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The Craigellachie Hotel

When I turned 18, living in Aberdeen, there weren’t many chances to work in whisky, so I worked in a supermarket till I could figure out a path to what I really wanted to do. That path for me came in the form of a University degree in International hospitality management. During this degree, I was given the opportunity to work on Islay at a hotel, which I jumped at. I still remember the first time visiting Bruichladdich and seeing what the amazing world of the distillery was like. Bruichladdich is of all different kinds, from Islay Barely’s to Black Arts, not to mention the Port Charlottes and Octomores. If you can do it in whisky, it feels like Bruichladdich is attempting to do it, and in everything they are trying, they are doing well. I can not remember ever drinking anything from them, which was not amazing. Now, this whisky is bright, spicy, sweet, and salty, with a citrus note running throughout it. A lot of lemon creamy toffee, but it’s very balanced and a great whisky for any time of the day or night. - Calum Diack, Quaich Bar Manager

Whisky Of The Week

WHISKY OF THE WEEK – 8th July
The Craigellachie Hotel was described by Condé Nast Traveller as “the oldest and greatest whisky hotel in the world”. The Craigellachie has 26 bedrooms, and it’s home to the oldest pub in Speyside: the Spey Inn, an old drovers inn dating back to 1703, and to the world-renowned Quaich Bar, where guests and tourists can savour over 1,000 single-malt whiskies alongside some of the best cocktails.

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NEW WHISKIES AT THE QUAICH BAR – July 2024
One of the forgotten distilleries of Speyside Allt-A-Bhainne was built in 1975 by Seagrams. It was one of the first distilleries designed to be operated by one person. It is a workhorse distillery, mostly going for blends, and it is very rare to see a single malt coming from it. But when you do, wow. Originally designed to make a light malt, they have also produced a heavily peated style in recent years. Both styles are amazing! This whisky from Douglas Laing’s Provenance series follows on the side of light and estery. Matured for 10 years in a refill bourbon barrel, there is a lot of marmalade and vanilla on the nose, followed by toasted pastry. This whisky has a thick mouthfeel with notes of apple crumble and clotted cream. A distillery people forget, but as soon as you taste this whisky, you will remember it forever. - Calum Diack, Quaich Bar Manager

Whisky Of The Week

WHISKY OF THE WEEK – 1st July
boutiqueywhisky is, in my opinion, one of the funniest Independent bottling companies out there. They use cartoon labels that tell a story, which is great fun. They try to guess what the story is and then find out that you are completely wrong. This whisky from them is part of the new core range of products that they introduced a couple of months ago. It is a blend of Grain whiskies aged for over 30 years, and the label shows a Monarch of the Glen esc stag who looks like he has seen better days, but he is 30 years old. Who can blame him? The back of the label is pink to signify one of the colours of the North Lights. To the whisky itself, this has a lot of buttery pastry, chocolate with vanilla and butterscotch, and an amazing dram, especially with a dessert! - Calum Diack, Quaich Bar Manager

Whisky Of The Week

WHISKY OF THE WEEK – 23rd June
Are you planning your next stay at The Craigellachie? Don’t leave your furry best friend behind! As a proud dog-friendly hotel, our staff always goes the extra mile to make your dogs feel at home. The Craigellachie Bridge beach and the Speyside Way are just a two-minute walk away, offering the perfect backdrop to make your dog’s adventure as unforgettable as the finest drams you will enjoy at The Craigellachie Hotel.

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Don’t leave your furry best friend behind!
Raasay Distillery exclusive 🥃 This will be the first time I have spoken about Raasay as a whisky of the week, but you will have seen me speak about it during one of our video whisky tastings. Raasay has a really special place in my heart. I moved out to work on the island just after Covid when things were opening up again, and I was there for 6 months. I think I speak for anyone who has ever spent a bit of time on the island. There is just something really special about it, and it keeps drawing you back in. That’s why a couple of weeks ago, I took the opportunity to go back and visit the island and see some familiar faces and, of course, drink some of the new whisky coming from the distillery. This Handfill was on when I was there and the cask make up just had me fascinated; it is a Dutch oak cask which was used for red wine and then emptied and filled with oloroso sherry, emptied again and filled with unpeated Raasay new make. This is a whisky that needs to be tried to be understood. -Calum Diack, Quaich Bar Manager

Whisky Of The Week

WHISKY OF THE WEEK – 17th June
Abhainn Dearg has slowly been making its way to the front of the line of my favourite distilleries in Scotland. Set up in 2008 by Marko, it was the first legal distillery on the outer Hebrides since 1829, when the old Stornoway distillery closed its doors and was demolished. Abhainn Dearg, which means Red River in Gaelic, is unlike any other distillery in Scotland, with all the barely coming from the isle of Lewis and the whole production, maturation and bottling happening on the island. The malting process gets done on a malt table, which is also unique here in Scotland. The whisky itself is peated and can be peated to different levels just, depending on how the wind blows on the day. This release is at cask strength 56% and has been fully matured in a PX cask, which gives it a lovely toffee sweetness, but there is also a costly note to it, making this a dream that is very easy to drink and difficult to put down. -Calum Diack, Quaich Bar Manager

Whisky Of The Week

WHISKY OF THE WEEK – 10th June
Last week, I spent my time on holiday in the beautiful Western Isles, spending most of my time on Lewis and Harris. I got to visit both Abhainn Dearg and the distillery that makes the whisky we are featuring this week, the Isle of Harris Distillery. Last year, we had the first 8 batches of the Hearach, and I don’t think anyone could predict the fanfare that was to follow. Nearly every bottle of the first 8 batches sold out within minutes. Lines were stretching out the distillery and many whisky shops. This bottle comes from batch 11 of the Hearach which was released earlier this year. Beach bonfires, orchard fruits, ginger, vanilla, and floral honey on the nose with Scottish tablets, apples, nutty malt, clotted cream, and gentle peat smoke. Amazing whisky from a new distillery doing amazing work on one of Scotland’s more remote islands.

Whisky Of The Week

WHISKY OF THE WEEK – 3rd June
Completing our little trio of festival bottlings is this Spectacular Ardbeg, and the final of our whisky festivals in May is the legendary Feis Ile (The Islay Festival). If you love to feel like you are licking a bonfire at the same as sticking your head in a BBQ, the Islay Festival is for you! 🔥 It’s not all about peat, though, with some distilleries on Islay producing unpeated whisky, but for this Ardbeg release, it’s definitely about peat. For their day at Feis Ile, Ardbeg always has a theme, whether punk or the grooving 60s. This year’s theme is the circus and with that comes this year’s Ardbeg Feis Ile bottling Ardbeg Spectacular. The first whisky from the distillery to ever be aged in port gives smoky pear crumble and cooling menthol with notes of incense candles and antique leather. - Calum Diack, Quaich Bar Manager

Whisky Of The Week

WHISKY OF THE WEEK – 27th May
The month of May in Scotland means it’s time for the whisky festivals. This week, it’s the turn of Scotland’s smallest whisky region, Campbeltown. Campbeltown used to be the beating heart of the whisky business in the Victorian era, with 30+ active distilleries in the town. Unfortunately, overproduction and a drop in quality led to there now only being three distilleries, but there are 3 more to open in the coming years. The festival is the perfect chance to go and experience Campbeltown, with the 3 distilleries opening their doors one day at a time, allowing visitors to enjoy amazing whisky and live music and many more things. This whisky from Glen Scotia is the festival bottling for 2024, unpeated and aged in a Fino cask. It has a lot of floral and fresh notes with a lovely citrus taste. A perfect summer whisky! - Calum Diack, Quaich Bar Manager

Whisky Of The Week

WHISKY OF THE WEEK – 20th May
After a few days of recovering, curing hangovers and taking stock of which whisky we have left, we are back with our new whisky of the week. The festival was an amazing experience, with each of our events being fun and informative. One of the best things about the Spirit of Speyside is the distillery bottlings that come from it, and with that, I introduce @craigellachie 11 year old Spirit of Speyside Exceptional Cask. This whisky has been aged for 11 years in an Oloroso sherry barrel, which explains its amazing colour. This whisky is rich and spicy with a nut character to it. It sits at 61.8%, so not a whisky for the faint of heart, but if you can deal with the high alcohol, you are in for a really big sherry treat. - Calum Diack, Quaich Bar Manager #whiskyoftheweek

Whisky Of The Week

WHISKY OF THE WEEK – 13th May
The Craigellachie Hotel was described by Condé Nast Traveller as “the oldest and greatest whisky hotel in the world”. The Craigellachie has 26 bedrooms, and it’s home to the oldest pub in Speyside: the Spey Inn, an old drovers inn dating back to 1703, and to the world-renowned Quaich Bar, where guests and tourists can savour over 1,000 single-malt whiskies alongside some of the best cocktails.

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NEW WHISKIES AT THE QUAICH BAR
IT’S FESTIVAL TIME WOOO! I couldn’t think of a better way to celebrate the 25th anniversary of our Spirit of Speyside Whisky Festival than having our whisky of the week being a distillery celebrating its 20th anniversary since it reopened (well, in 2018 it was celebrating). Even though this whisky was first released in 2018, we bought a few bottles because we knew how special the liquid in this bottle would be. Benromach, which is owned by Gordon and MacPhail, has been gaining a lot of new followers and lovers in recent years by continuing to make whisky in a very traditional manner. Mostly producing a slightly peated style that mirrors what the distillery would have originally been like. This whisky has a whisper of peat with sweet rich fruit and citrus at the forefront. - Calum Diack, Quaich Bar Manager

Whisky Of The Week

WHISKY OF THE WEEK – 29th April
Glenury Royal 29 Year Old 🥃 I’m a whisky nerd and a history nerd, so when both of them join together, nothing makes me happier in the world. We are lucky in the Quaich to have 9 whiskies from the lost distilleries all over Scotland, but one that has a special place in my heart is this Glenury Royal, which is from near my home city of Aberdeen in the seaside town of Stonehaven. Unfortunately, the distillery fell silent in 1983 and was later turned into flats, and some of it was demolished. It is a distillery with such a history, one too big to talk about in this post, but one I will happily share if you have some to pop into the Quaich Bar. The smell of this whisky is like dry smoke, old leather, an ancient library and citrus. There is a light freshness to the taste, followed by vanilla, herbal notes, and dry smoke again. This is a really oily whisky that brings me to a time before I was born. This whisky is just pure joy bottled up! - Calum Diack, Quaich Bar Manager #whiskyoftheweek

Whisky Of The Week

WHISKY OF THE WEEK – 22nd April
Daftmill is a very interesting distillery with much love in the whisky community, so much so that this is the first bottle behind the bar here at the Quaich. The distillery is a farm-to-bottle operation, meaning that the only produce is from the barley that they sow on their farm in Fife. Mid-Summer and Winter are the two times in the year that they produce whisky because farm work quiets down. Adding all this together, and considering the fact that they only produce 100 casks a year, this week is amber-gold dust! This release comes from 5 ex-bourbon casks, which give a lovely honey note, along with the typical floral note from Daftmill Distillery. - Calum Diack, Quaich Bar Manager

Whisky Of The Week

WHISKY OF THE WEEK – 15th April

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INTRODUCING THE SPEY BAR, COVENT GARDEN

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INTRODUCING THE CRAIGELLACHIE COLLECTION

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EXPERIENCE ‘SPEY SPECIALITIES’ BY QUAICH

SCOTLAND’S OLDEST
WHISKY HOTEL

Contact

The Craigellachie Hotel,
Victoria St,
Craigellachie,
Aberlour,
AB38 9SR

t: +44 1340 881204
e: reservations@craigellachiehotel.co.uk

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