This is a guide to the four major whisky regions, the style of whisky from those regions, and distilleries to look out for. The regions are grouped into:
- Speyside
- The Highlands
- The Lowlands
- The Hebrides
Speyside: This is a sub-division of The Highlands as there are a plethora of distilleries around the River Spey. As such Speyside is probably the most widely known of the Scottish regions. Speyside is characterised by using unpeated malt and American Oak barrels in order to produce a light, clean but rich and sweet whisky, heavy on vanilla and a range of subtle fruity flavours depending on the distillery. The character of Speyside whisky makes it often ideal for accepting new flavours from cask finishes in European Oak barrels that previously contained wines such as Oloroso sherry to bring extra richness and darker fruits such as raisins, currants and cherries.
My favourite Speyside distilleries are BenRiach and Glenfarclas. Both of these distilleries lean heavily on the use of high quality Oloroso sherry casks and much of the whisky maturation takes place exclusively in these casks. BenRiach is one of the most forward thinking and experimental distilleries in Scotland and have casked whisky in a wide range of wine casks; however recently with their Cask Strength Batch One release and their rebranded 20 yr Old (which is much heavier on the use of Oloroso sherry casks) they seem to have developed a wonderfully rich and fruity distillery style. These bottling's conjure up images of my Christmas dinner as my father would make a rich white custard with a huge amount of sherry in it to accompany the brandy soaked Christmas pudding. Tremendous stuff.
Glenfarclas is in many ways the opposite to BenRiach. Extremely traditional and fiercely independent. The story goes that William Grant came up with the idea of maturing whisky in sherry casks. He matured whisky in a variety of types and at the end of the experimental period decided that Oloroso was the the type of cask that they would use at the distillery. It's been the same ever since. The 15 yr Old is a good value, heavy sherry whisky bottled at 46% and unchilfiltered. Towards the luxury end the market the 25 yr Old is exceptional and heartily recommended if you can afford it.
The Highlands: The Highlands represent the largest area of Scotland but (presumably due to the geography) are comparatively sparse in terms of distilleries. The majority of Highland and indeed Scottish distilleries are grouped in the East of the Highlands around the Rover Spey. The remaining Highland distilleries tend to be quite different in style and philosophy and include The MacAllan who are primarily famous for their Sherry cask whisky's, Glenmorangie who are known these days for their fruity characteristics and range of cask finish styles, Glendronach who are known for their heavy sherry cask influences from their use of first full Oloroso and Pédro Ximenez butts, Oban who like Glenmorangie have a delicate orange citrus character to their single malt, and of course the Most Northerly mainland distillery Old Pultney.
My favourite Highland distillery is undoubtedly GlenDronach, which is a sister distillery to BenRiach (covered in Part 01). I'm a lover of Pédro Ximinez casked whisky and GlenDronach are the masters of this art. The GlenDronach 12 yr Old is an affordable way to have an introduction to the distillery character, mixing Oloroso and PX casks to produce a very pleasing whisky with bags of flavour for a very reasonable price. Of course the 21 yr Old Parliament does this much better, but at a Premium to Luxury price point. Look out for single Cask PX whisky bottled by GlenDronach for companies such as The Whisky Shop and Whisky Galore. These offer great value for money and some are superior to the Parliament bottling at a significantly lower cost.
The Lowlands: An often unloved region these days. Due to market pressures we have lost yet another Lowland distilled, Bladnoch, in the last few years. This has left us primarily with Auchentoschan and Glenkinchie. Auchentoschan is located in the heart of Glasgow and has something of a cult following.
Auchentoschan is known from triple distilling it's spirit; most Scottish distilleries use double distillation. This is a technique used primarily in Irish whisky and along with the design of the stills helps produce a light spirit, ideal for taking on flavours from the wood. For more information see the post Whisky: Nature Vs. Nurture Part 01
I would certainly recommend skipping the American Oak and The Classic which you'll see on the supermarket shelves and consider the 12 yr Old, the Three Wood, and if you're feeling flush the 18 yr Old.
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