Tullibardine Distillery

Travel:

Train: Edinburgh – Stirling (Dunblane) – 51min
Bus: Stirling – Blackford (20) – 33 min
Walk: 3 Mins

My Itinerary:

08:37 – 09:30: Edinburgh – Stirling
09:55 – 10:28: Stirling- Blackford
11:00 – 11:45: Classic Tour
12:15 – 13:45: Pint at Blackford Inn
14:00 – 14:35: Blackford – Stirling
15:03 – 15:57: Stirling – Edinburgh

Directions:

There are different transport options for getting to Tullibardine. The nearest train station is Gleneagles, where you can get the 19 bus to Blackford.  However, I took a different route, as I did not want to take two trains and a bus so I got on the Dunblane train from Edinburgh Waverley to Stirling. Then connected onto the 20 bus to Auchterarder, which departs from Striling Bus Station. This bus station is only a couple of minutes’ walk from the train station (exit the station and turn left). I travlled on the 20 to Blackford and got off at the Moray Institute stop (pictured below), and from there it was only a couple of minutes’ walk to the distillery across the road, turn right and it is on your left.

Local Area

The distillery is located in Blackford, a small village between Perth and Stirling, and you can see the distillery off the A9 road. It is a fairly remote location, so there are not many amenities in the area besides the distillery; the only other main business is the Highland Spring water factory. Although once a year, around May, there is also the Blackford Highland Games, which is hosted in the town centre. There are not many food options available if you are looking for lunch, but there was some hot food in the village shop (pies, sausage rolls, bakes), where I stopped for a pie. There is also a kitchen at the Blackford Inn, but it was closed when I was visiting, although you can get a nice pint in there and meet some locals, which is what I did when I was waiting for my bus to arrive.

Distillery Amenities

The visitor centre at the distillery has a sizable shop, where there is a full range of Tullibardine merchandise available, which includes branded jumpers, hats and whisky glasses. There is also naturally a wide selection of whisky to purchase from the core range to more premium options, the most expensive of which was priced at £10,000! There are no café or food options here, but there is a whisky bar at the far end of the shop where you can buy a selection of Tullibardine single malts or a flight of whiskies.

History

The distillery site has a rich history of distilling, with records of beer being brewed onsite dating back to at least 1488 when the distillery was visited by a young King James IV. It was converted into a whisky distillery by William Delmay Eveans in 1947 and then changed hands a few times before being shut down in 1994. It was then reopened in 2003 and was bought by the current owners, Michelle Picard, in 2014. The current owners expanded the distillery and continue to operate it independently. They also own a wine company, which means they have access to a large collection of wine casks, and this is why you will find a large amount of unique wine finishes for Tullibardine in the shop.

Tour

The tour takes under an hour to complete, and I was surprised by how much of the whisky process occurs on site in Tullibardine. It is one of the few distilleries to have its own cooperage, which is located just outside the back of the visitor centre. They do pretty much all of the whisky production process, including bottling, distillation and storage, with only the malting process taking place off-site.

The tour I booked was the standard tour, which is very reasonably priced at £12, and I found it to be a great mix of informal and informative. The tour begins in the shop with a discussion of the history of the site, then it continues outside, where you head to the production area of the distillery. There is no photography in the distillery allows so I can’t share pictures, but one of the first things you see is the old bright red porteous mill, which is used for breaking down the barley and is a staple of many of the older distilleries in Scotland. Then you move onto the mash tun, washback’s and stills, and one of the things that stood out for me was the size of the distillery compared to the production levels. Everything is fairly tightly packed into a small space, to the point that there are even a couple of washback’s outside as they ran out of space. The distillery produces around 3 million litres of whisky each year, which is an impressive amount, although the guide mentioned that this only accounts for around 0.7% of the total amount of whisky produced in Scotland each year.

The final part of the tour ends in the warehouse, which is always one of my favourite places. Although the distillery was only re-opened in 2003, there were 2,500 casks which were still from pre-1994, and these have been used for a mix of celebration and old age statement whiskies such as the 25-year-old. I saw a barrel which was just a bit older than me, dating from 1983, which is waiting to be bottled, but they have also had bottlings of 60-year-old whisky.

Tasting

The end of the tour culminates in the traditional tasting session, and I quite enjoyed the rustic tasting room. It is a bit like an underground bunker with its brick walls and low lighting, and they have all of the Tullibardine expressions lined up in a row at the back of the bar, which looks quite cool.  You are entitled to two samples, and the first option I was offered was the Sovereign, which has no age statement but is around 7 years old.  It is matured in bourbon barrels, and it has a bit of a light burn on the initial tasting, although I did find that adding a couple of drops of water made a big difference to the flavour. It has a bit of a fruity flavour and was a perfectly enjoyable dram, and is very reasonably priced in the shop. For the second dram, I was offered a choice between different whiskies from the core range, with some wine cask finishes available, but for me, it had to be the sherry cask finish. This was my favourite dram of the day (even though I tried the 15-year-old and 18-year-old in the shop after the tour), it has the wonderful dark amber colour, which looks fantastic. The whisky is matured in ex-bourbon barrels and then finished in Spanish oloroso casks.  As expected from a sherry finish it is sweet on the palate with notes of dark fruits and spice, and very smooth on the way down. I purchased a bottle for the collection on the way out at a reasonable £46 in the shop.

Summary

Tour Price: £12
Samples: 2
Time: 50 Minutes