Flora McBabe - Bruichladdich Valinch Bottling

"Always remember, a cat looks down on man, a dog looks up to man, but a pig will look man right in the eye and see his equal"
-Winston Churchill

It is with great pleasure that I post some tasting notes for this very special bottle of whisky: Bruichladdich's Flora McBabe Valinch expression. As described in the "Daddy's Dram" posting, this particular bottle was brought back from Scotland after being bottled at the Bruichladdich distillery by yours truly. It is a sherry-finished Bruichladdich, distilled on the 5th of September and bottled on September 9th, 2004. My bottle is # 691 of 700 and I had the pleasure of watching the distillery staff empty out the last of that cask (#3666) while allowing the visitors who were present that day to fill the last dozen or so bottles.

Bruichladdich is an Islay distillery built in 1881 that is located on the Western edge of Loch Indaal. After being closed in 1994, it came under new ownership in 2000 and promptly re-invented itself to become a prime example of how successful a small, privately-owned distillery can be in this new age of interest in single malts. The owners have done a masterful job in marketing their product with innovation and a small measure of panache. Bruichladdich is one of the few distilleries that distills, matures and bottles their whisky in-house. Master distiller Jim McEwan, who is both well-known and respected after 40+ years in the industry, brings a special flair to his craft and has been given the freedom he deserves to experiment with the expressions at Bruichladdich. Your blogger had the opportunity to meet Mr. McEwan at WhiskyFest 2006 in Chicago. He was charming and very approachable. It is immediately obvious that he loves his job, enjoys meeting whisky enthusiasts, and believes strongly in what Bruichladdich is doing.

The Valinch bottlings are somewhat smaller than traditional bottles, with a volume of 50cl (500ml) as opposed to 70-75cl (700-750ml). They are bottled at natural or cask strength; in the case of Flora McBabe a tongue-tickling 55.2% abv. Bruichladdich whiskies tend to be very fresh and complex. As they are not chill-filtered and no colouring is added, you get the full natural flavour of the whisky. The 10 y-o expression is one of my favourite drams in this age group, and though floral and fruity, it has a touch of peat and is as crisp as a breath of fresh sea air - with an almost effervescent quality. Tasting notes for the Bruichladdich 10 y-o will appear on The Spirit Safe very soon.

So what happens when to Bruichladdich when you add the influence of a refill sherry butt (cask) and a wee bit of porcine inspiration? The tasting notes for this whisky are a collection from several drams shared with close friends and acquaintances: Groomsmen, bridesmaids, siblings, old friends, and the minister who baptized our daughter. In short, they all represented a celebration of our daughter's birth and we couldn't have chosen a better whisky. Samples were sent to a couple of friends by mail which allowed us to do a tasting over the phone. Not as good as doing one together in person, but a great way to share a dram nonetheless!

Bruichladdich Valinch Flora McBabe bottling

Nose: Heavy sherry, molasses with cream. Blacker S says Grape-flavoured cough syrup (not as bad as that sounds!)

Taste: sweet sherry, some nuttiness, woody vanilla and cream notes

Palate: oily and salty, feel it on the back of your tongue and inside of cheek. Finish is long and delectable, with lots of sherry flavour. Some enjoyable bitterness and lingering woodiness.

Value: To be completely honest, I can't remember how much they were asking for the Valinch bottlings, but my memory tells me that it was around 30 pounds, which would make it around $70 CDN. Although this bottle is only 500ml, it is still a good value. As McBabe was bottled at cask strength (~55% abv) you could add another 25% of the volume in water just to get it down to the standard 40% abv.

It's hard to put a price on the novelty of bottling whisky yourself at the distillery. Following through on a promise to save it for the birth of my first child has added immeasurably to its value for me. In this way, the context of a particular bottle of whisky can make it shine in a crowd and stand above the rest. Everyone who has sampled it with me has agreed that Flora is a very tasty whisky. The happiness of that moment (the first dram in the hospital room) makes this a very special malt for me and I hope that everyone reading this post gets the chance to share in a similar moment - with or without the whisky. I never had the opportunity to meet the actual Flora McBabe, but if this pig deserved such a fine whisky, I regret having missed her!

Daddy's Dram

Anyone who has been following this blog knows that my favourite reason for drinking a good whisky is a special occasion. Instead of popping open a bottle of champagne I prefer to crack open a bottle of whisky, often one that has been staring at me for some time from the shelf in my home. This also means that special bottles will have been purchased in advance of significant occasions, and these will often be more expensive or rare bottles that add to the fun and memory of the moment. Given that taste and smell are strongly associated with memory, a distinctive dram of a fine whisky not only adds something to that occasion in the present, but can conjure back memories of those special times by tasting that particular whisky again in the future.

The birth of my daughter, Melody, in August of this year has trumped any other special occasion since my wedding back in 2007. So which bottle did your blogger choose to celebrate her entry into the world? This is the story of that special bottle...

A trip to Scotland back in the summer of 2004 with a close friend (also a whisky fan) allowed me to participate in nine different distillery tours. We also visited three others but were not able to take tours. Our original plans didn’t include so many distillery tours, but whisky is such an integral part of Scottish culture that they can be hard to avoid (even if one were …ahem, really trying). I’d be lying if I said that our three day stay on Islay wasn’t planned with whisky in mind, but it was a wonderful surprise to experience how those distilleries infuse the distinct culture of the island and the sense of pride they instill in the Isleachs.

Of the nine distillery tours that we took, two allowed us to bottle our own whisky straight from the cask: Aberlour and Bruichladdich. I think that more distilleries have since introduced this practice into their tours, but at the time it seemed very novel and special. Given the limits on alcohol volume allowed duty-free back into Canada (1.14L), and the fact that we were backpacking, the bottles to be brought home were chosen with great care.

Bruichladdich was the second distillery we visited in Scotland (after Oban), and the first on Islay. I have been a huge fan of their whiskies ever since participating in a tasting event earlier in 2004 hosted by their CEO, Mr. Mark Reynier, at a wine and spirits festival in Montreal. He was both charming and engaging in conversation, guiding us through the myriad pleasures of Bruichladdich whiskies and encouraging us all to visit the distillery should we ever find ourselves on Islay. Never being one to turn down a personal invitation from the director of a distillery, I resolved from that day to visit Bruichladdich.

After settling into our B&B accommodations in Port Ellen, my friend and I made our way west across Islay, past the town of Bowmore to the Bruichladdich distillery, avoiding the odd sheep that make their way onto the roads. It was a beautiful, scenic drive with the coasts of Laggan Bay and then Loch Indaal on our left and huge grassy fields with their precious peat hidden underneath on our right. After arriving at the distillery, we spent some time admiring the coast of Loch Indaal (right across the street) before entering the visitor’s centre. Bruichladdich is a beautiful old distillery that has stayed true to its roots. It is one of the few remaining distilleries in Scotland that still has its own bottling facility on-site. It also does specially selected bottlings of other malts for its Murray McDavid Independent Bottling division.

We were given a dram of the Bruichladdich 10-y-o while waiting for the distillery tour. This gave us the chance to peruse the visitor’s centre and see the various Bruichladdich whiskies and related merchandise for sale. Your blogger used the opportunity to pick up a pewter flask. The tour itself was a truly international experience, as our group of 10 visitors included Germans, Japanese, Americans, British and Canadians. Touring a smaller distillery like Bruichladdich is a great way to learn how Scotch whisky is made, as you really get to observe each step in the process and how everything is done in-house. It is readily apparent that they are not interested in expansion at the cost of tradition and authenticity.

After the tour, it was back to the visitor’s centre. Time to bottle that cask of whisky! The whisky used in these tourist bottlings is chosen by the Master Distiller, Mr. Jim McEwan and these special “Valinch” expressions all have their own story. They are not for sale outside of the distillery, and thus available only to visitors on these tours. That day, they were finishing a cask of the “Flora McBabe”, a sherry-finished Bruichladdich whisky celebrating the life of a very prolific Isleach pig. Watching them empty out the last spirit from that cask, filtering out the large, dark wood bits with a cheesecloth, all while drinking drams of that whisky with my best friend and other big whisky fans from around the world was pure magic.

It would be 5 years later, almost to the day, that I would taste Flora McBabe again, sharing a dram with my beautiful and exhausted wife and toasting the birth of our baby girl. Tired as we both were, the taste of Flora instantly whisked my mind back to that day at Bruichladdich; the salty tang of an Islay breeze mixing indelibly with the tears of joy we shed welcoming Melody Emma to the world.