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SB visits… The Glenrothes Distillery
The Glenrothes Distillery is not open to the public, however in November, The Spirits Business was given a behind the scenes tour of the production space in Speyside, along with a private tasting of the brand’s single malt portfolio.
Quietly, and without much fanfare, The Glenrothes has been producing some of Speyside’s finest single malt Scotch whisky for almost 150 years. Founded in 1879, the distillery is located in the village of Rothes in Speyside, Scotland. It was previously distributed by Berry Brothers & Rudd, but came under ward of Edrington UK in 2022.
With The Macallan as its stablemate and close neighbour in Speyside, it is easy to draw parallels between the two brands – especially as we paid a visit to The Macallan’s estate in the same week.
Both producers receive their malted barley from Simpsons Malt, and both age their whisky in Sherry-seasoned casks from Jerez in Spain. And while both brands produce super-premium single malts, the similarities, in the most part, stop there, demonstrating just how many variations are at play when it comes to whisky production not just in the world, but also in adjacent postcodes.
A disastrous start
On our visit to the distillery, these differences were highlighted with a tour of the 300-acre estate and a history lesson of the distillery, which has been eventful, to say the least.
On the day the first whisky ran off the stills – 145 years ago last Saturday (28 December 1879) – the Tay Bridge, which crosses the Firth of Tay between Dundee and Fife, collapsed during high winter gales. A train carrying 75 passengers and crew, crossing at the time of the collapse, plunged into the icy waters of the Tay, killing all onboard.
This awful disaster meant that the excitement of Glenrothes first distillation was overshadowed. However, the distillery did make headlines almost two decades later, but not for reasons it would have liked.
In the December of 1897, during the build of a second malt kiln and an increase in stills from two to four, a fire broke out and caused serious damage. Then, just six years later, further damage was caused by a serious explosion.
Then, in 1922, a fire in Warehouse Number One caused the loss of 200,000 imperial gallons (910,000-litres) of whisky, with much of it running into the Burn of Rothes which flows alongside the distillery and down into the town – much to the delight of opportunist locals with a bucket to spare.
This was followed by another fire 40 years later, but for once this disaster brought a silver lining, as it afforded Glenrothes the opportunity to expand, and a further re-build in 1982 extended the still hall to five wash stills and five spirit stills.
Something in the water
Luckily for our visit, no disasters took place, and haven’t done for quite some time now. This meant a leisurely tour of the estate.
Now, there are an almost immeasurable number of elements that go into making the spirit that eventually goes inside the bottle, but at the end of the day, whisky is only three ingredients: barley, yeast, and water. As mentioned, the malted barley used in the creation of The Glenrothes is provided by Simpsons Malt, which also supplies the likes of Chivas Brothers and The Borders Distillery, but unique to The Glenrothes is the water used in both the mash and the dilution process.
Being situated at the foot of the Mannoch Hills, the distillery has two natural springs, the Ardcanny and the Brauchhill.
The water in these springs has been filtered through rock formed millions of years ago, and the result is an extremely soft and delicious water, free from impurities, and with absolutely zero need for human intervention. While the tasting highlight of our visit was obviously going to be the whisky, sampling this water directly from the spring was a real eye-opener to the importance of working with such high-quality core ingredients, and was an insight into how the whisky’s clean and elegant character is achieved.
This achievement is further highlighted with a visit to the stills, in which a slow flow rate of distillation is undertaken, at approximately half the speed of some other well-known distilleries.
Furthermore, the distillation takes place in ‘unusually tall stills’ – roughly the size of two African elephants standing on top of each other – which optimises copper contact, removing heavy flavour compounds and subsequently creating a bright and fruity spirit that is refined while remaining complex.
Cooper experience
The Glenrothes’ ageing takes place in Sherry-seasoned oak casks, made to the specification of the brand, and housed in both dunnage and racked warehouses.
These casks are put together by the brand’s own coopers, who are based at The Macallan’s onsite disgorging and filling facility on site at the distillery.
For an insight into how these casks are put together, we were joined by two of the brand’s coopers, who together have almost 60 years of experience between them. After demonstrating with speed how the casks are assembled, we were given our own chance to try our hand at building a cask.
While it is unlikely that my hand-built cask in its current state will go onto house any of the brand’s whisky on account of it almost definitely having holes in it, the casks that are used by the distillery are utilised for a minimum of 15 years – the youngest aged whisky in the brand’s core portfolio.
A guided tasting
The week before our visit, The Glenrothes unveiled the latest expression to join its core portfolio – the 15-year-old single malt. While the youngest in the line-up, it was not the first whisky sampled in the tasting, led by master whisky maker Laura Rampling. Rather, the 18-year-old expression was the first dram on offer, on account of its similarities with the 25-year-old, the second whisky to be tasted.
Rampling explained: “We think about the 18-year-old as a spirit growing up – coming of age, if you like, like a human being. It’s starting to become a little bit more sophisticated.”
This expression, she said, is matured predominantly in first-fill Sherry-seasoned oak casks. That first fill is then split fairly evenly between American and European oak casks, with the ratio skewed every so slightly more in the direction of American than European. “Sometimes I use refill interchangeably with Bourbon casks as well,” she said, “because I know my stock cask by cask, so I will pick and choose. And Bourbon can, especially at this sort of age, behave a bit like a good refill.”
Rampling explained that because Glenrothes neutral spirit has got a lot of natural sweetness, it is able to harness the sweetness of the American oak really quite well, which, she said, is one of the reasons why vanilla is one of the first aromas she gets when nosing the whisky. “It’s like a fresh vanilla pod, and that’s all coming from the American oak. You also get the natural sweet fruit of The Glenrothes spirit, but at this particular age, that fruit is starting to become quite fragrant. So I think in the 18-year-old it’s like a pear, while with the [now discontinued] 12-year-old, we would call out more juicier fruits – but the 18-year-old is starting to become a little bit more sophisticated in terms of its fragrance.”
Behind that she notes gentle spice and dried ginger, influenced by the European oak. “The age also brings us a sort of fresh almond note to the whisky at this point, which evolves over time.”
Showcasing age
Moving onto the 25-year-old expression, Rampling explained exactly why she likes to offer these two aged expressions in succession: “There’s a relationship between the 18- and 25-year-old,” clarifying that the older of the two is actually a new liquid. “We did have a 25-year-old in our portfolio before, but we didn’t have any more of the casks that we used for it. So with the new packaging [unveiled in October 2023], there was an opportunity to create a new whisky, and so I thought about what I wanted to do, and having discovered what I discovered about the maturation of our spirit, I thought, actually, it would be a nice thing to showcase just age.”
As such, Rampling chose to not change anything else about what was behind the whisky. “So again, same proportions of first-fill, same split between American oak, European oak, and the balance made up with refill you always need. So really, the variable here is age. That’s just showcasing exactly what an additional seven years does to The Glenrothes spirit in the same type of casks.
“So what you’re seeing here is all the same flavour categories [as the 18-year-old], but they’re just ratcheted up in terms of either indulgence or fragrance. So your fruit is becoming more aromatic. It’s moved from sort of pear fragrance into sort of stone fruit territory, then your vanilla is actually giving a more intense vibe; a liquid caramel is what I get. It’s that evolution and the fragrance really coming out, and that nuttiness, that fresh almond, is more like marzipan, or almond paste.”
Cask influence
Moving onto the 15-year-old, which Rampling described as “hot off the press”, this expression is an example of the influence casks have on The Glenrothes spirit.
“The story that I wanted to tell was around wood. Having learned what I’ve learned about the fact that American oak really comes to the fore with the spirit, I wanted to experiment with heroing European oak. So without deviating from our core, signature style, which is bright, fruity and elegant, I wanted to push how much European I could actually use in The Glenrothes style. So that’s what the 15 is all about.”
This expression has been matured predominantly in European oak “because the answer to my question: how far was it I could push it? was quite far, actually, without it becoming overly woody.”
As with the older whiskies, the European oak offers some spice and dried fruit, but Rampling also utilised a “really, really tiny” amount of American oak, “just to enhance the natural sweetness of our new make spirit”, before adding “a little bit balance” with refill casks “just to get the right proportions.”
The strap line for the 15-year-old is ‘bright, sweet, spice’, “because what you will get in here is sweet baking spices, so it’s very different character,” she said, noting a lot of natural sweetness that is more like brown sugar, as opposed to vanilla. “You’ve got fruit there, but again, because it’s a richer form of maturation, it gives slightly richer, deeper flavours. The fruit, for me, is like baked orchard fruit – baked apple, baked pear – and then there’s lots of lovely baking spices, like cinnamon, nutmeg, all spice, star anise. And on the palette, I get a tiny bit of cardamom as well. And all that spice is coming from the European oak.”
These three whiskies, Rampling confirmed, are the three that form The Glenrothes core range.
“So these are the three that will be consistent. These are the ones that I work batch to batch of being identical every time, which is actually harder than creating a limited edition project, because you’ve got to produce something that’s the same every time. But that’s part of the joy of the job,” she said.
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