Balblair distillery is one of a small clutch of coastal distilleries in Scotland's Eastern Highlands and, along with the likes of Old Pulteney and Clynelish, it produces a dry, muscular, coastal style of Highland single malt whisky that is quite old school in contrast to today’s whisky world of mass production, modern wood technology and wine finishes.
Balblair has won itself many fans over the years for the full-flavoured and refreshingly coastal style of spirit it produces. It is a style of whisky that, once discovered and appreciated, is not soon forgotten or ignored.
Balblair Distillery
Founded: 1790
Stills: 1 Wash Still, 1 Spirit Still
Water Source: Ben Dearg
Capacity: 1.8 Million Litres
Owners: Inver House (International Beverage Holdings)
1960-Present: Slow Evolution
Although there was some expansion of capacity at Balblair in the late 1960s and some of the intensity of its single malt's character diminished slightly in the ensuing decades, in many ways Balblair’s whisky has remained fairly unchanged by comparison to most other distilleries.
Until recently, Balblair still used a mix of short 60-hour and relatively long 90-hour fermentations in their wooden washbacks, which helped retain a fruity character in the otherwise quite oily spirit. Nowadays, sadly, the distillery has become caught up in the race for ever more output and at present only 60-hour fermentations are used in an attempt to squeeze in 21 mashes per week and max out capacity. The effects of these shortcuts will be felt in the distillery's younger bottlings over the next few years.
After buying the distillery in 1996, Inver House instigated a simple but rigorous wood policy that involved better cask selection for both filling and bottling. The (very positive) results of this policy were seen in the younger iterations of a long-running series of vintage whiskies that were eventually replaced with a more conventional age-statement range in 2019.
Some of the earliest bottlings of Balblair were done under license by Gordon & MacPhail in the 1970s, mostly 8-year-olds and 10-year-olds at different strengths. These robust whiskies show old school Balblair single malt whisky at its oiliest, with big notes of honey, green fruits and salt. The versions with a greater proportion of sherry in the mix display more flinty, mineral notes and are generally a little more lush and composed.
There were also some fantastic long-matured official Balblairs bottled at exceptionally fair prices in the early 2000s. These were wonderfully fresh and lively aged whiskies with bags of coastal and fruit character that opened many peoples' eyes to how good Balblair could be. The most famous of these bottlings was probably the superb Balblair 1966 38-year-old released in 2004, which was a limited edition assembled from a small batch of Oloroso sherry casks and carried off the gong for Best Single Malt Whisky at the International Wine & Spirits Challenge the following year.
Prior to the vintage range, the previous official expressions were a range including one No-Age-Statement (NAS) edition and several aged bottlings that were all discontinued around 2007. These were fine whiskies and the vintage series that replaced them was more of a step sideways than forward, although dropping chill filtration and caramel combined with higher bottling strengths was a revelation for Balblair. As a naturally oily distillate, Balblair suffers more than most from excessive chill filtering.
The character of modern Balblair these days is dominated largely by soft fruit complexities, strong honey aspects and background notes of salt, coastal freshness and a little drying oak - in fact, in many ways it is surprisingly close in spirit to some of those stunning old G&M bottlings from the 1970s. What is obvious is that Inver House’s careful stewardship is paying off with many great, natural and expressive official single malt whiskies from this historic old school Highland distillery.