Whisky wanderlust: What makes Scotland’s independent distilleries worth visiting

I never imagined I would be spending a night in a Scottish manor once owned by legendary American singer-songwriter and Nobel laureate Bob Dylan.

But there I was in the stately 16-room 18,000 sq ft Edwardian mansion overlooking the picturesque Cairngorms National Park in the central highlands and admiring its carefully preserved century-old features like its wrought iron staircase banister and marble fireplaces.

Today, the estate, which Dylan had owned since 2006, has been bought over by Angus Dundee Distillers and converted into Tomintoul House to showcase the Tomintoul Distillery range of whiskies and host “friends and family of the brand”.

I was there as part of a small group trip organised by Singapore-based whisky retailer The Whisky Store who frequently sends its own staff on Scottish whisky road trips to learn more about the artistry and heritage behind independent whisky making. It also organises similar trips for clients on an ad hoc basis.

The Whisky Store, co-founded by husband-and-wife duo Chua Khoon Hui and Joyce Ng, is one of Singapore’s pioneering whisky retailers of independent labels. Their company TSH Corporation also runs several bars in Singapore including Quaich Bar Collector at Grand Copthorne Waterfront Hotel Singapore; The Other Room at Singapore Marriott Tang Plaza Hotel and Signature Reserve at Fullerton Hotel.

Since 2005, they have been making trips to Scotland to deepen their ties to the distilleries and bottlers that supply their business with rare and interesting bottles. It is this carefully forged network that has made it possible for us to gain access to this exemplary example of Scottish hospitality.

I soon learned that Dylan was not just an absentee lord of the manor – in fact he used to visit the estate with his brother for a few weeks every year but had decided to sell it because he was no longer using the space. So of course, I had to spend some time in a drawing room where Dylan had left a baby grand piano behind. I sat on the piano bench, hoping his creative genius would spark long forgotten muscle memory and inspire me to tap out a tune but obviously that did not turn out well.

Never mind, whisky awaits.

In the grand dining room, our hosts, master distiller Robert Fleming from Tomintoul Distillery and master blender Iain Forteath for both of Angus Dundee Distillers brands – Tomintoul and Glencadam – were eager to share some of their most interesting bottles.

Over a multi-course dinner of delights featuring local delicacies such as roast Scottish salmon and chicken Balmoral where chicken breasts were stuffed with haggis, we savoured too many drams to count. That included Tomintoul’s Five Decades Speyside-Glenlivet Single Malt Scotch Whisky, which Fleming had blended from casks across each of the five decades of the distillery's history.

Chua and Ng also contributed an ultra-special bottle – a 40-year-old Tomintoul single sherry cask whisky that was distilled in 1977 and bottled in 2017. This “rare gem”, as characterised by Chua, was uncovered during a previous visit thanks to Fleming’s expert advice. They ultimately decided to bottle this mellow and gently floral, sweet and fruity whisky to commemorate the 10th anniversary of Quaich Bar, the first bar they launched.

In fact, one of the duo’s aims of this trip was to sample whisky from several of their casks which are currently maturing in Scotland and to possibly select at least one more cask for their bottling programme.

Additionally, the team can also source suitable casks for interested clients, a unique proposition given that whisky cask investments are all the rage in recent times but have been fraught with several large risks.

Still, Chua himself advises against viewing cask buying through a purely monetary lens. As with any other alternative investment class such as art, watches or designer handbags, there are inherent risks to note.

Factors like evolving preferences or economic conditions can impact the price of whisky. A physical cask, in which the distilled whisky matures until it is ready for bottling, requires proper care and storage to ensure the precious liquid within remains intact. There have also been reported instances when unknowing individuals have invested in casks only to discover that the same cask has been sold to multiple people – or that it did not even exist in the first place.

Instead, Chua frames a cask purchase as a way for an enthusiast to delve deeper into the world of whiskies. He said: “A cask purchase is about the passion for whisky and the experience of witnessing the art and science of whisky-making, the deep-rooted heritage of the brands and the unique qualities that each distillery possesses.”

Besides helping to narrow down the selection of casks, The Whisky Store can arrange for samples, where available, to be sent to the client for tasting and will handle logistics like designing the label and bottling the liquid (since it is not quite practical to ship a whisky barrel halfway around the world).

The Whisky Store also consults with whisky legend Frank McHardy, a respected industry veteran with over six decades of experience at distilleries including Invergordon and Springbank. Together, they have collaborated to release a Signature Reserve Collection known as The Frank McHardy series featuring single cask bottlings, bottled at cask strength that have been personally chosen by McHardy.

This is why when we visited the Speyside Tomintoul Distillery, a 20-minute drive from Tomintoul House, the experienced trio of Fleming, Forteath and McHardy were enlisted to sample five whiskies that had been freshly drawn from casks that Chua and Ng are considering for their next cask purchase.

These whiskies are part of the cask collection at Tomintoul and each of them dates back to 1990 or 1991 from distilleries including Laphroaig, Bowmore and Caol Ila. The selections are so enticing that as of press time, Chua and Ng are still pondering their choices.

Still, there was more to explore. Fleming brought us on a tour of the distillery where he explained how Tomintoul’s tall stills contribute to the smooth, complex single malt that they produce.

It is a geeky fact that whisky lovers will appreciate, especially in juxtaposition to a separate visit to Glencadam Distillery, also owned by Angus Dundee Distillers and located in the highlands about three hours’ drive from Tomintoul. Here, Forteath offered a behind-the-scenes tour of the distillery, which is currently undergoing renovations. His aim? To show how the stills are instead built with lyne arms at a 15-degree incline that results in its signature style of orchard and tropical fruity notes.

The renovations are expected to be completed by 2025 and will include a new visitor’s centre to allow more people the opportunity to learn about the inner workings of how whisky is made.

In the meantime, Glencadam has an ongoing partnership with The Rookery, a restaurant situated at the edge of the Carnoustie Golf Links Championship Course.

Located about an hour’s drive away from the distillery, this Scottish town is known for its golf championship and is an ideal stopover on a whisky road trip. The Rookery’s Glencadam private dining room is available for groups of up to 12 and has several of its award-winning range on the menu, including the American Oak, Reserva Andalucia and the 10-year-old single malt.

Our final stop on our road trip was to Huntly, a charming town in Aberdeenshire. It is the headquarters of Duncan Taylor Scotch Whisky, an independent bottler which owns one of the largest privately held collections of aged single malt and single grain Scotch whisky casks in the world.

It is known for its various series of whiskies like the Dimensions, Tantalus and The Octave, which are bottled in Huntly (a selection of bottles are available at The Whisky Store and the group’s bars in Singapore). For The Octave series, whiskies are finished in smaller 50-litre octave casks to impart more flavours to the liquid.

In Huntly, Mark Thomson, Duncan Taylor’s private client manager and brand representative had curated a series of activities to offer an insiders’ perspective into the business of bottling rare whiskies.

We visited the company’s cooperage, where barrels – they play a crucial role in the maturation of whisky – are repaired and maintained and watched in awed silence as a skilled cooper assembled the pieces of a barrel within minutes. Then we dropped by the warehouse where these precious casks are stored, eyes straining to pick out rare names, including some from distilleries that no longer exist.

Up next is the bottling centre, where bottlers were meticulously hand-labelling a vintage single grain Scotch whisky distilled at Invergordon Distillery in 1965 to commemorate McHardy’s 60 years in the business. (He started his career at Invergordon.) Bottled in collaboration with The Whisky Store, this will be available in Singapore by the end of the year.

Duncan Taylor is also currently in the process of renovating Castle Hotel, once an 18th century country house built for a duke and now reimagined as a luxury boutique hotel. It will feature interiors designed by Scottish Highlands based designer Fiona Rupert and is slated to open next year. For now, we returned to Duncan Taylor’s Club Room, situated within a former bank, to put all that we had learnt to the test with a whisky blending session.

Featuring a selection of five whiskies from Duncan Taylor’s own range, including a selection of single malts as well as a bottling from its popular The Octave series, Thompson briefed us on what a blend should comprise.

A grain whisky is a carrier of flavour that lays the foundation of everything to come, while layers of fruit, floral and rich malts build complexity and finally, depending on the blender’s requirements, a peated malt helps elevate, extend and bind a blend. A typical flavour profile uses peat in delicate amounts to extend the aftertaste of the entire blend – or in high amounts, will create a smokey whisky.

It was time to get creative.

I was tempted to sneak a peek at McHardy’s notes – this was child’s play for him after all – especially when I tasted how finely balanced his blend was.

But I was inspired by the fresh dessert Fortheath had made for us at Tomintoul House. Called cranachan, this traditional Scottish dish has cream mixed with fresh seasonal berries including raspberries and strawberries and bolstered with oats and Scotch.

As it turned out, the resulting light, fruity and floral flavours of my blend did evoke the summery delight of this dessert. However, with a gentle body and a short finish, I strongly doubted it would stand up to a connoisseur's palate. But that didn’t not matter.

What I had was infinitely more precious – a bottled memento of a picturesque road trip through Scotland learning about the ins and outs of what many have been moved to call liquid gold.