Glencraig 1976 36 yo Signatory Vintage cask 4258
So Glencraig is the name of the whisky distilled from Lomond stills from Glenburgie – they replaced the ‘burgie’ with ‘craig’ as the production manager at that time was Willie Craig.
Hiram Walker were experimenting with Lomond stills at the time in an effort to provider versatility to their distilleries spirit to provide for blender’s needs.The Lomond still was essentially a pot still base with a columnar condenser for a neck that contained three individually water cooled rectifying plates that could be turned horizontal to vertical to alter the reflux action. Flooding the plates with distillate would reduce the heavier elements present leading to a lighter spirit. Leaving the plates dry would reduce the reflux action, allowing a heavier spirit and turning the plates vertical would negate any filtering. The angle of lyne arm on the stills could also be adjusted for greater versatility.
These true Lomond stills were installed at Glenburgie, Miltonduff, Scapa and Interleven, but in the end, blenders were just not interested in their spirit and wanted their traditional pot still whisky. And so the experiment failed and Glenburgie’s Lomond stills were converted back to pot stills. The Lomond stills were also reportedly extremely difficult to maintain and clean, and there is some debate as to how much they actually succeeded in their purpose to begin with. In the end, Glencraig was therefore only produced from 1958 to 1981.
Also worth noting in the case of Glencraig, is that in Glenburgie, 2 Lomond stills were installed, which were a wash and spirit still, and not just a spirit still.
Lomond stills at Glenburgie that made Glencraig whisky.
Some report Lomond distilled whisky had a great oiliness about them, but who knows.. E-pistle 2007/024
Glencraig 1976 36 yo, 11/06/1976 ~ 09/04/2013, Signatory Vintage, Bourbon barrel cask 4258, 47.1%
Nose: Big zesty creaminess, pastry and melting butter. The oak and woodspice are also quite loud here. Just swirling this around and I’m amazed at the legs on this whisky, thick and viscous, certainly suggests an oily heavy whisky, and the weight is there on the nose – there’s a big malty oiliness about it. Also lots of green apples, white stone fruit and sweet melon notes. With water: Lemon meringue, even sweeter with lots of fluffy meringue, with a developing dry dill note.
Palette: Weighty chewy malt, and very spritely with lots of lemon zest. All on that biscuit base. Very ‘clean’. Gets zestier developing into a mellow bittergourd bitterness. With water: Much the same, more sweet spices show up.
Finish: Medium short, malt and lemon.
Really good, but the short finish pushed the arrow down a bit. On one hand it’s fairly ‘simple’ stuff, but the texture and friendliness wins me over, like home baked lemon meringue after a day at work.
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