Tamdhu Distillerys' character

toddstevens4

Greetings again Phenomenal Phenols,
Sipping on a dram of Tamdhu 10, really appreciating the sherried nature of the whisky. It is actually sherry dominant beyond what I would expect, and here is why; The pot stills at Tamdhu are very pear shaped, which leads me to assume the spirit, undergoing little reflux, would have an assertive character. In the still relatively young 10 year old offering, I'm surprised to not notice so much Distillery character, and get very strong sherry notes instead. Am I not noticing the Malt character due to an inexperienced palate, or are there factors such as heart-cut, fermentation speed, and distillation speed at play as well?
thanks in advance for your time and help friends.

horst_s_2

I visited Tamdhu around 2011. The Saladin boxes were still in production then. After the sale of the distillery from Edrington (Macallan, Highland Park, Famous Grouse) to Ian Macleod (Chieftains) the selection of casks for the bottlings changed a lot. This was the same when Ian Macleod took over the Glengoyne distillery from Edrington as well.

I do not dare to talk about a specific distillery character. A lot of the whisky from Tamdhu is still sold to the Blend industrie. And for that you need a lot of different tasting whiskies. So I would think that there are several processes for the production in place. And which one is used for the new bottling is out of my knowledge.

toddstevens4

Thanks Mr Luening. It makes a lot of sense that a distillery that large and diverse as far as who they are providing whisky for would produce a huge variety of spirit. I get caught up in that pastoral fantasy of imagining all distilleries operate like Springbank or Edradour.