The Ardbeg whisky distillery, situated on the southernmost island of the Inner Hebrides of Scotland, the isle of Islay, has a history of excellence.
As Glenmorangie and Ardbeg Global Brand Ambassador Hamish Torrie explains, “Part of my job was to ensure the Ardbeg distillery flourished. The Glenmorangie company purchased Ardbeg in 1997, soon after I arrived. When we bought the distillery, it had been closed for many years. However we bought it as it had a fantastic reputation for the quality of the single malt. It had never been marketed as a single malt whisky, so all the whisky from the previous owners went for blending into big whiskies like Johnny Walker, Ballantine’s and Teachers.
“When we bought it we wanted to turn it into a single malt brand. We’ve had great success with it. Taking something at ground zero and building it up from nothing just on the basis of the beauty of the whisky and brand passion behind it, has been a highlight of my career.
“Ardbeg is a very niche whisky, with a very passionate following. People who drink Ardbeg like whiskies from the Isle of Islay, and these peaty, smoky whiskies are popular with men in their 20s and 30s. It’s the wild untamed Celtic side they love too, picturing this island in the mist, having to make a pilgrimage to get there, it’s all very exciting.
“I joined Glenmorangie around 17 years ago. I was international marketing manager for Glenmorangie and at that time it was very much a UK business with some international business. Today this has changed and we are an international business with some UK business. This is partly due to the growth of malt whisky around the world”.
“Back then, the international marketing for Glenmorangie focussed on Europe, international duty free and some in Japan. Today, USA is our biggest international market, and China and Taiwan. China is very much a brown spirits market, such as cognac, but they are starting to drink whisky too. We think Europe is a big whisky market, however China is enormous”.
Today Glenmorangie sells 500,000 cases worldwide and Ardbeg, which started from zero, sells 100,000 cases, “so that’s not bad,” Mr Torrie remnarks.
“We’ve developed a fantastic reputation for the quality of the whisky and have earned some awards such as Jim Murray’s whisky bible where we were the best Scotch in the world for three years in a row.”
Glenmorangie is a completely different whisky, Mr Torrie said, “Very light, very delicate. If you come to the Glenmorangie distillery, the still house is like a Cathedral. Very tall stills, the tallest in the whisky industry. They make a very light delicate spirit, which contrasts Ardbeg which is big and powerful smoky whisky. You can call them beauty and the beast.
“After distillation, Glenmorangie goes into the barrel at around 63.5% alcohol as a white spirit. It gets all its texture, colour and flavour in the next ten years of maturation. Glenmorangie are pioneers in maturation. The laws of Scotch whisky are that it must be matured in Scotland in oak barrels. You can’t use a different wood. This means that when we mature our whisky, we are maturing it in oak barrels which normally would have previously contained another liquor. The custom tradition with whisky is that you mature the alcohol in barrels that previously contained bourbon from America.
Glenmorangie, 10 years old, is matured in the first fill and then it is vat it with whisky the same age for the second fill. In the first fill, you have all the creamy flavours from the bourbon in the cask and the second time, this is less and the spiciness is more prevalent.
“Glenmorangie’s director of distilling Bill Lumsden would say that 60% of a whisky’s flavour comes from the barrel. The wood makes the whisky.
“It therefore follows that you can get different styles and flavours of whisky by using different types of barrel to mature your whisky in”.
He spoke of the zero gravity Ardbeg experiment. “We were approached by a space research company in Texas. They wanted to partner with a food and drink company to do flavour experiments in space. A substance called Terpenes, which are flavour compounds, is found in most food and drink. They wanted to uncover whether there was a difference in Terpenes in full gravity and micro-gravity. It just so-happens that one of their directors was a massive fan of Ardbeg, so we were invited to take part back in 2012”.
“We sent up little viles of Ardbeg and we experimented with maturation in space. The test tube was divided in two, with the new spirit straight from the still on one side and pieces of wood from the barrel on the other with a separator in between. The separator was then broken in space so we were able to conduct a controlled experiment. After 2.5 years, they were brought back down and we analysed the data last year. Basically it shows the difference between whisky up in zero gravity and whisky in a warehouse on earth through the same test being conducted. Our scientist did a whole range of different analysis and he found that the spirit sent into space had different compounds, different flavours that he didn’t know existed. In zero gravity, it exposed different underlying aromas and flavours. The scientist’s job now is to take that and conduct more experiments to discover what will happen next”.
“We’re still in discussions with the space company as we want to conduct further experiments, in a second stage”.
Turning to the whisky business, he explained that whisky distilleries think in decades. “We’re a very long-term business, so we are trying to predict the market 10-15 years down the line. If you have a long-term perspective, it means you can focus on long-term innovation as well”.
He was asked what the industry is doing in order to move away from the stereotype, that of a male, smoking a cigar by the fire, and expand into other markets. Mr Torrie explained that when he started in the business, whisky was very much about men in golf clubs, very traditional professional businessmen aged 40+. But today, 30 years later, whisky is being enjoyed by people all over the world. Instead of being mainly USA and UK based, Asia is a huge demographic and Australia, South Africa and Spain are newer markets”.
Malt whisky, he said, makes up 10% of all whisky. “What we are finding is that a lot of young guys, 25-35, are leapfrogging. The normal whisky journey involves starting out with a big famous blend like Johnny Walker, then graduating up the chain to easy malt whiskies, then going on into the island whiskies. Some however, are diving straight into the island whiskies”.
He mentioned the rise of whisky bars around the worlds. “Cocktail mixologists also use whisky, and in fact, whisky was the original base for cocktails in New York back in the 1890s. It went to sleep for quite a while but now it’s back. While vodka can give a neutral base, whisky cocktails are beautifully flavoured”.
“We prefer, of course, that you drink whisky on its own, but we recognise that very innovative bar tenders are creating fantastic drinks with whisky”.
Mr Torrie had some advice for those up and coming whisky lovers. “Always start with a nice glass, not a cup. Poor a bit in, just enough to nose it and taste it. I would start neat and add just a bit of water. Water will reduce the alcohol and the push the aromas right up. I personally wouldn’t put ice in as it closes off flavour. Then of course, you can choose to have an Ardbeg Bloody Mary instead,” he quipped.
He described the difference between blends and single-malts. A big blend will have 30-40 different single malts inside, so blending is a very artful process. Blending whisky could, on average, include 60% grain whisky made from corn or oats, whereas malt whisky is made from malted barley which has more flavour depth. The process of making grain whisky is through what we call a continuous still which is more of a production process, whereas malt whisky is made in batches and pot stills. That’s the difference between the two”.
The local distributors of Glenmorangie and Ardbeg are Demajo (Wines & Spirits) Ltd