Glen Elgin

Region: Speyside (Fochabers Lhanbryde)

Owner: Diageo

Founded: 1898

A large proportion of whisky drinkers will probably never have heard of Glen Elgin, which is not surprising as, like a number of other distilleries its main purpose in life was to supply malt whisky for blending. Most of the production goes into the White Horse blend, which means the owners Diageo do nothing else with this little gem. Ok, my one encounter with the only distillery bottling wasn’t anything to write home about, but virtually every independent bottling I’ve tasted has been absolutely superb. And it really handles sherry casks well.

Glen Elgin is an absolute fruit monster, which really comes into its own when it’s given a couple of decades in the cask. Occasionally honeyed, occasionally violety, but the emphasis is squarely on the fruit, sometimes rather exotic, sometimes quite citric, but always a crowd pleaser. It is completely understandable why blenders love this type of spirit.

So, what makes this such a beautiful malt? Firstly, the wort undergoes a relatively long, 90 hours, cool fermentation, which produces all those lovely base fruity esters, followed by a long, slow distillation in stills that feature worm tubs rather than condensers. Unlike the worm tubs in say Dalwhinnie the end spirit isn’t meaty and sulphurous. The worm tubs do give it some richness and honey character but the long interaction with the copper holds those fruity and citric esters.

Did I say it ages well? Damn right it does. The fruit matures wonderfully and throw in a smidgen of sawdusty American oak and it is absolute heaven.

(Image Copyright James Mortimer Photography)