MaltBlog

The Balvenie Ten-Year-Old

In 1996, I had the pleasure of accompanying my wife and her paternal grandmother on a trip to Scotland. None of us has a drop of Scottish blood, but we had between us a love of dramatic scenery, a tolerance for organ meat, experience living in the sometimes dreich upstate New York climate, and - for me at least - a growing appreciation of malt Scotch whisky.

As we explored sites such as the Wallace Monument, Scone (say it with me now: SKOON) Castle and St. Andrews, I made sure to stop by liquor stores and search for unusual bottles. There were many to be found, but my experience in understanding whiskies was just beginning.

We passed through Aberdeen after St. Andrews, and then headed to the Speyside region - the emotional and commercial heart of Scotch whisky country. The two single malt whiskies most well-known to Americans must be Glenfiddich and The Glenlivet, and we visited both distilleries.

Glenfiddich is still a family-owned operation, and we got the full tour of their facilities from a clever older woman with a twinkle in her eye. She even introduced us to the distillery's cat, Archie (say it with me now: ARKY). After the Glenfiddich tour - which also consisted of a short film, a tour of the warehouse, a glimpse of the bottling operation, and a tasting, of course - the guide offered me the chance to see another distillery nearby.

Little did I know that the Grant family, which owns Glenfiddich, also owns The Balvenie. The latter distillery is a very short walk from the Glenfiddich visitor center - so walk the two of us did. She took me first past the stills; The Balvenie got its original stills from another distillery, but they have their own coppersmith to maintain and build the stills.

We walked through the building and in a short while came to a grain silo that had a fair amount of barley at the bottom. It was open to the inside of a long, low room with a concrete foundation, and spread out across the floor of that room was much more barley. The Balvenie is one of the few distilleries that conducts its own floor maltings on its premises. As I stood, slack-jawed, and breathed in the earthy smell of malting barley, I was offered a transformational opportunity: to be able to turn the barley myself.

I suppose this is really just a mundane detail of the whisky production process. I suppose that all of the laborers who had to stand in steamy, smelly rooms turning barley before much of the process was mechanized would say I was a fool (or worse) for romanticizing the act of turning barley with a shovel. But for me - as a young man taking a casual tour of some distilleries during the early moments of the single malt resurgence - for me, it was the moment when I went from interested in whiskies to having them be a part of who I am.

I took the guide up on her offer, and grasped the shovel with its wide, flat blade. I pushed it into the barley, which poured around the spade like coarse sand and made a rushing noise. As I lifted the shovel, I drew my right arm back with the effort... then I thrust that arm forward as I turned the handle, throwing the grain in a gentle spray back onto the floor.

In that simple act, The Balvenie became forever connected to me. Since then, I have waited for the whiskey that was made from that malting to become available. On Saturday, I found a bottle of The Balvenie Founder's Reserve 10 Year Old whisky, which was bottled in 2006. There is no way for me to know whether it is made from the very grains I tossed, but in my mind it is.

I am looking forward to the special occasion on which I will open that bottle and share the drink and its story together at last. Though my wife's grandmother has since passed away, I will certainly raise a glass to her then in remembrance of the trip and in solidarity with my wife's enduring love for her.

Posted by jimj at May 7, 2007 09:07 PM | TrackBack