Port Charlotte distillery, just south of Bruichladdich. ‘Lochindaal’ is indeed a Bruichladdich single malt. Rather thin and somewhat bitter, this is not a bottling that does Bruichladdich justice, though.

The other exception is a rather unusual one, because here an attempt has been made to replicate the flavour of the old single malt. Stronachie distillery closed in 1928 and three bottles are known to have survived (in the post-fake-Macallan era, we have to remain careful of course regarding the authenticity of these bottles, but there is nothing to suggest they are fakes). An unnamed Speyside single malt was considered to come closest in taste to the sample drawn from one of the original Stronachie bottles. How close is something we won’t know, but the present ‘Stronachie’ is full-bodied, with notes of baked apples and burnt sugar. There is a whiff of butter and it is drying towards the finish.

For the remainder of this article, I want to focus on a number of OB malts which use the name of a long-closed distillery. What is the link in each of these cases, and, maybe more importantly, what are the whiskies like? I’ll come off the fence myself and state that as long as there is a genuine attempt to bring some aspect of the old whiskies back behind the new labels, be it geographical or in terms of taste, I don’t have much of a problem with re-using old distillery names.

Starting slightly tongue-in-cheek, if the stories about monks distilling in their island monasteries in the 5^th and 6^th century (such as St Columba on Iona) and spreading the art of distilling from there prove to be true after all (but remember, there isn’t a scrap of evidence), you could argue that ‘Iona’ is using an old ‘distillery’ name. ‘Iona’ is a young peated malt distilled at Tobermory and only available at the distillery and on Iona. It has a very rubbery nose and quite a thin body. Palate is light sandy-peaty with a touch of sweetness.

Moving onto firmer historical ground, surely the best-known example of an OB whisky-Bugatti is ‘Longrow’. Longrow was a Campbeltown distillery next door to Springbank. The present ‘Longrow’ is a peated double distilled malt distilled at Springbank. Tasting notes of ‘Longrow’ have appeared in so many whisky books and other sources, that there is not much point adding my own. Common descriptors include peaty, heavy, medicinal, earthy, fruity, malty and pungent. Hazelburn was a distillery further north from Springbank up Longrow (the street I mean here, not the distillery). Maturing at the moment is ‘Hazelburn’, an unpeated, triple-distilled malt from Springbank. A ‘Hazelburn’ sample which was distilled in 1997 and had matured for 5 years in a Jamaican rum cask had a brittle sweetness and notes of dried fruits. Another 1997 distilled sample from a fresh bourbon cask showed the same kind of subtle fruitiness, but with (no surprise) an added touch of vanilla. These cask samples clearly show that ‘Hazelburn’ is a delicate whisky, which is confirmed by a 5 y.o. sample from an oloroso sherry cask: the sherry completely overwhelmed the whisky. The link between the old names and the new whisky is geographical in this case; for all I know there has not been an attempt to replicate the taste profile of malts from the old Longrow and Hazelburn distilleries.

Ballechin, near Edradour, was one of the earlier Perthshire farm distilleries. It closed in 1927, but some of the buildings still remain. Because Barnard specifically mentions peat in connection with the malt from this distillery, a heavily peated (the phenol level is about 50 ppm) whisky made at Edradour will be called ‘Ballechin’. A 2003 cask sample from a refill sherry cask had little trace of sherry, but certainly no lack of peat! On top some perfumy notes. A sample of the same age from a burgundy cask was a lot darker and richer, and not just in colour: peaty, earthy, buttery with plenty of fruits thrown in. My favourite though, beating the burgundy cask sample by a nose length, was a sample from a port cask. The peat intermingles beautifully with the sweetness of the port, creating a luscious whisky with a velvety mouthfeel. Judging from these very young cask samples, ‘Ballechin’ will be a stunner when officially bottled in a number of years time.

As said above, Port Charlotte was a distillery just south of Bruichladdich, which closed in 1929. Among the remaining buildings are the old warehouses. Maturing in these warehouses is ‘Port Charlotte’, a peated malt distilled at Bruichladdich. I tasted ‘Port Charlotte’ both as new make and as a less than 1 y.o. cask sample. It packs a good ‘peat punch’; 40 ppm is comparable to Ardbeg and I can’t wait to taste it as a well-matured 10 y.o. in a number of years time. ‘Port Charlotte’ has the strongest geographical link with her old sister, maturing as it does in her warehouses.

Octomore was a farm distillery up the hill from Port Charlotte. It operated only briefly, from 1816 to around 1840. Some farm buildings still remain, some have been demolished and some have been converted to holiday cottages. Exactly where the still stood is not known, but the distillery has given its name to a super-peated Bruichladdich. The first batch of ‘Octomore’ had a phenol level of around 80 ppm, and it showed: open a sample bottle of new make in your living room and it you can almost see the peat vapours waft across the room. In a 7 month old cask sample the peat seems to have been enhanced: chewy ashy smoke from nose to finish. The sample came from a fresh bourbon cask, but the cask type probably plays a minor role at most, because the peat was so thick you could cut slices from it. And then, just when you thought you’d tasted the ultimate peat monster, a further batch of Octomore was distilled with a phenol level said to be over 120 ppm ….. I was glad Paul was behind me, ready to catch me, when I tasted a few drops of the 120+ ppm new make, because it blew me away and knocked me over. With phenol levels as high as this, you don’t talk ppm anymore, you talk octane levels ….. which brings us right back to where we started!

© 2005 Alex Kraaijeveld

Thanks to Johannes van de Heuvel for the ‘Lochindaal’ sample, to James Cowan (Dewar Rattray) for the ‘Stronachie’ sample and the old photo of Stronachie distillery, to Åke Johansson for the ‘Iona’ sample and photo, to Carsten Ehrlich for one of the ‘Hazelburn’ samples, to Andrew Symington (Edradour and Signatory) for the ‘Ballechin’ samples and the photo of the remains of Ballechin distillery, to Nick Morgan and Christine Jones (Diageo Archive) for the old photo of Port Charlotte distillery, to Jeroen Kloppenburg for the photo of the present remains of Port Charlotte distillery, to Isabel Coughlin (Bruichladdich distillery) and Carsten Ehrlich for ‘Octomore’ samples, to Graham Fraser for the photo of the remains of Octomore distillery  and, last but certainly not least, to Paul Dejong for catching me while tasting the 2^nd batch ‘Octomore’ new make (;o)