WHISKY REVIEWS, NEWS, HISTORY & FOLKLORE
Where it all began?
A Scot on Scotch visits Bladnoch Distillery and reviews the Bladnoch 16 year old Single Malt Scotch Whisky.
I visited my first distillery in 2010. I’d been exploring whisky for a while by that point but mostly whatever I could find in my local supermarket. It was a natural progression, therefore, to head to a distillery and see whisky being made up close.
In my usual chaotic style, there was no grand plan to start checking off distilleries, I just waited for an opportunity and one presented itself when a family holiday took me to Dumfries & Galloway. Specifically, to the village of Glenluce.
17 miles away lay Wigtown, home of Bladnoch Distillery and we had soon booked a tour. I wish I could remember more about that visit but the details have become a bit foggy in my whisky-addled brain. I remember the bottle I took home though. It was an 18 year old, matured in sherry and it had a black-face sheep on the label…
It was a phenomenal dram and I later ended up with a second bottle when my Grandfather decided he didn’t like the one he had acquired! It was a different beast altogether, a 6 year old Lightly Peated expression that was good, but not quite up to the standard of the 18!
I’ve had a soft spot for Bladnoch since that formative experience. I was saddened to hear that it went into administration in 2014 and happy when it was revived by Australian entrepreneur, David Prior, in 2017. Once the distillery was back up and running, I knew I needed to book a return trip.
Then life got in the way. The return trip took a long time to materialise. I came close a couple of times – even booked accommodation in Dumfries & Galloway in 2020 but had to cancel it due to the pandemic and the ban on travel. This year, however, I finally made it back to where it all began.
A rollercoaster of an experience!
This time our summer staycation took us to Portpatrick, a mere 45 minute drive from Bladnoch. What a joy it was to pull into the distillery car park and have memories flooding back. I even had a flashback of a delicious bowl of soup enjoyed at the Bladnoch Inn some 15 years before.
A lot has changed since 2010. When the distillery closed, the equipment, stills included, were stripped out and when the new owners re-opened, they changed the layout. Sadly, I wasn’t quite able to recall the old setup (whisky-addled brain, remember), and my guide couldn’t offer much assistance on that point, which was a shame.
It was an enjoyable, if basic, tour. We didn’t seem to go into an awful lot of depth but it was a standard tour so that is to be expected. We booked that experience because there didn’t seem to be anything else available. A more detailed tour for the whisky geek would have been very welcome and the warehouse space seemed to cry out for a warehouse tasting!
For a small additional fee we were able to add extra drams to our tasting at the end, which was great. Not so great was the lack of seating in the tasting room. It isn’t right to expect people to stand as they sample their way through five whiskies after being on their feet for the duration of the tour. It was fine for me, but not so ideal for my 71-year-old Father, who was looking forward to relaxing with his drams in a comfy chair.
As for the whiskies, this is where the trip was well worth the time and money. Historically, Bladnoch can be a wee bit hit and miss. It’s always been a distillery just as capable of greatness as it is calamity, but the quality of the drams on offer to us was of a high standard. I tasted my way through some new make and sampled the Vinaya, Samsara, 16 year old, Liora and even a bonus sample of The Wave.
Tasting the new make was, as always, an exercise in curiosity rather than an enjoyable sipping experience. The Vinaya is a light, grassy, inoffensive breakfast dram. Samsara dials things up a little in terms of flavour intensity and depth and then things got really interesting with the 16, Liora and The Wave. Each of them were very pleasant drams. In the end, I opted for a bottle of the 16-year-old. It wasn’t cheap at £110 but I felt it was enjoyable enough to carry the price.
Sadly, a further issue became apparent as we returned to the café where my ever-patient wife, and designated driver, waited for us. She had decided to have some lunch whilst we toured, only to be served a sandwich full of mouldy cheese. The staff refunded her, of course, but that was the least they could have done.
It was a day of mixed feelings then. A warm nostalgia at returning to the distillery where it all began, and happiness at seeing it in such good condition, not to mention joy at the quality of the drams we were given… but there was also a nagging feeling that things could have been better.
Bladnoch, I love you, but you need to offer more than the basic tour and you definitely need to put seating in the tasting room. Palatable food in Café Melba would be a nice addtion, too.
Bladnoch 16 Year Old Review
The Bladnoch 16 Year Old is matured in oloroso sherry casks and bottled at 46.7%.
Tasting notes: The sherry is present as soon as you put your nose to the glass, you get all the dried fruits and spices of oloroso, there’s also a slightly meaty, savoury note in there that’s interesting and there’s a good dollop of dark chocolate with burnt caramel, brown sugar and new leather. On the palate, it’s on the lighter side where body is concerned, with a silky texture, and a full-on sherry cask flavour profile – think raisins, sultanas, prunes, figs, tobacco, orange zest, and more dark chocolate. With a wee splash of water, the sherry parts just enough to reveal some honeyed malt and subtle apple and pear notes.
Thoughts: The sherry dominates but even at 16 years in cask, it doesn’t completely swamp the Bladnoch spirit. If you really look, the grassy, fruity flavour profile is still in there. I’d love to be able to compare this with the 18-year-old I bought back in 2011 but that’s not to be. I suspect that it would be a radically different experience because this feels like a different direction for Bladnoch. It’s richer and more luxurious than I’ve encountered before. No doubt deliberately so, to appeal to the premium buyer. As much as this premiumisation of Scotch whisky irks me, I can’t deny that this is a cracking dram.
Price: £110. It’s expensive. There’s no getting away from that. Especially so when compared to say, the Glendronach 15 year old, which is of a similar makeup and costs £80. Bladnoch remind me a bit of Glenturret. Like Glenturret, the lowland distillery has placed a former Macallan Master Blender in charge of whisky creation and that tells you all you need to know about the market they’re aiming for. Bladnoch is doing a bit better than Glenturret on price, however. The Crieff distillery’s current 15 year old will set you back £165. At £110, the Bladnoch 16 is a steal by comparison. The cold hard truth is, however, that neither should be costing anything like the sums they are and I wonder how long they will remain thus, if whisky sales continue on their current trajectory. Time will tell!
*One other comment on Bladnoch. The big cork top looks and feels great but I worry that it might be a bit of a hazard. The bottles are big and chunky with very little of a neck. You’re encouraged to lift from the top and gravity must surely step in at some point to pull the bottle earthwards. What is it with the need for ever chunkier whisky bottles?
More Bladnoch? Click here for my review of Alinta.
For more about Bladnoch visit here
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