Travel: Train: Edinburgh to Carlisle (1hr 15min), Train: Carlise to Annan (20 mins). Walk from station to distillery (30mins)

My Itinerary:
06:52 – 08:06: Train – Edinburgh to Carlise (Avanti)
08:54 – 09:14: Train – Carlise to Annan (Scotrail)
09:30 – 10:15: Cup of Tea (The pantry)
10:15 – 10:45 Walk to Distllery
11:00 – 12:00: Classic Tour
12:45 – 13:45: Pint (Buck Inn)
14:13 – 14:39: Train – Annan to Carlise
15:02 – 16:18: Train – Carlise to Edinburgh

Directions: The train journey takes you to England where you connect on the way to Annan, the train to Carlise, on my route I had around a 40 minutes to wait for my connection.  The train to Annan is a limited stop train begins in Carlise on the way to Dumfries, with Annan being the second stop.  After you arrive in Annan it is then is quite straightforward walk although it does take a good half hour. Walk out the train station then head straight into the town along St Johns road, take a left onto Bank Street and then cross the road and head straight past William Hill and onwards past the Annan football stadium and you will soon start to smell the distillation process as you get closer to the distillery which is on your left hand side and well sign posted.

At the Distillery: The distillery is pretty compact, you access the building through a quite large carpark and there is then a small shop which doubles as the visitor centre where you check in or buy tickets for the tours.  There is also a large café area where you can get a bite to eat or a pre or post tour drink on the lefthand side, then between both of those area is the old mill where your tour begins.

My Tour (The Classic Tour)

I booked myself on the 11am tour and arrived slightly early on a cold January afternoon, I did check out the shop and they do have a good range of whisky available for purchase especially for such a young distillery.  I waited on my tour in the old mill room as it was warm in there and that is where my tour guide and group gathered and started the tour.  The tour starts with an early tasting, you are given a tasting class as a lanyard at the start of your tour and I got to sample the blended malt that is produced on site.  The malt was made in collaboration with James Cosmo who people might know from Game of Thrones and movies such as Braveheart. The whisky was very drinkable for a blend, quite smooth with only a little burn and very sweet but it did warm me up a bit on a cold day.

The tour starts off with a bit of history about the distillery, Annandale has had a distillery on this site for over 100 years and has had a few different owners since Geirge Donald originally bought it in 1830. It was for a short time part of the Johnnie Walker whisky group who helped modernise the distillery before being forced to close during World War One in 1914 and afterwards the lease on the distillery expired.  It was then taken over by the local former for a while who used the building for farming purposes but eventually fell into disrepair until it was purchased by the current owners Dr David Thompson and his wife Teresa Church.  They restored the distillery back to health and re-opened in 2014 and they have not looked back since, in fact the day I arrived Annandale had just released their first 10 year old single malt which is quite a milestone for a new distillery.

The tour the continued on th upper floor of the Mill room where you get to see the whisky production process and this incuded the mashtun, wooden washback’s and three copper stills. It is quite a condensed production in Annandale but everything is done manually and they have tried to keep the process authentic which is to be commended. The spirt has a twin distillation process which they say is to help smooth the spirt out and I have to say I probably agree after the later tasting.

For the next part of the tour, you head outside and to the filling room where the casks are filled (hence the name!), they fill around 50 casks during a day which gives you an indication of the size of production going on at the distillery. My guide also told a great story about Doddie Weir (late Scotland Rugby player) who was working in waste management and visited the distillery as part of his job, the owners were big rugby fans and after talking with they ended up getting him to fill one of the casks the distillery produced which he was then given bottles from to action off and raise money for his charity.

The Tasting

The final stop is the warehouse where the whisky casks are stored, and in the first floor is all independently owned casks as you can buy your own cask on site.  There are also some of the first casks filled at the distillery from 2014. The is the end point of the tour and so it is also where you get the remaining samples of the tour. Although it was cold inside the room I soon got warmed up after the samples. The four samples were all really good if I am honest, although they were all cask strength I have to say they were very drinkable and i did not feel the need to add water to any of the drams. The samples comprised two oak casks (peated and non-peated) and two oloroso sherry casks (peated and non-peated). The first dram was a perfect winter dram (especially as it was a cold Jan morning!). It had no burn and notes of cinnamon and vanilla (probably infleunced by the Bourbon barrels). Then next dram was the oloroso non-peated, again very good and as I love an sherry cask it was ideal for me, it was very smooth despite the young age and strength again very drinkable and this was probably my favourite dram. The next two were the peated versions of what i had just consumed and again they were very nice, as the peat content is not overpowering, even if you are not a peat fan I think you could still enjoy these.

Summary

Tour time: 1hr

Tasting: 5 Samples