Dufftown, Mortlach & Glendullan

It is another glorious day up in Speyside, I have the shorts and shades on and the sun is beating down. Perfect weather for visiting some distilleries!

I am fortunate enough to find myself on the Dufftown, Mortlach & Glendullan tour, organized by Mike Lord from the Whisky Shop Dufftown and led by Tim Dumenil of Diageo. Now these distilleries are not normally open to the public so this was a great opportunity to see some of the gems in Diageo's distilling portfolio.

The proceedings start off at the Whisky Shop Dufftown, where we board a mini bus and head off in the direction of Dufftown distillery. First on the agenda is a viewing of the site of the now dismantled Pittyvaich distillery. Pittyvaich was a pioneering distillery in the sense that it was used mostly for carrying out testing of different distilling techniques and evaluating different types of Barley use in whisky distilling. The distillery was built by Arthur Bell and Sons for the purpose of meeting the demand for their Bells whisky, where the Pittyvaich malt was used in the blend. Towards the end of its life, Pittyvaich was used for the testing and production of Gordon's Gin. Gin production at the site was successful and the volume produced was high. It was the expansion at Cameronbridge distillery in Edinburgh that sealed the fate of Pittyvaich. It lay on low production till 2002 when it was finally dismantled and demolished.

Next, we make the short drive down to Dufftown distillery where it sits in a quite picturesque valley in a corner of Dufftown. The size of the distillery is quite deceiving from the entrance gates, as it looks very small from the outside. Once inside it is a busy array of wash backs and stills and one of the biggest mash tuns in the business at around 13 tonnes. Dufftown is soon to be surpassed as the site with the biggest alcohol output by Diageo's new under-construction Roseisle distillery, but until then Dufftown is enjoying the status of being Diageo's biggest whisky producing site. The distillery is quite claustrophobic but our guide, Tim, informs us that the previous owners, Arthur Bell & Sons built it this way to make best use of the space available. The stainless steel washbacks were installed in 1998 replacing the wooden ones and the monster mash tun was installed in the same year. Dufftown distillery was actually the sixth distillery to be built in Dufftown and was originally going to be called Pittyvaich, it is very much the workhorse in Diageo's distilling portfolio, which is only starting to get some of the plaudits.

Off to Mortlach now, which is another short drive down the road. The name Mortlach, Mor Ulach in Gaelic means "bowl shaped valley" when translated to English, and you can understand where the name came from. Mortlach sits in a deep valley with a river at the bottom, which curves round in a cylindrical fashion and is guarded by steep hills at either side. Mortlach was also the first legal distillery and is one of the distilleries that the town of Dufftown was built on. The mass of the tour gathers outside and then gallantly strolls past the no-visitors sign to the Mortlach entrance. Once inside we wander past the old porteus mill and then through to the tun and washback area, whilst being flanked by 19^th century maps and motivational posters. The huge Oregon washbacks are impressive and are all bubbling with their beery wash contents. Next, through to the still house where we stop on a mezzanine to take in the view. We descend the stairs and wander over to the stills to have a better look. Mortlach is renowned for having four totally unique stills, the most famous being "The Wee Witchie" - No.1 spirit still. The Wee Witchie was given its name by John Winton who was a manager at Mortlach for a number of years. A process of partial distillation is practiced at Mortlach which leaves the resultant spirit quite rich and heavy in flavours. We continue the tour outside with walk on the gantry above the larch worm tubs. In the glorious sunshine the worm tubs look very striking. The coils of the lyne arm are immersed in the water contents of the worm tub and so cool the spirit vapours inside and condense them into liquid. Mortlach is one of only a handful of distilleries to do this. Our guide, Tim, summons us over to the main bonded warehouse where he tells us that even he has trouble receiving the keys to gain entry. Once inside we are met by row upon row of ageing casks and there were some beauties there! A Mortlach 1976 is the highlight. The tour of Mortlach is concluded there and which leaves one more distillery on the list so it's on the bus again for the drive to Glendullan.

We proceed through gates of Glendullan and drive past the old distillery which operated until 1985, until we arrive at the ‘new' Glendullan distillery which was built in 1972. Both distilleries did run simultaneously at one point in their lifetimes. The spirit produced from both distilleries was then vatted together to before bottling as Glendullan malt whisky. The old Glendullan is now used as engineering workshop for Diageo's distilling team. Some trivia for you - Glendullan was the last distillery to be built in Dufftown and so the last still in the saying "Rome was built on seven hills, Dufftown was built on seven stills". Once inside the ‘new' Glendullan we climb the stairs to the main hall which contains the huge stainless steel mash tun and eight larch wood washbacks, which have a capacity of around 65,000 litres each. As most distilleries are now upgrading to electronic ways of controlling the mashing, distilling and cooling process it is interesting to see that Glendullan still uses a button board way of controlling the system which was seen as new age in the 1970's and 80's but is quite outdated today. The next room we enter is the still house, which houses three onion spirit stills and three wash stills. Glendullan uses a condenser system to cool its spirit vapour which is change from the worm tub system it used for the old Glendullan distillery. We conclude the tour with a tasting session of an expression of each distillery all from the Flora & Fauna range - Dufftown 12 year old, Glendullan 12 year old & Mortlach 16 year old. A great end to a great tour!

Posted on 02/07/09
Dufftown ,Glendullan ,Mortlach

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