There are some who would have you believe that there exists a kind of divine secret, a miraculous ingredient or genius behind the manufacture of Scotch Whisky. I however, acknowledge no miracle other than that which is worked when science and nature combine.
The principal ingredients are three, notably water, barley and yeast, with a measure of peat smoke or reek.
Of these there can be no doubt that water is the foremost. On Ben Nevis I was fortunate to find a constant and consistent source of pure clean water in two small lochans.
In order of importance, the second ingredient is barley. This must be clean and plump, fully rounded and quite dry, containing exactly the right amount of protein.
Special distiller's yeast is the third ingredient. This has the texture of dough or putty and is vital to the process of fermentation.
And fourthly there is peat, which comes to the whisky through the water passing over peat bogs on its way down the mountain, and from the 'reek' from the fire lit during the manufacturing process.
Once again, we are fully fortunate in that nature in her magnificence, has created on the hill behind us, an ample supply of peat in our own banks to fuel the fires drying the barley.
Our “Blue Label” blend started out in life as our contribution to the stock of millennium whiskies which proliferated the market at that time. Most companies presented aged and most very expensive products, whereas we produced a new blend which did not carry an age statement on the label thus being a new whisky for the new millennium. This whisky won our first gold medal from the International Wines & Spirits Competition in 2000. Now that the millennium is behind us we decided to continue selling this product but re-named as “Blue Label”. Jim Murray,s “Whisky Bible 2004” describes this blend as ‘weighty malt; has that “married” feel, where the malts have combined to make a busy, impossible-to-describe whole, back to the grains again: quite bitty and complex; chunky and complex.
This product was awarded a gold medal in the International Wine & Spirit Competition 2000 and Monde Selection gave it a silver medal that same year.
