KingSmono
Enlightened
I recently got back from a 2-week trip to Scotland with my father. We were retracing our roots, and spent much time in a tiny town called Buckie, Scotland. Not far from Buckie is the River Spey, which is the water used in many Scotch distilleries. So as you can imagine, there are literally dozens of distilleries in this tiny section of Scotland, all along this river. We went on a tour of the Glenfiddich Distillery, and we also went to the Glenlivet Distillery (which was closed because it was out of season.). The tour of Glenfiddich really made me appreciate all that goes into making a bottle of Scotch! The youngest bottle they have, literally sits on their property undisturbed for a minimum of 12 years... and the oldest is 30 years. (I think they have some rare/limited edition bottles that are older, but for the most part, 30 years is the max.)
It's hard to imagine drinking a bottle of scotch that's older than me! But at Glenfiddich, the Scotch-making process is nearly IDENTICAL to the way their great-great-great-great-great grandfather made it back in the 1800's. They're super-paranoid about changing ANY aspect of the process, for fear that it will change the end-result. So, they still do stuff by hand, and use the same types of wood in all of their tanks, as opposed to using computers to automate the process, and using much longer-lasting stainless steel tanks, etc.
At the end of the tour, we all got a dram of their 12-year old reserve. And since then, I've had a few other types of Scotch. I'm slowly acquiring the taste, and I think I'd eventually like to start a higher-end Scotch collection.
Do you Scotch Connoisseurs have any favorites that you'd recommend to start my collection?
It's hard to imagine drinking a bottle of scotch that's older than me! But at Glenfiddich, the Scotch-making process is nearly IDENTICAL to the way their great-great-great-great-great grandfather made it back in the 1800's. They're super-paranoid about changing ANY aspect of the process, for fear that it will change the end-result. So, they still do stuff by hand, and use the same types of wood in all of their tanks, as opposed to using computers to automate the process, and using much longer-lasting stainless steel tanks, etc.
At the end of the tour, we all got a dram of their 12-year old reserve. And since then, I've had a few other types of Scotch. I'm slowly acquiring the taste, and I think I'd eventually like to start a higher-end Scotch collection.
Do you Scotch Connoisseurs have any favorites that you'd recommend to start my collection?