Annandale 
Annandale is located just north of Annan on the A75. on the southeast coast of Islay. The distillery was built
between 1830 and 1836 by George Donald. It passed to John Sykes Gardner in 1883 who modernised it and ran it for 10 years.
Johnnie Walker & Sons bought the distillery in 1893 and produced peated whisky for their blended whiskies. The stills
at that time were below ground level and the pit and still bases are preserved and visible today.
The pagoda roof, tall brick chimney and more warehouses were added and still exist today. The distillery closed in 1918
and remained closed until purchased by David Thomson and Teresa Church in 2007. The buildings
were in a forlorn state took 7 years to return to full operation, over budget and 4 years later than planned.
When the distillery was closed anything of value was stripped, so everything had to be bought again.
Spirit ran again on 9th November 2014.
The distillery is based on traditional values so the mash tun is copper, the washbacks Oregon pine and the stills copper. Unusually, there is one wash still and two spirit stills; most distilleries have more wash stills than spirit but the whole design was developed by Jim Swan, who specified two small spirit stills rather than one larger one.
The distillery focuses on producing single cask, cask strength, bottlings in peated and unpeated expressions. The unpeated are called Man o’ Words, after a Robert Burns, and the peated called Man o’ Sword, after Robert the Bruce.
However, a visit from James Cosmo led them to produce a easy-drinking blended whisky called Storyman at 46% with a small proportion of grain whisky from Distell.
Peated and unpeated malted barley is provided by Crisp’s.
Deliveries are 30 tonnes per fortnight, alternating peated and unpeated. Peated barley has 45 ppm.
Mashing takes place on weekdays with peated and unpeated mashes alternating monthly. Each mash comprises 2.5
tonnes of barley that has been ground in the 1964 Porteus mill. The grist typically comprises 12% flour, 18% husk and the
remainder grits. 9000ℓ of water at 60°C is mixed with the grist and left for one hour. The mixture is left for one hour and
the wort is drained off. A further 4000ℓ of water at 86°C is added and drained off after an hour. This produces the wort that
will be fermented to produce the alcohol. A further 1000ℓ at 94°C is added to the mash to extract the remaining sugars
but this is kept for the next mash.
Fermentation takes places in Oregon pine washbacks for 72 to 96 hours. Fermentis and Mauri yeasts are use for unpeated whisky, MG Plus for peated. At the end of fermentation the wash contains about 8% alcohol. This is transferred to the wash still where it is distilled to create low wines of 22-23% alcohol. The low wines are divided between the two spirit stills where they are distilled further to a spirit of 64-67% alcohol. The foreshots end after 15 minutes for unpeated and 20 minutes for peated. This resulting spirit is diluted with spring water to produce a spirit of 63.5% for putting into casks. A higher strength spirit means slower maturation.
Tastings £25
An excellent tour was hosted by Joe who provided an animated history of the distillery and its return to full production. This tasting whiskies were all distilled in 2015:
- 8 year old Bourbon 58.9% unpeated
- 8 year old Oloroso 60.7% unpeated
- 8 year old Bourbon 61.1% peated
- 8 year old Oloroso 59.6% peated
And in the shop:
- 10 year old Bourbon unpeated
- STR red wine cask 60.3% peated
Purchases
Annandale STR red wine cask 60.3% peated