How Tall are Glenmorangie’s Stills?

The pot stills at Glenmorangie Distillery are 5.14 metres tall. That’s 16 feet, 10 inches. 

Or, the average length of a fully grown giraffe🦒, so they say.

At that height, they are the tallest pot stills in Scotch whisky, and one of the largest in the world. They’re quite a spectacle, and they also significantly contribute to the flavour of the whisky. 

The Glenmorangie’s tall, tall pot stills

Installed in the 1840s, they were originally second-hand gin stills. The effect of the extra height contributes to mucho copper contact, which in turn creates what we call “reflux” in whisky. 

Nothing to do with acid, it’s instead the process where rising alcohol vapors inside the still cools, condenses, and then tumbles back into the pot where it’s re-distilled. This repeated cycle refines the spirit. 

This is very simplified, but basically higher reflux = lighter, more floral whisky. Lower reflux = richer, oilier spirit.

All that tallboy reflux helps Glenmorangie create a very elegant, super fruity, and floral spirit. The signature orange citrus note is already present at this stage alongside orchard fruits like ripe pear, soft fruits like apricot and peach, floral aromas of honeysuckle and rose, as well as subtle spicy notes alongside a mentholic freshness. Yum. 

A little less giraffe, a little more Ford

In order to articulate how tall they are, the giraffe comparison makes for a very clever, simple bit of marketing. Perhaps, a little too good. The Glenmorangie Co. might prefer that people talk about basically anything else. Like its three-year partnership with Hollywood icon Harrison Ford, or its multi-million-pound investments in Ardbeg House or The Lighthouse. Not dead tall stills. Like a giraffe they are. Fuck, I just did it again, didn’t I?  

This probably isn’t something somebody in a marketing team should admit, but it’s hard to get people talking about what you want them to talk about. Just ask Glenturret Distillery. The Highland distillery has been trying to position itself as a Macallan-esque luxury brand in the Lalique-era. That doesn’t stop distillery tourists from incessantly asking them about their cutey-wutey lil cat Towser, who massacred generations of mice (28,889 supposedly) with her adorable toe beans. This wasn’t just wanton Jerry-cide, cats have been “employed” (I don’t think they’re paid, just room and board) by distilleries for generations to prevent mice from eating barley.

Towser holds a Guinness World Record and has a statue at the distillery. You can’t really knock it down either, then all the questions become, “Where did the cat statue go?” This is a distillery that today has a 2* Michelin restaurant, and Towser has been dead since 1987 (sorry to break that to you if that’s news). But despite what the modern Glenturret wants its image to be, a perfectly seared scallop will rarely win a PR fight against a fluffy-wuffy kitty. People see cat statue, they ask about cat. We are really very simple in the end.

How tall are Glenmorangie’s stills?

We also all know that giraffes are tall. But they’re not one uniform height. According to the Tsavo Trust, a Kenyan not-for-profit conservation organisation, male giraffes reach an average height of 4.6 to 6 meters (15-20 feet) and females measure slightly shorter at 4 to 5.2 meters (13-17 feet). And why would they lie? Trust is in the name.

This whole height thing is a can of worms, not a giraffe’s neck. Luckily, we’re the incredibly helpful sort, and so we’ve decided to do a rich bit of research (Googling “Name things that are 5.14 metres tall” and writing down the answers) so that Glenmo has a few more accurate comparisons to hand. And they don’t have to keep mentioning giraffes.

These examples work at least 60% of the time, everytime.

Glenmorangie’s stills are as tall as…

The Royal Air Force Puma HC2 helicopter

5,140 1mm-thick slices of processed cheese, stacked

About three-and-a-half Danny DeVitos. Also stacked.

 

You’re welcome, Glenmo.