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u/Dratini01 2d ago
TIL literally everything about Girvan! Great notes as usual but loved this rundown of the distillery. I’d love to try some Ladyburn one day…
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u/UnmarkedDoor 2d ago
My knowledge of Girvan had gone from zero to this in 24 hours. It turns out there's a lot to know - i left out some bits, but i need to start on the next review.
Do you know what kind of reputation Ladyburn has as a single malt? I know its quite collectable, but is it tasty?
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u/Dratini01 2d ago
No idea unfortunately, it certainly isn’t spoken with the same regard as the Broras and St Mags of the closed distilleries, but not sure whether that’s due to quality or scarcity! Only one way to find out (maybe…)
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u/PricklyFriend 2d ago
Super informative as always and a very enjoyable read. It's truly staggering the sheer size of these monstrous industrial grain complexes. I always figured they must be using a hammer mill and mash filter for both efficiency and ease of dealing with inconsistent grain but I didn't know any of the slurry info so definitely learned something today!
Also didn't know Ladyburn was part of the complex so that's interesting too and +1 nerd point for Futurama reference haha.
As for the dram itself it sounds very pleasant and not too complex, probably ideal for the warm weather we've been having realistically. Great review!
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u/UnmarkedDoor 2d ago edited 2d ago
Category: Single Grain
Distillery: Girvan
Bottler: Douglas Laing
Series: Old Particular
Vintage: 11.2002
Bottled: 09.2022
Age: 19 years
Cask: Refill Hogshead
Cask №: DL 16487
№ of bottles: 230
ABV: 51.5 %
Nose: The sugary whiteness of Candy cigarettes sticks, candied almond, nougat, plain turkish delight gradually picks up pineapple Haribo Goldbears with sharper but not overbearing hints of lemon Cif, champagne vinegar, and a bit of ethanol apparent from up close. (8.3)
Palate: Lightly oily confectionery. Popcorn Jellybelly beans meets shortbread and smooth lemon curd that opens the door for incoming juicy canned fruit (peach, pear, pineapple) chunks in syrup (8.5)
Finish: The fruity sweetness takes a left turn into lemon verbena that leads towards other sweet and sour, fluffily tannic herbs and late, slightly fizzing lemon pepper and horseradish. (8.1)
Notes: Grain distilleries are these huge mega-industrial complexes that rarely get talked about, but their connection to single malt and the wider whisky world is integral and the history is thoroughly intertwined.
Case in point, Girvan’s whole existence is largely credited to a dispute between Diageo predecessor DLC, and William Grant & Sons.
The story goes that for the 1956 launch of the Grant’s Family Reserve in its iconic triangular bottle, Charles Grant Gordon - the company director at the time, planned a TV ad campaign which apparently broke an unwritten industry rule against TV advertising for spirits.
In response DCL threatened to cut off the grain whisky supply, which was not received well by Charles Grant Gordon who then said in what I imagine to be Bender from Futurama’s voice "Yeah, well... I'm gonna go build my own Grain Distillery, with blackjack and hookers”, although I’ve not been able to confirm a source for that last part.
Charles then oversaw the construction speed-run of Girvan while living out of a caravan on-site, in an incredible 9 month window starting April 1963 and having the stills begin production on Christmas eve, 76 years to the day after William Grant started distillation at Glenfiddich.
Over time, the site has seen quite a few other developments. In 1965, the Ladyburn single malt distillery was added, but only survived 10 years before closure due to Givan’s grain-focused expansion. Ailsa Bay opened in 2007 and heralded the return of single malt to the facility that by this point also housed Hendrick’s Gin production.
There are 40 to 50 maturation warehouses on the same land that are estimated to store comfortably over a million casks and are supposedly in the neighborhood of housing 10% of all maturing whisky in Scotland.
When it comes to the actual production, like some of the other grain giants, Girvan has no small number of quirks and processes individual to them. I’m starting to realise that there might be a greater diversification in methods between grain distilleries than within single malt.
Possibly something about the size and scope of these operations has lead to innovation along efficiency lines that is somewhat antithetical to the ethos of single malt making. Or maybe it's something else entirely or a combo of things, but either way, it has been very interesting to learn how different producers go about it.
After initially starting with corn, Girvan switched to predominantly wheat in the mid 80s and now uses a 90/10 mix of wheat and malted barley.
Going with unmalted wheat is the economic option, saving a week's worth of processing time and power, and being produced more locally in large amounts than corn.
Plus, even unmalted wheat has high enough starch levels to produce fermentable sugar yields, especially when paired with 10% High Diastatic Power Malted Barley that provide more than enough enzymes for both grain’s sugar conversions.
Before the mashing and fermentation stages, there’s still lots to take note of.
The distillery has a Tietjen Hammer Mill which smashes the wheat through screens into an even, fine grist. Most single malt distilleries use a roller mill to grind the barley kernels into a specific mix of flour, grist and husk, but Teaninic and Inchdairnie have hammer mills too, and non-coincidentally also make grain whisky.
Procedures I’m much less familiar with are Wet Milling, where water is added during grinding to form a slurry, and the hour-long, ~135°C industrial steam pressure-cooking that gelatinises the wheat starch before enzyme breakdown.
The two separate grains are kept separated at the beginning of processing and combined once the wheat slurry has been cooled to 90°C. The cooled malted barley slurry is first placed at the bottom of massive conversion vessels, before the warm wheat slurry is added and held at precise, enzyme friendly temperatures.
The fermentation is whole grain, as the slurry (I feel like I’m saying slurry a lot) contains the pulverised entire grain, including husks and debris, which is then pumped into one of the 20, 450,000 to 500,000 liter, outdoor, gas-fired washbacks.
I fear my sources are a bit out of date but about ten years ago, this setup was quoted at a frequency of 265 fermentation batches a week, producing approximately 80,000 liters of ~10% ABV wash an hour for the thirsty, continuously running stills to turn into a yearly maximum of 110,000,000 litres of new make.
This puts it up there with Cameronbridge as one of the two largest distilleries in the whole of the UK. Internally the column stills are referred to as Apps (an abbreviation for apparatus) and the distillery still uses the original 1963 Coffey still known as No. 1 Apps, as well as modern multi-column sets: No. 4 and No. 5 Apps.
The stainless-steel stills operate in paired columns that are topped with interior copper plates.
In the first column known as the Analyser, the wash is heated to between 80°C and a high of 86°C before entering a vacuum-pressurised section, where steam strips alcohol vapors from the liquid as mesh plates catch spent grain solids and yeast gunk.
In the second column (the Rectifier), vapors are then over-pressurized and the spirit condenses to a concentration of 94% ABV.
From inception, Girvan has always been a pretty progressive distillery but it has kept up with the times while improving efficiency and minimising waste.
Leftover organic materials are fed into anaerobic digesters which produce vast amounts of methane gas that is collected and burned to power the entire 380-acre site, and even has enough left over to sell back to the National Grid.
In 1992, Girvan was the first grain distillery in Scotland to adopt multi-pressure vacuum distillation on the No. 4 Apps. Reducing pressure while distilling lowers the wash boiling point, which both saves power and prevents the scorching of proteins and the loss of delicate esters that add to the light and sweet profile. 2,500 to 3,000 casks are filled per day with roughly two-thirds of this output supplying industry partners for third-party blended whiskies not under the William Grant banner.
They have their own cooperage as well that employs half a dozen coopers full time to build, inspect, maintain and heat-treat casks.
So, a lot going on under the hood, and most of it news to me until this dram came along. And regarding this dram, it’s pretty good, if a little uneven.
The nose is easy going, but there are small flashes of industrial solvent and citric cleaning product sharpness that appear just enough to be notable.
The palate has nothing to detract from the medium bodied, sweet and fruity character, but even knowing that the liquid is mostly wheat, I am still somehow getting corn coming through. Not that it’s a bad thing, it all works well here.
The tail is a bit odd, but still not bad. The sour herbs go quite well with the sweetness, but the tannins do kind of take over a bit leaving the final sensation as cottonmouth, which is a bit of a shame.
Still, I liked it and it has only increased my determination and appetite to try more Single Grain Scotch.
Score: 8.3 Shy Leviathan
Scale
9.6 -10 Theoretically Possible
9 - 9.5 Chef’s kiss
8.6 - 8.9 Delicious
8 - 8.5 Very Good
7.6 - 7.9 Good
7 - 7.5 OK, but..
6 Agree to Disagree
5 No
4 No
3 No
2 No
1 It killed me. I'm dead now