Highland barley, malted slow over peat-smoke and patience. Spring water drawn from the granite burn below the cellar. Yeast does the quiet work — three days of breathing, of soft heat, of grain turning into something else entirely.
Two copper pot stills — Old Margaret, the wash; Wee Donald, the spirit. The cuts are made by hand, by nose, by the same family for four generations. We keep only the heart. The heads are too sharp. The tails, too soft. Only the middle is worthy of the cask.
Ex-bourbon American oak, ex-sherry Spanish oak, and a few rare ex-Sauternes for the long sleepers. Twelve winters in the dunnage warehouse. The angels take their share — two percent a year, gone to the rafters. What remains is the dram.
FOUR DRAMS · ONE DISTILLERY · OLDEST TO YOUNGEST, OR THE OTHER WAY ROUND.
Honey, leather, faint smoke. Distilled 2014. The everyday dram, if you're lucky enough.
Dried apricot, dark chocolate, sea-air. Sherry cask finished. Slow Sunday whisky.
Beeswax, old library, charred orange peel. The patient one. Cellar release only.
Treacle, walnut, peat-fire embers. One cask. Forty-seven bottles. No water added.
Our visitor cellar opens four days a week, Thursday through Sunday. Stay for a guided tasting through the still house and dunnage warehouse, ending with a flight of four drams beside the fire. Bookings are limited — twelve seats per session — and the road in is narrow, so leave time.
"My grandfather taught me to listen to the still. She'll tell you when she's ready, if you've the patience to hear her."
"A cask is a slow conversation between oak and spirit. My job is mostly to not interrupt."
"The cut is everything. Three seconds too long and you've lost the heart. We don't get those seconds back."
HEARTH & FORGE DISTILLERY
GLENGARRY, INVERNESS-SHIRE
PH35 4HR · OS NN 184 015
OPEN THU–SUN · 10:00–17:00
THURSDAY–SUNDAY
12:00 / 17:00 · 75 MIN
£35 STANDARD · £65 PREMIUM
BOOK AHEAD · 12 SEATS / SESSION
dram@hearthforge.com
+44 1808 401 047
@hearthforge — instagram
@hearth_forge — letterboxd of drams