Glenallachie’s Meikle Tòir Trio

I know I am. I’m proud of the team too. With each new article our catalogue grows and we take another tiny step forward in relevance for today’s whisky consumer. Now that there are so many articles built up, the background traffic noise is building too. With some additional fine tuning to toss those search engines the treats they desire, we could build that further.

It means that every day, at any moment, someone is reading, sharing, browsing, editing or fettling the site. It’s rewarding to witness. It’s almost as if it’s become something sentient. There’s a pulse, a vibe and, through the comments section, a crucial growing sense of community too.

Certainly, it means Wally can take his hand off the tiller from time to time, which is just as well, as has been the obvious case recently. Yet, with a sharp-eyed team in place, dangerous obstacles are mostly avoided. Despite continuing to build and edit articles in the background almost daily, I’ve really not been able to give the site the attention it deserves, but in the past week or so that’s changing once more. The decks have been cleared of other big and distracting projects and I can settle into something of a routine again. For some weeks ahead at least.

I suppose what I’m saying is that things have gelled quite nicely, and we’ll continue the grind to build that relevance and pedigree, and hone our value, it is not dependent on a single voice. We are a team.

One of the most interesting aspects for me has been bringing in perspectives from those less experienced. That’s a surprise, but not completely so. I always believed that it had a value, even if I’m enjoying just how well that’s been received. I remember my own first, tentative steps into whisky, back in the days where everything I seemed to find was either aloof, brand-led or in the voice of an ‘expert’.

There were spaces for enthusiasts, certainly, and I remember the halcyon days of Malt Madness and the Malt Maniacs, but it all still had a sense of distance. Whisky Fun is still going strong, and fortified by Angus, but these were places that seemed to be for those ‘in the know’ with no obvious way to interact. It was a few too many rungs up the knowledge ladder; and consumption over connectedness. Which is, of course, all fine.

There was an excellent platform in the Whisky, Whisky, Whisky Forum, which is still on the go today, and that felt a little more like I could reach honest, like-minded sorts to glean everything I could to make each new purchase a little more worthy, but for the most part I do recall feeling a little left to my own devices.

Eventually, I met a whisky pal and we studied like we were the maniacs, meeting weekly to share new purchases and deliver executive summaries to each other about the new bottles at hand and what had motivated us to invest in them. Every single bottle was eagerly opened. Quiet, but smug, contentment was the prize should one of us uncover a ‘stoater’.

Oh how we’d have loved a Dramface back then to share our new discoveries, especially at a time when they were so much more affordable. In the end, what I eventually found was a whisky club, WhiskyTube and even more whisky pals. That’s when the learnin’ really kicked into gear.

Pals like the folk behind the scenes at Dramface. In the background, they are chattering away and their knowledge plain is rising. With shared information and more experiences in whisky exploration, we each read each other’s thoughts through our group chat as well as each other’s articles. However, if we were to consider that it’s the more experienced among us that are teaching the less so, we’d be quite wrong. That’s not the case. Everyone you meet in whisky can teach you something you don’t yet know, and amongst our team the knowledge pool swells as we feed off each other and the excellent feedback from you, the reader. 

Last week, we released our 700th review and we recorded our busiest ever week over the last few days. Meanwhile, our paying subscribers grow in support of what we do. In time, we’ll get creative in finding ways to shine a little light of gratitude back their way, but in the meantime thank you to all of you who seem to buy into honest, independent opinions from the ground up.

Anyway, I say all of that to say this; we’re here to stay. Even if you’ve not heard from Wally in a while, I’m here, building away and grinning at the terrific content, stories and individualistic takes on whisky and its myriad forms. I think it’s needed now more than ever, with things as complex as they’ve ever been, it’s hard to keep up; even for a maniacal whisky botherer like me.

Take these three bottles from Glenallachie. They seemed to drop, unannounced, from Billy Walker’s whisky sky and I, for one, was surprised. By a couple of things.

Firstly, I was surprised by the new branding, especially after 2022’s Glenallachie four year old peated release. Coming five years after the takeover of the distillery from previous owners Chivas Brothers, this was the first official release of “Billy’s spirit’. Despite its £80 and upwards price tag, it vanished into whisky vapours. I got nowhere close to a bottle.

I have since had the opportunity to try it a little and it was truly a flavour bomb; estery, fermentation-forward bread and fruit towered over the peat smoke. I was looking forward to more. Then, in September this year, along came a completely new brand to build; Meikle Tòir, which apparently means ‘big pursuit’. Well, there’s no doubt it is.

I know it’s fashionable to have your peated whisky definable as a separate brand, much like Longrow, Ballechin, Cù Bòcan, Old Ballantruan, Port Charlotte and many, many more, which are all released as peated versions and do not bear the names of their respective distilleries. Still, building brands takes a lot of resources and it’s a very emotive thing. I can’t help thinking they’d have made a bigger splash branded as Glenallachie, especially with their already heavily-invested and eager fanbase. Still, they have their reasons and what do I know?

Then there was the choice to release not one or two, but four different expressions at the same time. Rather than spread the releases and lessen the wallet-bashing a little with a core-range fulcrum, followed by a few specials, out popped all four at once. Boof.

As well as these three we have an additional small-batch, super-peated expression called The Turbo at 50% ABV, which has a much tighter middle-cut and a peat phenols count of 71ppm, apparently.

The PR releases from Glenallachie’s agency at the time quote this as ‘spirit PPM’ which suggests that’s what’s in the bottle. If that’s true, and not an error, that is extremely hefty. Keep in mind most phenol specs banded around are based on malt PPM – before it’s mashed, fermented and distilled. The bottling PPM value is usually much, much lower. In any case, these remain numbers, it’s how it lands on the palate that matters.

The rest of my surprise with these releases would be better described as pure delight. Firstly, every bottle carries a bold and confident age statement of 5 years. Wonderful. But to make it loud and clear who these bottles are laser-focused toward, they also declare non-chill filtered and natural colour statements on the bottle label. Icing this smoky cake are mighty bottling strengths of 48% ABV for The Chinkapin One and The Sherry One with the aforementioned Turbo and The Original being treated to 50% ABV. Would you like a little cherry on that cake?

They were all released at £50. In today’s opportunistic playground, for brand new whisky, that is a reassuring gesture and one which encouraged this fat-fingered whisky botherer to head out and pick up all three. This recipe is right on the money, with pin-sharp and on-the-pulse choices to capture the attention of the modern flavour-chaser and natural whisky zeitgeist.

All that’s left is for the cake to taste nice. Let’s take a wee bite.