Auchentoshan Distillery

[jcskinner]

I happened to find myself in Glasgow on Monday with some hours to kill, so I decided in my infinite wisdom to pop out to the nearest thing there is to a Glesgae distillery - Auchentoshan.
Anyone who attended that magical tasting Ally arranged last November (the one where we all got a dram of the White Bowmore!) will be familiar with their range - they have a 10 yo being phased out and replaced with a 12 yo (half and half bourbon and sherry, I'm told, but my palate says not so much sherry), a 14 yo 3 wood finish, an 18 yo and a 21 yo.
At the distillery they also have a few oddities - some old 18 yo cask strength, the 'Queen Elizabeth II' (sure to be a favourite with Irish visitors!) and of course the option of dipping a valinch into a 19 yo sherry finish cask and filling your own bottle - a snip at around £185!
The distillery itself is pleasant and pastoral, nestling beneath some very pretty hills, and where it not for the huge tower block housing estate backing onto it or the motorway out front, you could imagine you were in the Highlands or Islay.
However, the number 66 bus that takes forever to get to this little corner of Clydebank does pass through and end up in some fairly rough parts of the conurbation so I'd recommend driving out if possible.
Once inside, however, one could almost believe one was at Bushmills. The little whitewashed buildings, the triple-distillation, the fruity, almost grassy spirit would all imply a Bushmills relationship.
However, it is oddly Glen Garioch and Bowmore which are Auchentoshan's relatives in the Morrison Bowmore chain, and hence these are the other drams available for purchase by bottle or glass.
I took a tour with young Colin, a very personable and affable young lad who seemed both knowledgeable and passionate about his drams. The way he waxed lyrical about the Black Bowmore nearly made me want to sell the house and buy a bottle!
He was kind enough to dip the mash tun and let me taste a sample of the wash as it was fermenting in their huge oregon pine mashtuns.
It was tremendously citric, with only a faint malty finish, prefacing the fruitiness inherent in Auchentoshan's raw spirit and their finished products.
Having drunk my way through their range last year, and finding Auchentoshan's drams pleasant to my Bushmills-favouring palate, when I got to their lovely new bar, I was inclined to veer towards some of the other drams available.
Once I had dispatched my free (with the £5 tour entry fee!) dram of the 10 yo, I decided to sample the top of the Glen Garioch range, which seemed much smokier this time than I remembered. With its floral overtones, one might almost mistake it for its sister distillery Bowmore.
But the cask strength 18 year old Auchentoshan (bottled in 96) was an absolute beast of a whisky. I believe if you ask nicely at the distillery, they may have the odd bottle or two stashed away, but sadly I couldn't bring one home with me, as I was flying. Stupid EU rules about liquids on planes.
Anyway, it seemed significantly preferable to the chill-filtered, 40% neutered version sold today, and with Auchentoshan being unique among scotches for its triple distillation, one wonders why they don't trust the smoothing effect of that third distillation and permit their whiskies to be bottled non-chill filtered at 46%.
Once again, I came away with the sense that Auchentoshan is a whisky on the verge of greatness. I would have liked to have bottled my own 19 yo cask strength sherry finished valinch just to know what this dram is truly capable of.
Certainly the cask strength 18 yo opened up beautifully with the tiniest drop of water, and was intensely rewarding.
Definitely worth a visit if you're ever in Glasgow, but perhaps don't take the bus there. It's somewhat jarring to see this little 'corner of the field' distillery in the shadow of urban wasteland tower blocks, but it's great too to know that at least one major distilling city still has the water of life being made within the city walls, as it were.
When I walk past Bow Street in Dublin later this week, no doubt my mind will turn to what might have been in another great distilling city whose pot stills are now silent.
In short, well worth a visit, with a nice tour, friendly staff, some lovely unique drams for sale and handy to the city.
I also popped into the whisky shop in the Buchanan galleries in the city centre and laid waste to both my bank account and their splendid selection of single cask whiskies which I cannily mailed home, but that's another story!

[DavidH]

they have a 10 yo being phased out and replaced with a 12 yo (half and half bourbon and sherry, I'm told, but my palate says not so much sherry),

My notes from the Bowmore tasting say 90% bourbon, 10% sherry. They also have the Three Wood down as a 12yo in total. I could be wrong - I was drinking at the time

[jcskinner]

90/10 sound much more likely to me. But when I asked at the distillery the lad did say it was even. Perhaps he was mistaken.
I thought he also said the 3 wood was a 12 yo which then got extra time in the two additional finish casks, bringing the overall age to around 14, but my recollection could be faulty for the same reasons as yourself.