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Barley
Barley is the ballast of malt whisky. The barley
for Aberlour is mainly Scottish, harvested from the fertile barley-growing
region that stretches down the eastern flank of Scotland from
the Moray Firth to the English border. Distillery manager Alan
Winchester closely monitors the quality of the grain: plump spring
barley is the best for malting.
The traditional malting process is carried out by
local maltsters, to Aberlour's exacting standard and specifications.
The moistened barley is allowed to germinate slowly and evenly
in meticulously controlled conditions. After about one week, when
the barley is judged to be in perfect condition, the germination
is stopped and the malt is delicately dried over a fire of peat
and warm air. On its arrival at the distillery the malted barley
is further screened to remove any impurities. Only then is it
ready for the mill room, where it will be ground into grist before
joining the magically pure spring water in the mash tun.
Barnard, Alfred
A London journalist and whisky enthusiast,
Alfred Barnard embarked on a remarkable odyssey in the 1880s,
setting out to visit every distillery in the UK with a view to
recording his impressions in book form. In all he visited 129
distilleries in Scotland, 28 in Ireland and four in England, describing
each one and the whisky it produced in meticulous detail. Travelling
by road, rail and steamer - sometimes by horse and buggy or on
foot in the remoter areas - and in all kinds of weather, he journeyed
the length and breath of Scotland. His book The Whisky Distilleries
of the United Kingdom has become an indispensable reference for
those studying the history of whisky.
On route to Aberlour he admired the "magnificent
iron bridge" (built by Thomas Telford) at Craigellachie.
Aberlour he described as "a charming village", and he
was very impressed with the distillery, noting the absence of
steam power - "the continuous flow of water being sufficient
to drive all the machinery". Barnard would be comforted to
know that the water still flows continuously at Aberlour, as does
the whisky.
Ben Rinnes
Rising out of the windswept, heather-covered
moors, Ben Rinnes (841m/2759ft) dominates the skyline to the southwest
of Aberlour. Known to locals as "The Ben", and once
the haunt of whisky smugglers and fearsome outlaws, it is a popular
location for hill climbers with accessible tracks on its lower
slopes made by generations of peat-cutters. The crystal-clear
spring water that tumbles down the steep, rugged hillside makes
its way via waterfalls and bubbling streams to the Lour burn and
thence to the distillery, where it becomes a vital ingredient
of Aberlour malt whisky.
Boyd, David
Chivas Bros' chief blender, or "noser",
and the person responsible for selecting Aberlour malt whisky
for bottling once it has matured in oak casks. David Boyd's judgement
and experience are crucial in ensuring that the whisky remains
consistently of the same high standard year after year. It was
David who created the rich, dark and stunningly different a'bunadh,
having set himself the objective of making a whisky comparable
in style and method to that produced by distillery founder James
Fleming.
Burns Night
On 25 January each year, at thousands of venues
throughout Scotland (and wherever else in the world Scots are
to be found), the life and poetry of Robert Burns are celebrated
at the traditional Burns Supper. Highlight of the evening is the
piped entry of the haggis (to the words of Burns' poem "Address
to a Haggis"), which is ceremoniously "stabbed"
before being carved and served to the guests - along with "champit
tatties" (mashed potatoes) and "bash'd neeps" (turnips).
To a strict order of events, the bard's poetry is read aloud and
toasts are drunk to one and all with a dram or two of his beloved
whisky.
Burns, Robert
Although he had no direct connection with Aberlour,
Robert Burns is associated in spirit with every Scottish whisky
distiller. Burns, Scotland's greatest poet and a national hero,
had a love affair with whisky that lasted all his life ("O
thou, my Muse! guid auld Scotch Drink!"). He sang its praises
in song and verse, and drank copious amounts of the stuff. It
therefore went somewhat against the grain when Burns became an
excise officer, collecting the unpopular whisky tax and pursuing
illicit distillers. But he never ceased to be the people's poet
or a romantic. When, in 1792, he and his men captured a whisky
smugglers' vessel, the Rosamond, near the Solway Firth, Burns
purchased four of the ship's guns to donate to the French revolutionaries.
At the time of his untimely death, in 1796 at the
age of 37, Robert Burns had written some 600 poems, among them
the immortal "Auld Lang Syne" and the exquisitely romantic
"My Love is like a Red, Red Rose". Not bad for an exciseman.
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