Glenmorangie
Single Highland Rare Malt Scotch Whisky
Few distilleries have been as transformed I the malt explosion as Glenmorangie. ‘In til 1970s there were two stills and we were selling five cases of malt a year,” says manager Graham Eunson. ‘Now we’ve go( eight stills, we’re the biggest selling malt in little chance that success will breed complacency here on the northeast coast; for this is a firm that is forever asking why trying out new ideas, trying to grasp the elusive secret of Scotch. You might expect space-age control panels, but you won’t find any.
‘I’ve yet to be convinced of the benefits) computerization in a distillery,’ says Graha ‘And I’m yet to be convinced that the capit expenditure needed to install computerization justifies laying a man off. you replace a mashman with computer equipment then you have to employ an evei more expensive engineer to solve any problems.’ That was music to the ears of Brian Gilmour, who was mashing as we chatted. He was turning valves, nudging the temperature this way and that, and always listening; for, as he explained, part of his jol is knowing the significance of each sound -whether it’s the change in pitch of the pump or the switchers girning away. ‘The fact it’s manual keeps you involved,’ he says. ‘It giv< it that personal touch – and there’s always something to be done!’
It means that Glenmorangie’s long-running 16 Men of Tain campaign is no PR gloss. Neither are these old guys looking back with rose-tinted glasses. This is a youni team well aware of the needs of today’s J industry, but faithful to tradition. ‘I’m a traditionalist, but a realist as well,’ says Graham. T don’t believe in change for change’s sake and altering production to cu the workforce is beyond me. Can you imagine if Glenmorangie was the 16 megabytes of Tain?’
The workforce here understands their distillery’s little quirks – from the use of ha water to the tall, slim stills that stand like elegant pillars in the cathedral-like stillhou Their height and narrowness means not only this there’s considerable interplay between vapour and copper, but that only the lightest Vti pours can force their way to the top. But running four wash and four spirit stills at-the