Mannochmore

Mannochmore Distillery

Founded: 1971
Stills: 3 Wash 3 Spirit
Water Source: The Bardon Burn
Capacity: 3.2 Million Litres
Owners: Diageo

Mannochmore is a fairly obtainable spirit, with independent bottlings popping up from time to time at a variety of ages. Although the most interesting and extreme examples of the make are to be found in Diageo’s own bottlings under the Manager’s Dram, Special Releases and Rare Malts series. In fact a super strong version bottled for the Manager’s Dram series was a fascinatingly extreme, difficult and borderline obnoxious whisky. It has long been popular with the blenders as its taught profile provides great structure and backbone to many blends. However if you get a chance to try it as a single malt it is well worth it as it can occasionally offer a more unusual profile. Full bodied, grassy and occasionally slightly phenolic it is not the easiest of whiskies but it can be quite rewarding if you find a good one. Perhaps the most legendary or ‘infamous’ bottling of Mannochmore was in the mid nineties when Diageo released Loch Dhu aka The Black Whisky. This was a 10yo Mannochmore that had been dosed up to the eyeballs with spirit caramel. Now something of a collectors item due to its extreme novelty and lunacy, it has become a notorious example of bad whisky. However, if you are ever unfortunate enough to taste Loch Dhu, don’t let it put you off Mannochmore, it is actually quite good when bottled neat without caramel.

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