An Unexpected Trip to Deanston!

This week my blog is all about Deanston. A little known and underrated distillery that produces great and varied highland malts.

It all started a few weeks ago, I was staying up at Gleneagles and had some time to kill. I thought, how am I best using this time whilst is Scotland? Well, there's only one possible answer...visit a distillery!

I started with Tullibarine, which is only a stones throw from the hotel but I missed the tour and they didn't seem keen on showing me much or letting me taste much. They did however suggest that a trip to Deanston was perfectly doable in the hour I had left until closing time. So, I bombed it down the A9 and across country to Doune, the pretty little town in which Deanston is located.

Deanston are part of the Burn Stuart Group who also own Bunnahabhain and Tobermory. So now I can say I have a full house of their 3 distilleries having already visited the other two!

I don't know what it is about Burn Stuart distilleries but every one of them seems stuck in a time warp, as if nothing much has changed and Deanston is no exception. Just check out the font on the side of the building!!! Thing is, I absolutely love that. No heirs and graces or unnecessary fanciness! The building  that Deanston is in used to be a cotton mill designed by Arkwright. It closed in the 1960s and was converted to a distillery to satisfy the need for malts to put into blends during those golden years. And that's how it's stayed ever since. As the biggest distillery in the group, the majority of its output goes into their blends, which is a shame because they do produce some incredible single malts, albeit that they are hard to find on the high street. Deanston is also one of the greenest distilleries in Scotland with all it's energy coming from it's very own water turbine. It even sells it's excess electricity back to the grid!

I need to start by saying a huge thank you to all the staff at the distillery. They couldn't have made me feel more welcome. As it was, I had missed the start of the last tour of the day but they were kind enough to let me catch them up as they were going round. They were just going into the still house. It's an impressive space with two wash stills and two spirit stills. Again, in that rough a ready manner just like Bunnahabhain or Tobermory. I was gutted I missed the start though as they have an open mash tun  (like Springbank and Bruichladdich) which I, of course, love!

Moving on from the still house we headed to one of their bonded warehouses. There were casks there from all three distilleries and also a cask signed by the cast of The Angel's Share (a great Ken Loach film about whisky that everyone really must see) as parts of the film were shot at the distillery. Wonderful stuff!

After the tour, again the staff were exceptional and were kind enough to let me try a few drams and also take some away to write about, which was fantastic!


So, without further ado...let's start with the tasting notes.

House style - Light, fresh and nutty

Deanston 12YO 
This is Deanston's core offering. It's non chill filtered and bottled at £46.3% ABV (which I appreciate for a core expression). You can get hold of a bottle for around £35, which I don't think is too bad at all!

Nose: Really light and fresh. New pine and oranges
Palate: Cream, vanilla and pecan nuts. Surprisingly light for the higher ABV. Bottling this at 40% would have risked making this whisky bland.
Finish: Quite short and clean.

Overall, a really pleasant whisky. Definitely a daytime (or even breakfast) whisky. If you like Mackmyra or similar I think you'd rather enjoy this little tipple!

Fill Your Own Distillery Exclusive 
Their present offering is an 8YO Bordeaux Cask (whole time in Bordeaux). Again, this is non-chill filtered. Bottled at cask strength (59.7% ABV) and retailing at £75. You can only get this at the distillery, which could make the trip worthwhile for this reason alone!

Nose: Sweet and complex, the balance of a young sweet whisky and a long time in wine casks makes this one quite unique. I get summer fruits, Eton mess and hints of citrus.
Palate: Not as full as I was expecting, super sweet and very quaffable (especially for the ABV). I got more strawberries and just a hint of oakiness.
Finish: Very long and lingering. It tasted exactly like I had just drank a ribena. The flavour stayed with me for ages afterwards.

This is a great whisky, something really interesting and worthwhile. The lovely delicate sweet whisky bottled at such a young age twinned with a fabulous wine cask creates something awesome! It's not too pricey either so I'd say, grab a bottle while you can!


Deanston 15YO Organic
This is the oldest (by age in casks) organic whisky in Scotland. It's great to see Deanston investing so heavily in organic, especially with their green credentials. The whole process from barley to bottle is certified organic. They even give the casks an extra charring to ensure that no nasties whatsoever make it through to the whisky itself. This is bottled at 46.3% ABV and retails at around £100.

Nose - Bright and light, raisins and fresh apples. It's quite raw and almost a little grappa-y. Not much wood coming through.
Palate - Citrus fruits (especially lemons), lots of dark chocolate. There's a bitterness there but not in an unpleasant way.
Finish - Short and quite dry.

This is a light and super fresh whisky which is a lot better on the palate than the nose. It's great to get a real sense of the spirit here, you can almost taste the still room. I love the idea of this whisky and what it is doing for organic, quality, traceable spirit. Is it my favourite Deanston? Not quite, but I'm very happy that it's there!

Deanston 18YO
Again this is non chill filtered and has been finished in first fill ex-bourbon casks. This whisky really builds upon the core 12YO and takes it to the next level. It retails at around £75 and is also bottled at 46.3% ABV.

Nose - Ginger nuts, honey, vanilla and dried apples.
Palate - Well balanced. Vanilla and hazelnuts. Sweet but not too sweet.
Finish - Still quite dry but with some sweetness, medium length.

This whisky shows the Deanston signature flavour off at it's best. A lovely, well rounded whisky. Not too sweet but not too dry either. Nice subtle flavours throughout that just keep revealing themselves. Great stuff!

So, in summary, Deanston is a really cracking little distillery that produces really great whisky that more people really must try. All the expressions are good and are all very different. If you are going to draw me on a favourite though, I'd have to go with the Bordeaux Cask. What a belter of a whisky that really is!



Finally, as a footnote I just want to say thanks again to all the staff at the distillery for being so accomodating and also for sending me across some pictures that I forgot to take on the day!

Until next time, sláinte!