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Our mezze platter overflowed with pork souvlaki skewers, lamb kofta, kalamata olives, tzatziki and muhammara (red pepper and walnut spread) for pitta bread. On the sweet and herbaceous palate we enjoyed a sip of krasomelo, a Greek mulled wine made with Metaxa brandy. After reduction we stayed in the Mediterranean with classic Neapolitan wafer biscuits and saffron buns on the nose, while to taste a sweet vibe of whipped Greek-style yoghurt with crunchy honey fudge clusters. After 11 years in a bourbon hogshead, we transferred this whisky into a first fill barrique from a privately owned small bodega, now in its ninth generation, that focuses exclusively on the Pedro Ximanez grape.
About Blair Athol
A member of the ‘nutty-spicy’ camp which defined the old Bell’s distilleries, Blair Athol takes the first part of the descriptor to its boldest expression.
Cloudy worts and a short fermentation time give the nutty base, but it is distillation which adds real weight to the distillate. A controlled level of solids coming across in the wash still add a rich, deep, malt-loaf character to the new make. It is this character which allows it to show so well in ex-Sherry, although for blending purposes the majority of the make is destined for ex-Bourbon.
The central Perthshire town of Pitlochry sits on the banks of the River Tay and has had a distillery since 1798, making its plant one of the oldest legal whisky-making sites in Scotland. The original distillery was named Aldour after the burn which supplied it with process water, but changed its name to Blair Athol [after a village seven miles to the north] in 1825. This could conceivably have been to sweeten the Duke of Athol who owned the land
It became part of the Peter Mackenzie blending house in 1886, but like many distilleries suffered during the economic troubles of the 1930s and fell silent between 1932 and 1949. In the interim period however Mackenzie (and its estate, which also included Dufftown distillery) had been bought by Perth-based blender, Arthur Bell & Sons.
By the 1970s, Bell’s was being built into the UK’s top-selling blended Scotch and, as a result, Blair Athol was doubled in capacity. Guinness (which bought Bell’s in 1985, and after further mergers evolved into Diageo) opened a visitor’s centre in 1987.
In an attempt to tap into the then infant single malt market, Bell’s bottled it as an eight-year-old in the 1980s, but in the Diageo era it has only appeared as a member of the Flora & Fauna range (at 12 years of age), matured in first-fill ex-Sherry casks.
59.4% ABV
70cl
