Glen Moray Distillery

After residing three nights in Elgin we finally visited the most local distillery of Elgin: Glen Moray. Directly after breakfast. You can do this only in Scotland: only the full Scottish breakfast gives you the solid base needed to survive the whisky tasting at that early time of day.

We left out the tour, but Angelika and me took the offer to an extensive nosing and tasting session. Both of us got three drams with the three principal Glen Moray bottlings: the no-age-statement, the 12-years-old, and the 16-years-old. The guy explained the nosing and tasting procedure in a deep, detailed way. Of course we knew much of this but some aspects were new. And yes, three drams of whisky just after breakfast, that has its own quality... strongly recommended! While we compared the three releases forwards and backwards carefully, he asked us questions about our journey, our whisky collection and our whisky preferences. Suddenly with a big smile he summoned two more bottles from the cabinet, as he explained, one matching Angelika's taste and one especially for me. As it turned out, he had listened carefully what we had talked: The one whisky for Angelika (her fourth dram after breakfast!) was a very heavy complex but sweet "Mountain Oak Malt" cask strength, exactly what she likes most. The other one selected for me is actually an accident, the "Serendipity", my fourth dram. The bottling company had accidently married 80% of 17-years-old Ardbeg with 20% 12-years-old Glen Moray, a "mortal sin" as it says on the label, but then, it had happened, and the result is a pure malt with a strong Islay character and a little hint of Speyside at the same time, quite a combination, and quite unique. As we exchanged the last drams between us, each of us actually had had now five whiskies...
Needless to say we bought the Mountain Oak as well as the Serendipity, and in order to round this up we took the 12-year-old Glen Moray as the third bottle. (The 12-years was the best to our taste of the three principal bottlings.) What an experience!Great.

Glen Moray distillery

Glen Moray distillery

Glen Moray still house

Glen Moray warehouses

Glen Moray cask filling station

Glen Moray nosing and tasting for two participants... just after breakfast...