August Whiskies of the Month - Olympics 2024
Holyrood Embra
Sir Chris Hoy was born and raised in Edinburgh and is a natural born athlete. His passion for sport was obvious at a very young age and he was in his first sporting competition at age 14, competing for both Scotland and GB in BMX. In 1992 he turned to track cycling and competed for The City of Edinburgh Racing Squad, which was the UK’s most successful cycling team at the time.
He won his first Olympic medal at the Sydney Olympic Games in 2000 in a team event and would achieve his first solo medal at the Athens Olympic Games in 2004. Over his Olympic career he grew from strength to strength and would achieve an incredible 6 gold medals and 1 silver, overtaking his idol Sir Steve Redgrave as Britain’s greatest Olympian.
Holyrood Distillery is located in the centre of Edinburgh, Hoy’s hometown. ‘Embra’ is an award-winning peated single malt that was created to resemble a gateway to peated whisky. It has been matured in a combination of first-filled bourbon casks, Islay quarter casks and new American oak barrels. On the nose you will likely find hints of lemon zest, peppermint, and a light smoky character. On the palate you will likely find wafer biscuits, dark chocolate mousse and notes of earthy highland peat smoke. On the finish you will be left tasting the light peaty character mixed with stewed pears.
Deanston 12 Year Old
Sir Andy Murray OBE is a Scottish tennis player born in Glasgow but brought up in the small town of Dunblane. He started playing tennis age 3 and by age 5 was already competing in tournaments. By the age of 8, Murray was so good that he started competing against adults in the Central District Tennis League. In 2005, at the age of 18, Murray turned professional and before long was winning competitions all over the world – the first international one being in South Africa. In 2012, Murray competed in the London Summer Olympics and walked away with a gold medal for team GB, making him the first British man to win gold in the Olympics singles since Josiah Ritchie in 1908. In 2016 he returned to the Olympics, this time in Rio De Janeiro, where he won 2 gold medals for team GB, making him the first ever player to win two consecutive gold medals in the tennis singles. His final game lasted 4 hours before claiming the victory.
Murray’s hometown of Dunblane is situated just outside of Stirling and is located very closely to Deanston Distillery. Deanston was originally an old cotton mill which was built in 1785, before being transformed into Deanston Distillery in 1966. The Deanston village was built to house the workers of the cotton mill, as well as providing a local shop and a school, all of which are still there today. The cotton mill employed 1500 people but in the turn of the 20th century saw a decrease in demand for cotton and the employment dropped from 1500, to just 500 before closing down shortly after. Deanston Distillers Ltd converted the mill into a distillery in 1965, costing £300,000 and taking just 9 months to complete. It was finished in 1966. To this day Deanston has remained open and is under the ownership of Distell. On the nose of the Deanston 12 you will get malty cereal, rich creamy toffee and honeyed heather. On the palate you can expect smooth creamy sweetness with hints of fruit, spice and vanilla. On the finish it will be crisp with a tingle of cloves which linger before gently fading.
Aberlour 12 Year Old
France were the second country to ever host an Olympic Games back in 1900, in Paris. They had a total of 997 participants and 95 sporting events. In 1924 they hosted again, in Paris, with an increase to 3089 participants and 126 sporting events. From a modest number of 997 participants, 124 years later, we now have an enormous 10,500 participants and 397 sporting events.
France has played a huge part in the history of the global sporting event, and also a big a part in Scotch whisky. Currently, the biggest selling single malt in France is Aberlour 12. Aberlour is a double matured whisky, starting off in traditional oak casks, before being transferred to seasoned sherry butts to give this malt its desired mellow flavour. On the nose you will find it subtle with aromas of apples and other fruity notes. On the palate, it will continue with the fruity flavours but balanced with rich chocolate. The finish of this whisky offers sweet and spicy flavours.
Ardbeg 10 Year Old
The Olympic Games often have large partners involved with them to help with the enormous event. The Summer games of 2024 has LVMH (Louis Vuitton-Moet-Hennessy) as a premium partner for the games, and they played a huge part in the opening ceremony. LVMH is a French company that owns a number of different brands across the world. One of them being one of Scotland’s most recognised distilleries – Ardbeg.
Ardbeg was founded back in 1815 and prides itself on being ‘The Ultimate Islay Whisky’ or ‘The Ultimate Spirit of Islay’. It is known as one of the smokiest malts on Islay but also has a unique sweetness which marries very well together – a phenomenon that has become known as ‘The Peaty Paradox’. On the nose of the Ardbeg 10 year old you can expect to be immediately hit with the fruity smokiness, with hints of zesty lemon and lime. Dark chocolate, black pepper and baked pineapple are also flavours you can expect to smell. On the palate you will experience the unique mix of smoky and sweet, along with flavours of cinnamon, buttermilk, ripe bananas and liquorice. This particular whisky has a longer finish of smoke, toasted almonds, espresso and fresh pear.
Ardnamurchan - MacLeans Nose
In 1902, a boy named Eric Liddell was born in Tientsin, China, the second son of Reverend and Mrs Liddell who were Scottish missionaries. When Eric was 6, they all moved to London and spent a lot of their time up in Edinburgh where Eric would eventually go to university, at the University of Edinburgh. While in London Eric became very passionate about sports and in particular, running. This passion continued and while at the University of Edinburgh he became well-known for being the fastest runner in Scotland.
In 1924, Liddell was a competitor in the Paris Summer Olympics and competed in the 400m race. He beat his competitors by a good few seconds and broke the Olympic and world record of the 400m with a time of 47.6 second – 0.2 seconds slower than the record for the 440m. His record stayed as a European record for 12 years until beaten by British athlete, Godfrey Brown in the Berlin Summer Olympics in 1936. Liddell became a household name and an Olympic legend following the victory of Paris 1924.
In the same year that Eric Liddell was born, 1902, DCL (The Distillery Company Limited), bought Adelphi Distillery which was a devasting time for the distillery as 5 years later production was stopped. In 1968 the buildings started getting demolished and in 1971 the chimney was taken down. In 1993, the great grandson of Adelphi Distillery founder, Jamie Walker, established the modern day Adelphi independent bottler, which he sold to Keith Falconer and Donald Houston in 2004. Whiskies are selected by a nosing team chaired by whisky critic Charles MacLean. This whisky, MacLean’s Nose, is a nod to the fantastic whisky expert himself. On the nose you will get flamed orange peel, salted lemons, stone fruits and smoky tar. On the palate you can expect creamy macadamia nuts, Caramac, rice pudding, zesty citrus with earthy smoke. The finish will leave you with flavours of oily tar, hazelnuts, and creamy praline.
Glenallachie 21 Year Old – Cask Strength
The Summer Olympics of modern times have been happening for 128 years, since starting back in 1896. Over the course of the 128 years the games have covered a massive 21 different host cities. Only a few countries have hosted more than once, these being Greece, France, United Kingdom, United States, Japan, and Australia. Other countries that have hosted are Sweden, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, Finland, Italy, Austria, Mexico, Canada, South Korea, Spain, China, Brazil, and Russia.
This Glenallachie has spent the same number of years (21) maturing in a warehouse, gathering an abundance of flavour, as the number of different cities that have hosted the Summer Olympic Games. 5 different sherry hogsheads and puncheon casks have been combined to create this whisky. On the nose you will find hints of brandied honeycomb, molasses tart and spiced blood orange, with bursts of cocoa and caramelised brown sugar. On the palate you can expect to get rich chocolate, warm baking spices, and clementine zest, orchard fruits and crystalised ginger. The finish will be slightly longer and have hints of raisin butter.