{"id":29206,"date":"2020-05-21T09:53:06","date_gmt":"2020-05-21T08:53:06","guid":{"rendered":"\/blog\/post\/lessons-in-sherry-casks-with-tamdhu\/"},"modified":"2020-05-26T10:02:15","modified_gmt":"2020-05-26T09:02:15","slug":"lessons-in-sherry-casks-with-tamdhu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.masterofmalt.com\/blog\/post\/lessons-in-sherry-casks-with-tamdhu\/","title":{"rendered":"Lessons in sherry casks with Tamdhu"},"content":{"rendered":"

We take a lesson in the complexities of sherry cask-ageing with one of the very few single malts that is entirely aged in sherry casks, Tamdhu in Speyside.<\/b><\/p>\n

The last tasting I attended in person before lockdown was with Gordon Dundas, brand ambassador from Tamdhu. We met in a tiny room in London: a few writers, lots of whisky and no social distancing. At the time it was fun and enlightening, looking back, it seems almost miraculous that such a thing was possible.<\/span><\/p>\n

Tamdhu<\/a> has to be one of Speyside\u2019s least-known distilleries. Dundas said that he\u2019d never even heard of it before he got the job at Ian McLeod Distillers<\/a>, the parent company. \u201cEven whisky people don’t know Tamdhu\u201d, Dundas said. \u201cWe are not an old distillery,\u201d he continued, \u201cwhen the distillery opened in 1897, it was the most modern distillery of its time.\u201d Tamdhu nearly disappeared a couple of times: no distillation took place between 1925 to 1947 and then after a period of expansion in the 1970s, it was mothballed by the Edrington Group in 2010. Ian McLeod acquired the distillery in 2011 and production resumed the following year. The company, Scotland\u2019s second largest family-run distillers, now owns three whisky distilleries, Tamdhu, Glengoyne, and the soon to be reborn Rosebank<\/a>, along with brands such as Smokehead<\/a>, Sheep Dip<\/a> and Edinburgh Gin<\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Sandy McIntyre and Gordon Dundas<\/p><\/div>\n

The distillery:<\/span><\/h6>\n

At Tamdhu there\u2019s capacity to produce four million litres of pure alcohol per year, 85% of this goes into blends. The rest is put into sherry casks to be sold as a single malt. Despite the rather trendy looking St. Germain<\/a>-style bottles, introduced in 2013, it\u2019s marketed very much at the single malt lover. There\u2019s no line about demystifying the category or changing whisky\u2019s image. Dundas commented: \u201cWe\u2019re after the whisky drinker. We\u2019re not trying to convert people nor are we after the cocktail market.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

While sister distillery Glengoyne<\/a> packs in 90,000 visitors per year, Tamdhu doesn\u2019t even have a visitor centre. According to Dunadas it would cost \u00a31million and they would rather spend the money on sherry casks. He also added: \u201cWe are not a pretty distillery\u201d. The whole operation is automated. Dundas told us little about the process: \u201cwe heat the stills slowly. It\u2019s a very different whisky when stills get too hot. It\u2019s more of a simmer than a boil which gives us lots of reflux. Historically people used to whack the stills on full power.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The new make certainly tasted good. We tried it at 66.9% ABV and it showed lots of cereal character and green minty notes. Water brought out a creamy texture. You wouldn\u2019t know it but Tamdhu uses a tiny amount of peated barley because, according to Dundas, that\u2019s what\u2019s always been done.<\/span><\/p>\n