Linkwood

Region: Speyside (Elgin)

Owner: Diageo

Founded: 1821

Linkwood is the type of malt whisky that blenders kill for. The current style of the spirit produced here has arguably one of the most unique profiles in all of Scotland. It marvellously manages to combine a delicate, fresh, grassy and green citrus fruit character with a fairly substantial, weighty mouthfeel. This blenders heaven is the main reason why its owners Diageo do nothing with it, well apart from using in their own blended whiskies, such as Johnnie Walker and White Horse, to name two. John Glazer of Compass Box used to be a big fan and it was a key component in his Aslya bottling along with Craggenmore and Glen Elgin malt, plus Cambus and Cameronbridge grain. I don’t know if he has fallen out of love with it now, or he can’t get his hands on the right quality casks but the last time I encountered Aslya it was quite different as it featured Longmorn and Teaninich malt plus Cameronbridge grain. Mind you it also used to be a lot more common in the lists of independent bottling companies as well, so one can only assume that Diageo has more than enough uses for it!

So how does the distillery create this magic? In truth Diageo handles Linkwood in very much the same way that it handles Glenlossie with a very clear wort which is fermented for 75 hours to give it a fruity/ citric/ lactose base that is slowly distilled in large stills. The spirit still is only charged to around 90% capacity and the slow distillation encourages plenty of reflux and copper contact added to the use of shell and tube condensers removes a fair amount of the fruity esters to create a spirit that has a similarity to Glenlossie. However, I would assume that they use a slightly wider cut here which will contribute to the weightier feel of the resulting spirit.

At the beginning I mentioned ‘the current style’ and like a number of distilleries the style of the spirit has changed a little over the years. The most noticeable change happened in 1985 when production moved completely over to the new distillery which had been built just across the road in 1972. The old distillery featured worm tub condensers and if you can get your hands on a pre-1985 distilled bottle you will see that it has an even weightier and maltier character than it does today.

Many reviewers believe that it can take sherry well due to the spirits weight and in my opinion, there is some truth to that, but like Glenlossie it is easily swamped by the sherry and so, for me it is best matured in refill American oak and as that is where this whisky excels. Poor bottlings are very few and far between and although it does cope with sherry cask maturation, prudently, in my opinion Diageo’s only official release in the Flora & Fauna range is aged in American oak and displays all the lovely character of the spirit that they lovingly craft.

(Image Copyright James Mortimer Photography)