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Release Notes
This is the fourth release of Ballechin, the heavily-peated malt from Edradour. The interesting thing here is that while previous releases have been matured in unusual casks like Burgundy and Madeira, this is a straightforward full-term Sherry maturation - and Oloroso sherry at that.
The Whisky Exchange
Only 6000 bottles of this were released into the wild by our friends at Edradour of Signatory Vintage fame.
Yours Truly
3rd Party Tasting Notes
N: A mix of rubbery peat - smells between neoprene and innertubes. A slight funky sherry cask influence. Peat leads here and it's got the dry campfire note briefly. Faintly orangey, a little ashy, and a hint of dried fruit.
P: Moderately think; slightly dry and oaky with a touch of sherry but this runs pretty heavy towards the peat again. Low-level underlying sweetness but a pretty strong smoky/rubbery quality. Faintly ashy.
F: Peat leads initially with a sooty note, again the rubbery tang. Dried fruits and waxy apples come up briefly after a moment.
It's not bad by any stretch, but the oloroso hasn't added anything special here. It's really all about the peat and just the peat. It's drinkable but not memorable and the peat isn't anything special, flavor-wise.
Rating: C+
P: Moderately think; slightly dry and oaky with a touch of sherry but this runs pretty heavy towards the peat again. Low-level underlying sweetness but a pretty strong smoky/rubbery quality. Faintly ashy.
F: Peat leads initially with a sooty note, again the rubbery tang. Dried fruits and waxy apples come up briefly after a moment.
It's not bad by any stretch, but the oloroso hasn't added anything special here. It's really all about the peat and just the peat. It's drinkable but not memorable and the peat isn't anything special, flavor-wise.
Rating: C+
Tim, LA Whiskey Society
Colour: copper-gold.
Nose: Ballechin’s farminess strikes immediately, together with quite some leather and pipe tobacco (reminds me a of Danish blend I used to smoke a loooong time ago – I haven’t touched a pipe since ages). The peat is quite beautiful in this context – but I don’t think I ever tried some ‘naked’ Ballechin. Other than that, we have quite some walnuts, a little sage, toffee, dark chocolate, hints of pine sap and quite some bitter oranges. I like this a lot.
Mouth: excellent attack, dry, peaty, nutty and grassy, with many ‘florish’ notes from the sherry, some chocolate, ginger, bitter oranges, pepper, a little cumin… And a perfect body. No water needed here in my opinion.
Finish: not that long but clean yet complex, leathery and spicy.
Comments: owner Mr. Symington doesn’t like to trumpet on all digital platforms and maybe that’s why Ballechin isn’t more well-known in the chatting circles. Maybe it’s better like that. Excellent whisky.
Rating: 87 points.
Nose: Ballechin’s farminess strikes immediately, together with quite some leather and pipe tobacco (reminds me a of Danish blend I used to smoke a loooong time ago – I haven’t touched a pipe since ages). The peat is quite beautiful in this context – but I don’t think I ever tried some ‘naked’ Ballechin. Other than that, we have quite some walnuts, a little sage, toffee, dark chocolate, hints of pine sap and quite some bitter oranges. I like this a lot.
Mouth: excellent attack, dry, peaty, nutty and grassy, with many ‘florish’ notes from the sherry, some chocolate, ginger, bitter oranges, pepper, a little cumin… And a perfect body. No water needed here in my opinion.
Finish: not that long but clean yet complex, leathery and spicy.
Comments: owner Mr. Symington doesn’t like to trumpet on all digital platforms and maybe that’s why Ballechin isn’t more well-known in the chatting circles. Maybe it’s better like that. Excellent whisky.
Rating: 87 points.
WhiskyFun
The Distillery: Edradour
| Established: 1837 |
| Silent since: False |
| Address: Pitlochry, Perthshire PH16 5JP, UK |
| → website |
The Edradour distillery is located on the edge of the Southern Highlands, better known as the Midlands. Bottlings have been released onder the name Edradour, but in the past some batches were bottled as "Glenforres". A more heavily peated "Balechin" variety has become available as well.
Soon after Andrew Symington and Iain Henderson took over at Edradour, they started distillation of a peated malt under the name "Ballechin". Peated malts went out of fashion in the 1980"s on the Scottish mainland, but they"re back...
With reported phenol levels of somewhere around 50PPM Ballechin is one of the most heavily peated malts produced outside the island of Islay. The thirst for peated malts has grown so much that they can"t make enough on Islay anymore.
In the summer of 2003 some of the malt maniacs had the pleasure of visiting the distillery, shortly after Andrew Symington (of Signatory Vintage fame) had purchased Edradour and Iain Henderson (former manager at Laphroaig distillery) had signed on as Operation Director. It was a beautiful day in Perthshire; Iain and the tour guide took their time to answer even the most maniacal questions. Because Edradour is such a small and traditional distillery we had the opportunity to investigate every little aspect of the complete malt whisky distillation process.
Before Andrew and Iain took control of Edradour, the distillery had built an unenviable reputation for batch variation. Bottles that were released in the 1990"s (depicted at the left) ranged from average quality to frankly rather poor. I think Andrew"s decision to focus on single cask bottlings and a wide range of special finishes (Sauternes, Burgundy, etc.) was brilliant; he turned Edradour"s biggest weakness into a strength. Edradour now holds Scotland"s broadest cask portfolio.
The name Edradour is first mentioned in 1837, but a "farm" distillery under the name Glenforres was founded in or around 1825. At one time many of these small distillery were operational in Perthshire, but Edradour is the only one to survive to this day. Until Kilchoman on Islay became operational in 2005, Edradour could claim to be Scotland"s smallest distillery with an annual production capacity of a mere 90,000 litres (just like Kilchoman). Lately, more small distilleries like Daftmill and Loch Ewe were opened.
Edradour had been in the hands of American owners for almost a century when it was obtained by Campbell Distillers (a subsidiary of Pernod Ricard) in 1982. They added a visitor centre to the distillery; probably one of the first examples of what is now a pretty common feature in Scotland. Edradour has the required minimum of two stills and uses mostly traditional equipment like worm tubs to cool the spirit. The wort is cooled by the last "Morton"s refrigerator" operating in the Scotch whisky industry. Because Edradour is such a small distillery and part of the equipment is so quaint, they have been struggling to achieve some consistency between batches before 2003, but with limited success.
Together with the wide range of special finishes in obscure casks, Edradour now offers one of the most varied finish portfolio"s in Scotland. Their "brand consistency" is an altogether different issue. These days Edradour doesn"t seem to have its own "house style" anymore...
The availability of some expressions of Edradour is a "litmus test" for liquorists. If they don"t have a handful of different bottlings available it might be time to start looking around for another whisky supplier. These days, these small brands are the most interesting to watch.
2003 - They start experimenting with the distillation of a heavily peated (50 ppm) spirit at Edradour distillery. This spirit will later be marketed under the name "Ballechin".
2006 - The first edition of the Ballechin is released and James McGowan takes over as distillery manager.
As I already mentioned before, it remains to be seen if Edradour can actually hang on to its "Scotland"s Smallest Distillery" claim. I guess it depends how "smallest" is defined.
The square feet of the distillery buildings? Surface of the distillery grounds? Annual output? I don"t have the exact figures, but I imagine Daftmill or Kilchoman could stake some claims of their own in this area these days - and the production capacity of Bladnoch is quite limited too.
In The New Millenium
2002 - Andrew Symington (the man behind the Signatory Vintage independent bottler) buys the Edradour distillery from Pernod Ricard and puts Ian Henderson (the old distillery manager of Laphroaig) in charge.
Trivia:
- Edradour is located near the charming little town of Pitlochry - and if you"re staying over in the town I can heartily recommend walking to and from the distillery along the winding road through the hills.
- Being (one of) the smallest distilleries in Scotland, bottlings of Edradour showed strong batch variation during the 1990"s. After Andrew Symington took over many of the new bottlings were special finishes with not a lot of "distillery character" left. Between you and me; that old distillery character was more of a "fault" and won"t really be missed.
- Edradour distillery annually attracts almost 100,000 visitors - but they only produce 90,000 litres of malt whisky each year. That roughly means that for every litre of whisky that is sold, one person visited Edradour.
from Malt Madness
The Owner: Signatory Vintage
| Established: 1988 |
| Silent since: False |
| Address: Edradour Distillery, Pitlochry, Perthshire & Kinross, PH16 5JP, Scotland |
Signatory owns the smallest distillery from Scotland, Edradour since 22 july 2002
In April 1992, as the company began to grow, they moved to much larger premises. Here, they were granted a licence to bottle their own products on site. They set-up a small line bottling system, primarily geared towards the bottling of single casks. Although the actual bottling of whisky is semi-automated, the emphasis is very much a hands-on operation, with hand labeling and packing of products. To add to the exclusivity of their bottlings, they often declare the cask number, date of distillation,and date of bottling on our labels. In addition,each bottle is individually hand numbered.
It is their aim, as an independent bottler to offer a range of whiskies, some of which are not bottled by the proprietor of a particular distillery, and some at different ages/strengths to those offered as distillery bottlings. The majority of their bottlings are the product of single casks, with the malt whisky enthusiast being given the opportunity to sample the subtle differences which occur with each different cask.
The name of Signatory derived from the fact that their initial intention was to find someone famous to sign the labels for bottles produced from one single cask. The first cask we purchased was a cask of 1968 Glenlivet, which was sold long before we could find a famous person.
Until April 1992, when they moved to their current premises in Newhaven (Edinburgh), they operated from a bonded warehouse in Leith. Leith was once a well known port for importing wine from France. As this industry declined, many of the whisky companies began to occupy the old warehouses for cask storage purposes. In recent years, this has also declined, with the larger companies moving to the west of Edinburgh, where transport links are better.
The company was founded in 1988. It is a family owned and managed company, being one of only three true independent bottlers. They always like to draw a distinction between the independent companies who bottle their own products, and the independent companies whose products are bottled under contract. The other fully independent bottlers are: Gordon & MacPhail and Wm. Cadenhead.
from Whisky-Distilleries.info