Speyside 18 Yrs - Cigar Malt Series

A little piece of history

Speyside distillery started to produce in 1990 but its history goes back to 1956 when George Christie acquired a piece of land near Kingussie. He commissioned dry stone dyker Alex Fairlie to hand build a distillery on the site, which work commenced in 1962. It took 28 years to complete the works, during which time the distillery changes ownership. The company was taken over two more times and is now owned by Harvey’s of Edinburgh International.

In 2025 production will cease altogether, the buildings will be taken down and a new distillery (which will bear a different name) will arise about 20 miles from the current site. So, all Speyside single malts bottled by Saltire will come from a ‘lost’ distillery, which makes these expressions truly Rare!

Water source

River Tromie

Malt source

Commercial maltsters.

Capacity

600,000 litres of alcohol per annum

Location

Kingussie, Highlands

Map (source googlemaps.com)

Beautiful copper colour. At first notes of resin, unripe pineapple and spicy oak appear, followed by maple syrup on pancakes, adding sweetness to a malty background. Then a funny sweet-bitter note, like a maraschino cherry infused with angostura bitters, followed by milk chocolate, hazelnut and a hint of liquorice in the finish.

Quite an interesting dram.

1 semi-lauter mash tun (4.2 ton)

6 stainless steel washbacks

fermentation time 70 hours short and 120
hours long

1 wash still

1 spirit still