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Region: Northern Highlands
Owner: Aurora Brewing Ltd
Founded: 2013
Firstly, Wolfburn isn’t a resurrected old distillery, although it is situated close to the ruins of the old Wolfburn distillery that was in production from 1821 until the 1860’s, it is a brand new edifice. Obviously one of its main claims to fame, apart from its damn fine juice is that it has displaced Pulteney as the furthest mainland distillery. It’s second claim to fame is that the spirit began to flow off its stills in January 2013, just a mere five months after the construction began. I guess with current commercial pressures you can’t spend years building and planning a distillery.
The distillery is definitely not a looker, certainly not from the outside. Situated in an industrial area on the outskirts of Thurso it resembles a giant garage. If the 1960’s were known as an age of functional distillery building, then the owners have put a definite 2000’s spin on the idea of a functional building. I suppose one thing we can be thankful for is that although the distillery does pay homage to the Viking history of the area it is not so overt as say Highland Park in their pillaging of Scandinavian mythology and I suppose they could have gone all Disney and constructed a pastiche Viking settlement like building, replete with carved doorways and Viking accoutrements, but, no, they decided upon industrial minimalism I suppose.
It certainly seems that speed was of the essence here as pretty much as soon as the spirit hit three years of age it was released on to the market. I suppose if the distillery had been fitted out with short, fat, stubby stills, worm tubs and produced a heavily sulphured new make then they wouldn’t have stood an earthy change of releasing their juice at such a young age. So, the owners have chosen a slightly more modern path and tailored their production to facilitate an early release, by creating a clear wort which has a relatively long fermentation of 70 – 92 hours, to lay the foundations for an estery, fruity spirit. A slow distillation takes place in relatively small stills, allowing plenty of copper contact and as you would expect shell and tube condensers to seal the deal on a light, elegant, coastal; influenced spirit, which indeed appears to be quite happy at being bottled at a young age.
In essence, the distillery is doing everything the right way. It predominantly fills into ex-American oak quarter casks, hogsheads and barrels with a small, approximately 15% being filled into ex-Oloroso Sherry butts. The bulk of the production is unpeated and bottled as Northlands and a cask strength variant called Langskip. Both of these bottling showcase the beautiful, fresh, fruitiness of the spirit. Even the Aurora bottling, which features pretty much all the casks that they fill into retains that lovely coastal fruitiness and although the current distillery manager, Shane Frazer came from Glenfarclas, which as you know is the quintessential sherry monster distillery, his use of ex-Sherry casks is considerably more judicious here. Thankfully!
The range is completed with a peated bottling and again they have eschewed the current fad for a heavily phenolic spirit and instead opted for lightly peated (10PPM) run for two to four months each year and again the Morven bottling showcases the balanced approach that Frazer and the distillery owners are taking. I really rate this distillery and I am looking forward to what a bit more time in the oak does for the spirit, but in the meantime pick up a bottle and enjoy the juice!
(Images Copyright James Mortimer Photography)
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