Tobermory

I love Tobermory! 

Everything about this distillery is great. I know it's not producing at the moment as they are renovating  but I have heard nasty rumours that renovations = mothballed. I really, really hope not!

I visited Tobermory back in November during my last distillery visiting trip north of Hadrian's Wall. It was a very, very wet day when we set off from our base on Loch Awe to Oban then on the ferry to Mull.

Mull is an amazing place...very beautiful, with stunning countryside which looked amazing even in the November rain! We headed straight up to Tobermory as time was limited and it wasn't quite birdwatching weather! After an epic pizza with goat's cheese and haggis at The Mishnish pub (highly recommended) we headed off for our tour!

Tobermory distillery is tiny! I can't quite believe how they manage to fit all that kit in there! The distillery has shrunk since its heyday as some of the warehousing was sold off for apartments.  The main distillery itself still stands, nestled impossibly on the hill by the road leaving town. It really is very cute. You can see the stills through the massive picture windows from the road as you drive away.

Tobermory has a traditional copper–domed cast iron mash tun, 4 Oregon pine washbacks
2 wash stills and 2 spirit stills. As they sold off most of their warehousing almost no maturation happens on site. Most goes to Deanston (a great distillery and subject of another of my blogs).

The tour itself was very pleasant if somewhat unremarkable and we had the opportunity to try a few of their standard releases afterwards with the rest of the group. We hung back and the staff were super accomodating in letting us try a few more special drams which was great and really allowed us to taste the full breadth of the output of this delightful little distillery.

We started our tastings with the classic Tobermory 10, I'm not sure what it is about this dram but it holds quite a special place in my heart. If I'm completely honest I think some of it is the bottle, which I love! For me Tobermory 10 is the whisky that tastes most like the distillery in which it's produced. Almost all of the character seems to come from the distillation process. The influence of the wood seems very "light touch" somehow (it's matured in ex-bourbon casks). I really like that about it. Yes, in many ways it makes for quite a rugged spirit with no rounded edges but sometimes, that's what I'm looking for! Bottled at 46.3%, the extra abv adds a little bit more to this punch too. For me, Tobermory 10 is a must for me in any whisky collection.

The next dram for us was Ledaig 10. Named after the original name for the distillery this is the peated version of the 10YO, again bottled at 46.3% abv. There is a hint of peat in the Tobermory (the water source in peated) but this dram stands up against some of the Islay malts in terms of peat ppm which makes for a wonderful smoky malt. There is still plenty of that Tobermory character coming through here but the peat just gives it a bit of a better balance of flavour. The maritime qualities of the whisky really come out in this dram too. I think this is a really excellent whisky and it's a shame that it gets past over by other peat fans who dive straight to Islay. For me, that is a mistake.

The final dram we got our hands on was a Ledaig 11YO Port Pipe cask. Now this is a truly special whisky. This is one of my all time favourites! Put simply, it is divine!

The balance of flavours between the rawness of quite a young Ledaig, combined with peat and finished in port really is something to behold. I recently took this to a bloggers meetup and it was a firm favourite. All that said, I can see how this would polarize people. It really is quite a unique dram but for that reason I love it all the more! Wonderful stuff.

I was always going to like this whisky...I love port and red wine finishes, I love peated whisky and I love Tobermory so it was inevitable that this would be a hit. Just how good it truly was though took me by surprise. It has to be in my top 10 all time drams! The sweetness of the port cask really cuts through, especially on the finish, which is long and lingering. You get lots of raspberries and blackcurrants right there on the palate and lingering long after the dram is gone. It's bottled at 58.2% so packs quite a punch but you really don't feel it the way you do with a lot of other cask strength whiskies. For me this one doesn't benefit from water either. It's perfect just the way it is!

The only drawback I can find to this whisky is that there were only 726 bottles made. I have no idea if they have any left at the distillery but the price is already going up on auction sites. I'd suggest you grabbing one of these while you can!!!

So, all in all a most excellent day out on Mull. Fabulous island, lovely people and most importantly fantastic whisky!


Until next time, sláinte!