Balmenach whisky

Balmenach (also known as Balminoch and Cromdale) was legalised in
1824 by James McGregor, but rumour has it that it operated as an illicit
distillery for quite a while before that. Balmenach stayed in the hands
of various members of the McGregor family for almost a century, until
the distillery was sold to a group of blenders in 1922.

In the year 2004 Balmenach produced just under 2 million liters of alcohol and they have
done so since the stills were fired up again. They produce five days a week, from 22 PM on
a Sunday night to 22 PM on a Friday night. When Inver House bought the distillery from
Diageo the deal didn't include the maturing stocks of Balmenach malt whisky.
When I write this I haven't seen a new 'official bottling' of Balmenach yet, but
if they decide to release a 12yo we won't see that on the shelves of various
liquorists until after the year 2010.

In the years that followed the Balmenach distillery repeatedly changed
hands (owners included Peter Dawson Ltd. and SMD), but I won't bore
you with all details of ownership over the years. You can buy a copy of
the 'Moss & Hume' bible (or one of the other books recommended in
the Beginner's Guide to Scotch whisky) if you're into that sort of thing.
I'll pick up the thread again in the early 1960's...

In 2008, Inver House owned four other distilleries; Balblair, Knockdhu, Old Pulteney & Speyburn.

Not to worry though; now and then independent bottlings of Balmenach become available, like Gordon
and MacPhail's 'Connoisseurs Choice' bottling above or the semi-official Flora & Fauna bottling at the right.

In 1962 the number of stills was expanded from four to six and a so-called 'Saladin Box'
(equipment to process malted barley) was installed in 1964 - the same year they installed
one at Benrinnes. The Saladin Box maltings stayed in use at Balmenach until the middle of
the 1980's. In 1986 Balmenach was sold to United Distillers who subsequently mothballed
the distillery in May 1993. Eventuallly, Balmenach was sold by Diageo (the 'heirs' to United
Distillers) to Inver House Distillers in 1997.

In 2001 Inver House themselves were bought by 'Pacific Spirits', part of the 'Great Oriole Group'. This
group is controlled by a wealthy businessman from Thailand; Charoen Sirivadhanabhakdi. And that's
not the only Asian influence in the Scotch whisky industry. A few distilleries like Bowmore are owned
by Japanese companies and in 2007 Indian businessman Vijay Mallya took control of Whyte & Mackay.
 
Isn't today's corporate whisky world an interesting one? While big players like Diageo, Macallan and
Glenmorangie all set their sights on the far east (Taiwan in particular, as a gateway to China), some
entrepreneurs from the far east are investing their money in Scottish distilleries. Don't you love it?

Dennis Malcolm at Inver House told me the company didn't start distilling at Balmenach
immediately after acquiring the distillery. They had to thoroughly check the entire production
plant before they resumed malt whisky production at Balmenach again in March 1998.
After all, the distillery had been silent for a few years.

1) In 2005, Balmenach was one of only fourteen distilleries using 'worm tubs' (a.k.a. 'worm tanks'). The other thirteen distilleries still using worm tubs are Benrinnes, Cragganmore, Dalwhinnie, Edradour, Glen Elgin, Glenkinchie, Mortlach, Oban, Pulteney, Royal Lochnagar, Speyburn, Springbank (on the wash still only) and Talisker.

2) In the past, some independent bottlings of Balmenach were sold under the name 'Deerstalker'.

3) The focus of Inver House Distillers is on blends rather than on single malts.
Two of their most famous brands are MacArthur's and Hankey Bannister.

4) As luck would have it, this distillery profile was discovered by Frank Taylor, who's father worked at the Balmenach distillery for thirty years. He was kind enough to share some other trivia about Balmenach;

"I grew up in a distillery house within a hundred yards of the distillery. Reading about the old place has awoken many memories. My dad George (Dod) Taylor was employed at Balmenach as a stillman, from 1950 until he retired at age 65 in 1980. The end of the name "Balmenach" is pronounced as if you are saying ahhh and clearing your throat at the same time; 'Ach'. Much like the Scots word och as in och aye the noo or as in Loch, the Scottish equivalent of a lake. You also mentioned the worm tubs. These tubs were known by the workers as worm tanks. It is just a continuous length of pipe, containing vapours released in the distillation process, within a tank of cold water fed from the Balmenach Burn and overflowing back into the burn. As the vapours condense, they run back through a sealed spirit safe within the stillhouse into a collecting tank below from which the whisky casks are eventually filled. The saladin box used for malting at Balmenach was a pretty dangerous bit of equipment. I cannot recall the name of the individual involved but a workman at Balmenach while working nightshift, managed to get himself ensnared in the large rotor blades. (The moving bit of the machinery really looked like the rotating part at the front of a combine harvester) and he was tossed about inside the machine for most of the night to be found by another workman coming on to shift in the morning. I'm sure he survived.  Another workman, actually a cousin of mine, had a hand on one of the rails the machinery ran on and managed to have his hand crushed. Another workman, Dair Riach, whilst trying to jump over an open grain elevator, (not anything to do with the saladin box) slipped and his leg became entangled with the screw of the elevator. He was very lucky not to lose a leg. In the older days, when the distillery was coal fired, my father who was a stillman, while raking the burning coals under one of the stills, dropped a huge steel poker on his foot and broke several bones. Dangerous places to work. Not trivia but I'm sure of interest. A bit of trivia now though; in the burn which ran behind the still (as we called the distillery) the water was warm on discharge from the worm tanks. The eels in the burn grew to be as thick as a mans wrist in the warm water. As children, we never fished in the burn preferring instead to fish in the Balmenach dam for trout. I can't even remember why I was looking at Balmenach related items on the internet, but I was moved to share something about its history."
 

When I re-wrote this profile in the Spring of 2008 I discovered that I had misplaced some of my tasting notes for Balmenach during the big reconstruction of this website. So far, I've been able to locate my notes for five expressions of Balmenach. Please drop me a line if you have another version on your shelves and would like to swap samples.
 

Balmenach 30yo 1972 (50.1%, Hart Brothers, Port Wood, Distilled January 1972, CVI)
Nose: Lots and lost of organics. Maggi and stock cubes. Rhubarb! Rubber perhaps?
Complex and absolutely wonderful - a match for any sherry casked malt. Good stuff.
Taste: Unfortunately, it didn't do too well on the palate (the nose easily scores in the 90's).
It's extremely dry and woody, although it also has moments of endearing cookie sweetness.
Score: 84 points - but I should add that opinions among the maniacs were divided for this one.
Serge and Olivier didn't like it with 70 and 72 points respectively - probably because it's finished.
Davin, Mark and Alexander liked it - just like me - with scores in the lower 80's.

Balmenach 11yo 1990/2001 (43%, Chieftain's, Casks 5414-5417, 1800 bottles, 70cl)
Nose: Restrained. Polished and quite fruity. Chloride. Dusty. Pleasant but superficial.
Organics. now it almost seems like there were some sherry casks in this vatting?
Taste: Smooth start. Opens up quite nicely into a fruity center. Pleasant mouth feel.
It grows sweeter with time. A tad woody in the finish. Dry. A good, solid malt.
Score: 77 points - better than average, but nothing to go malt mad about...

Balmenach 10yo (43.0%, Scottish Wildlife, Bottled +/- 1998, code L 1204, 70cl)
Nose: Not very much I could pick up at first. Spirity. Apples? Citrus? Soap? A little nutty.
Relatively restrained, although it does open up after five minutes, growing more interesting.
Taste: Sweet start. Coffee? Bitter chocolate. It's a bit ciderish, almost Irish in character.
The sweetness disappears, though. Bourbon dry. It has a slightly unpleasant finish.
Score: 67 points - questionable; definitely not worth seeking out if you ask me.

Balmenach 1974/1998 (40%, Connoisseurs Choice)
Nose: Heavy tobacco. Combination of bakery and farm aroma's. Sulphur? Maize.
Smells almost like a wine finished whisky. Tea leaves. Definitely NOT 'middle of the road'.
Palate: Sweet and smooth on the palate with a hint of smoke. Flat tannins.
Score: 78 points - making it one of the more interesting CC bottlings of the late 1990's.

Balmanach 25yo 1972/1997 (43%, Hart Brothers, Dist. January 1972, Bottled May 1997)
Nose: Herbal. Piney. A little oily? Chloride. Strange, smells more like an East or West coast Highlander.
Taste: Woody. Bitter. Gritty on the palate. Maybe this one has spent a little too much time in the cask?
Score: 70 points - but it might have done better in a smaller line-up; this was dram #20 of the day.
 

These were not all the (official and independent) expressions of Balmenach whisky I've tried over the years.
My Track Record used to contain a complete overview of all the single malts I've tried, but when I passed the 2000 malts mark (and the list wouldn't fit on two separate HTML pages anymore) I gave up. My Liquid Log still contains my tasting notes on most malts I've sampled and scored - but finding notes on a specific expression could be tricky. You might want to use the search box at the top of this page for that. The mAlmanac now contains personal selections of the best and the worst single malts I've tried so far - as well as the ones with the highest 'Bang-For-Your-Buck' value.

But those are all just my own, purely personal opinions. On Serge's distillery profile on Whiskyfun you can find another perspective on the Balmenach distillery. Check out the Malt Maniacs Monitor on Malt Maniacs for my scores on all expressions I've tried so far - and those of almost all the other certified malt maniacs as well. The Malt Maniacs Matrix contains a few thousand single malts that were sampled and scored by at least four different malt maniacs, so you can compare our individual opinions.
 

2001 - Inver House (the company that bought Balmenach in 1997) was bought by Pacific Spirits from Thailand.
 
2006 - Pacific Spirits UK was bought by International Beverage Holdings.