Please note : all the great photos below are from John or Mike, the not so good ones and the words are all my own work!
I've tried a few Loch Lomond drams' in my time and bought a few bottles, some have been great - some have been good, one has been poor. It's a large complicated range that they make at their large industrial complex in Alexandria, just north of Glasgow.
There's been a distillery called Loch Lomond since at least 1814, the first was near Tarbet at the north end of Loch Lomond but little is know about when it closed. The current site, in Alexandria, at the south end of the Loch was founded in 1964 by the then owner of the Littlemill distillery Duncan Thomas.
The distillery was built on the site of an old dye works : Alexandria Works which were opened in 1860, it had a large range of printing machines, a bleaching and finishing plant, a colour shop and an engraving shop. It could dye in a variety of ways but a decline started after the war, by the 1950's the site was basically a multi-purpose textile processing plant including knitting machinery for nylon knitwear and screen-printing. In 1960 the board sold out and Alexandria Works closed.
The distillery was built on the site of an old dye works : Alexandria Works which were opened in 1860, it had a large range of printing machines, a bleaching and finishing plant, a colour shop and an engraving shop. It could dye in a variety of ways but a decline started after the war, by the 1950's the site was basically a multi-purpose textile processing plant including knitting machinery for nylon knitwear and screen-printing. In 1960 the board sold out and Alexandria Works closed.
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| A blocked up entrance way to the old Alexandria Works with the distillery behind. Photo: colouringthenation.wordpress.com |
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| The Dalmonach School House, the only surviving building from the Dalmonach Works Photo: colouringthenation.wordpress.com |
Duncan Thomas bought the site in 1964 and started converting it to whisky production with the first spirit flowing in 1966.
Over time owners changed and there was brief period of closure between 1984 and 1987. Malt whisky production restarted in 1987 and the introduction of Coffey stills in 1993 allowed the production of Grain whisky, the first distillery in Scotland to produce both types of whisky on the same site. A pair of Coffey stills were introduced in 2007 for 100% malted barley distillation.
During a downturn in the whisky market Littlemill was mothballed in 1984, and never reopened, it was destroyed in a fire in 2004, Loch Lomond holds the last remaining stock from the distillery.
In 2014, the distillery was acquired by a group of private investors operating under the name of Loch Lomond Group who had bought the Campbeltown distillery, Glen Scotia, in 1996.
During a downturn in the whisky market Littlemill was mothballed in 1984, and never reopened, it was destroyed in a fire in 2004, Loch Lomond holds the last remaining stock from the distillery.
In 2014, the distillery was acquired by a group of private investors operating under the name of Loch Lomond Group who had bought the Campbeltown distillery, Glen Scotia, in 1996.
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| The Malt Distillery |
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| The Grain Distillery |
As you can see from some of the photos the distillery is quite industrial and is not open to visitors, our visit was at the invitation of the brand ambassador Ibon Mendiguren after a visit to the Southport Whisky Club where John, part of our #BlindTasting group is a member.
So early on a cold September morning I stood waiting to be picked up on an M6 motorway bridge. John arrived along with Andy and Max. Alistair and Mike had made their own way up and planned to meet us at the hotel.
The first view's of the distillery when walking from the train station is of the huge warehouses, then the tall malt bins and the distillery comes into view.
We eventually found the appropriate gate, John pressed the button and they let us in!
We were welcomed by Ibon the Loch Lomond Brand Ambassador, signed in, given some refreshments and some high-vis jackets to wear whilst on site.
The grist is then soaked in hot water in a mash tun for 6 hours before the wort is transferred into a washback to ferment.
Loch Lomond have 10 x 25,000 litre washbacks in the building and 11 x 50,000 litre washbacks outside. They ferment the wort for 92 hours using a variety of yeasts (more of which later!)
Then things start to get interesting.....
Loch Lomond operate a unique set-up of four types of still......
As well an traditional swan neck copper pot stills, for malt whisky distillation, they have 3 sets of straight necked pot stills (these are not Lomond stills) inside each column is a set of rectifying plates which can be independently cooled, controlling reflux and allowing the distillery to produce spirit at different alcoholic strengths & flavour profiles. There are a pair of continuous column stills which these use 100% malted barley to distil a single grain whisky and of course the continuous column stills (Coffey stills) of the grain distillery which uses 90% wheat!
So early on a cold September morning I stood waiting to be picked up on an M6 motorway bridge. John arrived along with Andy and Max. Alistair and Mike had made their own way up and planned to meet us at the hotel.
We drove north to Glasgow and rendezvoused with the rest of the #BlindTasting gang for out first tour! This was especially exciting as it was the first time some of us had met each other in the flesh! We booked into our hotel then caught the train north to Alexandria.
The first view's of the distillery when walking from the train station is of the huge warehouses, then the tall malt bins and the distillery comes into view.
The distillery is spread over two sites so it took us a while to find the Main gate, all over the site you could see towers of casks soaking up the Scottish weather.
We eventually found the appropriate gate, John pressed the button and they let us in!
We were welcomed by Ibon the Loch Lomond Brand Ambassador, signed in, given some refreshments and some high-vis jackets to wear whilst on site.
We were given a brief history of the site and distillery then walked across the site to the Malt Distillery. There was some work going on to replace parts of the roof but that didn't get in the way of our tour.
The Distillery Manager Derrick Smith showed us around.
As with most distilleries Loch Lomond buy in their malted barley, theirs is 100% Scottish, this is sorted and cleaned then milled in a traditional Porteus machine.
The barley de-stoning machine - looks like a Robin Reliant!
The grist is then soaked in hot water in a mash tun for 6 hours before the wort is transferred into a washback to ferment.
Loch Lomond have 10 x 25,000 litre washbacks in the building and 11 x 50,000 litre washbacks outside. They ferment the wort for 92 hours using a variety of yeasts (more of which later!)
Then things start to get interesting.....
Loch Lomond operate a unique set-up of four types of still......
As well an traditional swan neck copper pot stills, for malt whisky distillation, they have 3 sets of straight necked pot stills (these are not Lomond stills) inside each column is a set of rectifying plates which can be independently cooled, controlling reflux and allowing the distillery to produce spirit at different alcoholic strengths & flavour profiles. There are a pair of continuous column stills which these use 100% malted barley to distil a single grain whisky and of course the continuous column stills (Coffey stills) of the grain distillery which uses 90% wheat!
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| Traditional Swan Neck Pot Stills |
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| Straight necked Pot Stills |
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| Lomond Wash Still |
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| Continuous Column Stills |
As it says on the sign, the Continuous Column Stills actually use malted barley rather than other cereals - this is the malt part of the distillery. Due to silly SWA rules they have to call the resulting whisky a Single Grain...
The other part of the distillery uses the same Mash Tuns and Washbacks but then feeds the resulting wort through sets of highly efficient Continuous Column Stills to produce grain whisky, we could see it through the windows of the control room.
Derrick then took us to the lab to meet chemist Dr Julie to have a look at the different new make spirits produced by all the stills.
We nosed a variety of spirits including grain, malt taken from the Lomond stills at high and low ABVs, Pot still and peated. What was really interesting was that there wasn't much in the way of smoke notes on the peated new make spirit until a little water was added.
So where does all this wonderful new make spirit go? Into casks obviously, and Loch Lomond have an awful lot of them!
Andy from the onsite-cooperage explained to us how the casks are examined on arrival, issues identified and fixes made:
Most of the casks are ex-bourbon from Heaven Hill distillery
Any casks in need of repair are sent to the cooperage, Loch Lomond is only one of four distilleries in Scotland to have it's own cooperage.
It did seem a little like stepping back in time!
Andy showing us how the casks are steamed
Loch Lomond recently started a long-term golf sponsorship...
New bung holes are drilled if necessary:
Then we all got to smell the inside of a cask......strange people!
Stack of spare staves for repairs showing the internal charing.
Then one of the highlights of the visit - watching a cask being charred
then the cask has to be checked...
and the new apprentice has a go....
The Octopus hoop-driving machine
The casks are then labelled and painted ready to be filled.
Tools of the trade
When ready the casks are filled and taken to one of the on-site warehouses to mature:
There were come interesting casks to be found in the warehouse!
And some interesting characters!
More happy staff!
The #BlindTasting gang!
It had been a long afternoon, walking between the sites, up and down stairways, around stills, mash tuns and washbacks, and the hard work of the new apprentice in the cooperage.... so Ibon invited us into the tasting room for a quick dram...
First of all Ibon introduced us to Michael Henry, Loch Lomond's Master Blender, who poured us some very interesting single cask samples.
- 3yo Single Grain (61%) 75% Collection,from a Refill Bourbon
- Single Malt (58%) from Refill Bourbon then Virgin American Oak Finish
- Inchmurrin 2004 (55%) Refill Bourbon then French Limassol Oak Finish
- Inchmurrin 2007 (54.8%) Chardonnay Wine Yeast from Refill Bouron then 1st Fill Sauternes Finish (WOW!!!!!!)
We then tried a number of single casks bottlings
- Inchmurrin 2007 9yo (58.4%) Chardonnay Wine Yeast - Single Cask, D:Dec '07, Cask 5834, B:Apr '17 (WOW!!!!!)
- Loch Lomond 2006 11yo (53.1%) Peated Limited Edition - Single Cask, D:Mar '06, Cask 40, B:Apr '17
- Loch Lomond 1999 18yo (50.8%) The Open - The Autograph Edition, D:'99, B:'18
- Inchmoan 1992 25yo 48.6% Island Collection, D:'92, B:'17
Both of the drams we tried which was been fermented with the Chardonnay Wine Yeast were out of this world! We'd actually tries one a couple of weeks before as part of our #BlindTasting
Finally just to cap off a brilliant day Ibon reached into the back of his cabinet and brought out a bottle of 25yo Littlemill and shared a dram with us!
Many thanks to Ibon, Michael, Derrick and the rest of the team at Loch Lomond for their taking the time to make our visit amazing!
The #BlindTasting gang!