Single-malt from the borderlands?

Bah, forgot to change the subject line. That question I answered myself with a quick websearch. Sorry about that.

Darren J

At the risk of being branded a pedant, I must correct you and say that Auchentoshan is a "lowland" malt, as they come from the lowlands. The "borderlands" are known as "The Borders" or the "Border Country" but actually produce no malts.

The most southerly malt is Bladnoch, which IMHO is by far the best of the lowland malts, and is also widely available in independent bottlings. Auchentoshan runs Bladnoch close... The main difference between lowland malts and their more northerly brethren is they tend to be lighter and marginally less complex.

Auchentoshan is certainly not a bad place to start a new convert off. One recommendation. Drink it before a meal as an aperitif.

Roger

In the Whisky Bible and discussing Dalwhinnie(sp???) and people who don't like malts, JM says something like 'give them this and that's them sorted.' I don't know if it works but I do love this malt.

As an aside, my wife doesn't like whisky at all but I have managed to get her to try a single grain whisky without retching.

I really rate Glenkinchie as a grassy, summery malt but co-incidentally I've just got back from a CAMRA members weekend in Glasgow where I picked up a 12 year old special malt made for the event from Auchentoshan. Purchased for a reasonable £27.

I would agree with you, I had written the subject line, then thought I should do a search first. Google provided me with a map of all distilleries in Scotland and clearly showed none in the borderlands. So I didn't ask that question, I did, however, forget to change the subject line. Sorry about that.

Darren J

PS. I ended up getting him Glan Glarioch 15 yo. It was a good choice. It didn't have the strong smoke or peat flavours that I find scare off most newcomers to scotch.

The message from Darren J contains these words:

Forgive my ignorance, but where is this distillery?

Richard

In my experience only those whiskies from the Western Isles tend to have the really strong peaty flavours. This may be due to the effect of bring so close to the sea, and having a little sea salt deposited on them.

Glen Garioch distillery is at Old Meldrum in Grampians Region, so self-evidently NOT a Lowland distillery. Also the distillery name is pronounced "Glen Geery". The company which owns this distillery also owns the Lowland distillery Auchentoshan, and the Islay distillery Bowmore. Glen garioch was closed for a while, but reopened in 1997. I think the whisky is good, but not exceptional.

Roger

It's in the Garioch Valley of the Eastern Highlands. I never did say it was in the lowlands. Incidently, they used to use the waste heat from the old firing system back in the day to grow tomatoes, and apparently they were exceptionally good.

Darren J