Inver House Tour

Today my brother and I went a tour of Inver House distillers' facilities in Airdrie. As a life long resident of Airdrie and also a massive Balblair fan, I wanted to know more about blended whisky and in particular Inver House's blends in which Balblair is a main component.

This tour was kindly organised by Gillian Gibson, the Global Brand Manager for Balblair and anCnoc single malt whiskies, and I was left in the very capable hands of Mark Williamson, Assistant Blender.

Due to this being a busy and working facility I was not able to take many photographs. Mark us to one of the vast warehouses and we all spoke in depth about whisky, malts, blends, and the industry in general. He showed us round the blending and vatting areas, the bottling plant and finished off with taking us to the blending lab where he had laid out an array of spirits for us to nose and taste.

We got to try new make spirit for Balblair, Knockdhu, Pulteney and Balmenach single malts, as well as new make grain whisky which goes into their core blends. Finally Mark took us through the core blends of Cattos, MacArthurs, Hankey Bannister Original, Hankey Bannister Heritage Blend, and Hankey Bannister 12 year old, and how they are put together with the various components. I urge you to try and seek out a bottle of the Heritage Blend, at 46% it really stands out strong and is pretty tasty. When I get a bottle I will review it.

Again, thanks for Gillian and Mark for facilitating this.