Tomatin

However, from tasting independent bottlings of Tomatin, which by and large were very impressive I knew that the distillery was capable of a lot more than it was showing. The distillery employs a fairly long wort fermentation time (54 – 108 hours) thus setting it’s stall out that the end result will be in the fruity/ estery camp. After a slow distillation in small but long necked stills, fitted with external shell and tube condensers the new make is as you would expect, fragrant, fruity and showing some good weight.

The problem was the wood policy. It seems that because the distillery was in the ‘bulk supply’ mindset, then filling the spirit into any old casks would do. As we all know, the quickest way of undoing all your hard work in producing a lovely spirit is to then stick it into shagged out old casks that add no tanninc structure or oak character at all to your spirit.

To be fair to the distillery, I would imagine that around the time that I was tasting the unexciting 10 year old, changes were afoot, especially with regards to their wood policy, i.e investing in some good quality new oak! Because the following year that dull 10 year old had been replaced by a 12 year old, which when I came to taste it in 2011 it was light years ahead of it with regards to its quality and complexity. In fact, I would argue that 2011 was when the distillery unveiled to the whisky buying public the fruits of this renaissance.

Since that time the distillery has become a by word for innovation. I suppose you could say that they seem to change their packing as often as I change my socks and although they do seem to dabble in the dark arts of marketing you never get that eye rolling moment when you read a distillery press release about a new bottling. Personally, I do miss the old black, red, white and silver labels, but the current packaging looks good on the shelves. Well apart from the Cù Bòcan range which received a major re-branding in 2019. I liked the original packaging with its smoky devil dog motif, which perfectly encapsulated the ‘brand myth’ that they created based around the tales of a ghost dog that haunts the nearby village. So, when the new branding was unveiled it came as a bit of a shock to see that the distillery had opted for lovely pastel-coloured labels and boxes, which would have been fine if it was a brand new range but I failed to see how pretty blues and pinks equated to a story about the hound from hell.