Our Man In: The Scottish Highlands
Last weekend, I attended the Glenlivet Gathering, an annual shindig where the Speyside whiskymaker allows a few select fans to commandeer its distillery for a couple of days. Glenlivet's not the only brand to throw open its stills to outsiders, but I've always loved its pineapple-y distillations, and the brand's remote Highland setting is charming enough to win over even haggis-haters.
The centerpiece of the weekend was an old-fashioned ceilidh—think a Scottish brogue-twanged tweak on line dancing, with kilts—but the most rewarding (or at least enjoyable) part was a session with whisky czar Jim Cryle, the mastermind who helmed Glenlivet for decades until going into semiretirement earlier this year. We convened in a secret suite called the Library—anywhere there's liquor, there's bound to be a VIP room—accessed by pushing a hidden panel in one wall of the nondescript distillery lobby. Tucked upstairs and furnished with just a few leather chairs and a huge antique wooden table, it's where the most precious limited editions are kept.
Cryle's a genial and humble whiskypedia, and between sips of tasty elixirs he offered up several tasty details. A few highlights: When clapped-out stills are replaced, they must be replicated exactly, down the random pattern of dents, to avoid affecting the flavor. French limosin oak, used to age 15-year-old Glenlivet, is the same wood once used in the sleek dashboards of vintage limos (hence the name). And, depressingly, whisky production costs are rising because even Grandma's given up drinking sherry—secondhand sherry barrels, so crucial to aging a single malt, now cost a staggering $800 each.
As for the magical liquid itself, Cryle's favorite is the 18-year-old, but he's also partial to the cask-strength Nadurra (that's Gaelic for "all-natural"), which he helped develop. It's tailor-made for the American consumer, who apparently prefers the kick in the ribs only a 57.7 percent ABV tipple can provide (my, and Cryle's, advice: Dilute it with a splash of water). Watered down or not, the Nadurra is a little cloudy, thanks to a less intense filtration process, which doesn't strip out as many fatty lipids as in a standard malt. It's also supremely delicious. Guess I'm just not a low-fat Scotch kind of guy.
For more information, visit theglenlivet.com
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9:08:28 AM on
07/21/08
We Scots prefer to think that line dancing is an American drawl-twanged tweak on ceilidhs, with too-tight stonewash denims...