Dalmore
The Dalmore distillery, very arguably one of Scotland's finest, is the jewel in the crown and actually the largest whisky distillery amongst the holdings of Whyte and Mackay group.
Dalmore is located in the Highlands, in Alness in the district of Ross and Cromarty. It sits on the banks of the Cromarty Firth, some 20 miles or 32 km due north of Inverness amidst beautiful views over the Black Isle peninsula.
The word "Dalmore'' is an anglicisation of the Scots Gaelic ''Dhu mhòr'' with ''mhòr'' meaning ''big'' and ''Dhu'' meaning black. However, Dhu also denotes something which is hidden or obscured, as in the ''sgian-dubh'' knife, which is the knife that kilt wearers stuff partially into their kilt hose. The name derives from the thick, dark forest that used to envelop the entire Black Isle area. The Black Isle not referred to as an island in Gaelic, where it's simply the 'Big Black'' or the ''Big Hidden'', but only in English. Obviously it's a peninsula but if you look closely at a map, The Black Isle is in fact almost an island.
The Dalmore company was founded officially in 1839 by Alexander Matheson (1805-1886), the nephew of James Matheson of Lewis and son of Baronet John Matheson.
Alexander, who had a degree in economics from Edinburgh University and was eventually to become a board member at the Bank of England as well as magistrate, was brought in by his uncle and by his uncle’s co-principal, William Jardine, to be a partner in the trading company which would eventually become Jardine Matheson. As such, he had spent many years in China.
Jardine Matheson became the largest and most influential ”hong” or western trading company in the Orient. It made its fortune from operating a huge opium smuggling operation and in fact had engineered for itself a monopoly in the China opium trade, as well as trading in products such as tea and cotton.
The company’s tea business really took off exponentially after the East India Company lost its monopoly in China in 1834 and products such as “Jardines’ Pickwick tea mixture” brought massive growth and more untold riches for the Jardine Matheson, whose fleet of clippers sailed the seas to the UK and beyond, laden with products such as this and many others. The company would eventually diversify extensively throughout the 19th century into insurance, sugar refining, shipping, property development, and railways and, in the 20th century, other ventures such as the airline Cathay Pacific. The Hong Kong-based company remains a mainstay of the economy in the Special Administrative Region of Hong Kong.
Alexander spent quite a bit of 1839 in his native Scotland where he purchased an estate on the west coast, a farming venture which didn’t pan out particularly well, and he also set out in that year on in his lifelong dream of becoming a whisky entrepreneur. The plan was to eschew the current fashion for setting up a Speyside distillery and to sally forth further north into the Highlands on the eastern coast of Scotland to find the best possible water source and ingredients in order to produce the finest imaginable product. Loch Morie had been the source of much illegal distilling up until the 1830s and the local water was said to have supernatural powers so it’s perhaps no surprise that he ended up in this area.
Money was obviously no object to Alexander who found a ready-made site in the form of a meal mill, which was a place where oatmeal was traditionally milled in Scotland. He set about converting it into a distillery.
Various people ran the distillery via a leasehold arrangement but in 1867, Alexander issue out an operating lease to two very young brothers: Andrew Mackenzie who was only 24 years old at the time, and to Andrew’s younger brother Charles.
When Alexander Matheson died in 1886, his son, the 3rd baronet, also an Alexander, had by then migrated to Australia (where he became a senator), and he decided to sell Dalmore to the MacKenzie brothers, who had been its longtime leasees and operators, in 1891. Andrew and Charles had by then been joined by the youngest Mackenzie brother, William.
The Mackenzies had long been responsible for the massive success experienced by Dalmore over the intervening years. Despite his dream and initial passion, the first Alexander was otherwise occupied between China and his many responsibilities in Britain. He was largely absent and had not invested a great deal in the distillery during the 28 year period until the MacKenzies came along in 1867, albeit the quality of the product remained, as always, stratospherically high.
Andrew, Charles, and eventually William Mackenzie were not only brilliant distillers but they were inspired marketeers to boot. One of their first moves was to strongly brand Dalmore by taking recourse to the ancient crest or (”suaicheantas teaghlaich”) of the Seaforth and Kintail Mackenzie clan (known in Gaelic as the ”Mac-Coinnich”). The crest was called the ”Caberfeidh”. In fact, Scots often referred to this subclan by their family crest, so as ”Caberfeidh”.
”Caber” is Scots Gaelic for antlers and ”feidh” means ‘deer and it stems from the 13th century, the year 1263 to be precise when Mackenzie clan chief Colin of Kintail saved King Alexander III from a charging stag. The grateful King proceeds to shower Colin with honours, gifting the Seaforth Mackenzie clan and their descendants a coat of arms which featured the twelve pointed Royal stag emblem, the ”caberfeidh” as well as bestowing on Colin the island of Eilean Donan, which is located in the Western Highlands at the intersection of Loch Duich, Loch Long and Loch Alsh. Alexander III also gave the clan the heroic motto ‘Luceo Non-Uro’, which translates from the Latin as to ‘I Shine, Not Burn’ and actually derives from a blacksmithing term that described the necessity of making sure that metalwork didn’t burn up but shone when heated. It’s a contraction of the moto “Virtute et valare luceo non uro” ergo: by virtue and valour, I shine, not burn.” In other words, this guy was great under pressure!
The operation grew thrived over the years and demand for the Dalmore spread not only in Britain but internationally. For instance, it was the first Single Malt to be imported commercially into Australia in 1870.
World War One saw the commandeering of The Dalmore distillery by the Royal Navy who converted the facility for the manufacture of deep-sea mines in 1917. They stayed in place after the war had ended and in 1920 disaster struck: much of Dalmore was destroyed by a munitions explosion and subsequent fire. There followed a long, drawn-out court case with the Ministry of Defence in London.
Distilling resumed after rebuilding in 1922 and the company remained in family hands until 1960 where multiple changes of ownership ensued: the MacKenzie brothers companies amalgamated with White & Mackay. Charles Mckay and James Whyte, although now known above all for their whisky production, had begun their careers as whisky merchants and bonded warehousemen in Glasgow and had been The Dalmore’s principal agents. Whyte and Mackay were then bought up by Sir Hugh Fraser’s SUITS group in 1971. SUITS was acquired by Lonrho in 1981 and Lonrho sold off Whyte and Mackay to Brent Walker in 1988. Foreign ownership began when it was purchased by American Brands (later to become Fortune Brands) in 1990. In 2001, Whyte and Mackay were bought out by its management but it didn’t stay independent for long and was taken over by United Spirits of India, a division of United Breweries, with Diageo soon purchasing a large stake in the operation. The most recent owner is from the Philippines, Emperador, which is a division of Alliance Global Group holdings.
What makes The Dalmore such a vaunted and coveted whisky brand (?): As mentioned, its partly due to the pure water source of Loch Morie, an inland loch some 11 miles (18 km) from the distillery. From there the water flows steeply down the River Alness to its mouth on the Cromarty Firth just below Alness.
Also, the quality of the barley is superb. This is grown both on the Black Isle itself and also locally to the distillery in Ross and Cromarty.
The Dalmore has its own uniquely Christmas cakey richness and is quite nutty. Its very distinct and wonderful flavour derives from the confluence of several key factors: firstly it’s casking: in terms of the 12 years, the first 9 years of a 12 year takes place in American white oak ex-bourbon casks and then half of the supply is removed and this sits in ex-oloroso sherry casks for a further three years. Dalmore’s very skilled distillers employ a number of other exotic casks for some of their speciality brands which include Cru Cabernet Sauvignon wine barriques, port pipes from Portugal’s Douro region, and a whole range of sundry sherry casks drawn from various wineries.
Secondly, The Dalmore has developed its own inimitable single strain of yeast which produces an unusually ambrosial and resonant base for the whisky. Thirdly Dalmore makes use of flat-top stills which are attached to Lynne arms (copper pipes connecting the still to the condensing system) and in this case, the Lynne arms protrude out horizontally from a place some 6 inches below the top of the stills: something very unusual. The stills also have cooling jackets enveloping their necks. This horizontal Lynne arm deep-set into the still combined with the cooling jackets produces more of what is known as ”reflux”, meaning that when a portion of vapour enters the cooler copper surface within the still, it reverts to being liquid, so heavier. This gives the whisky a lighter, finer touch.
The Dalmore is a valuable single malt principally because it’s quite rare, with around 95% of the distillery’s production going to blending into Whyte and Mackay blended brands, as has been the case almost since Dalmore was founded.
The Dalmore has a deep and unmistakable mahogany colour and so a red-orange tincture, singular caramelly in taste and delightfully nutty with a very distinct chocolate nose, plus the sherry and oak barrelling is very much in evidence. It’s a rich, somewhat sugary whisky and its adored by connoisseurs and casual drinkers alike, so much so that the Dalmore 35 year won the best whisky accolade at the World Whisky Awards in 2020 as well as Dalmore having absolutely swept the floor at the International Wine and Spirit Competition in 2019 with a total of 46 awards including 4 ”Gold Outstanding” and 3 ”Gold” awards.
Matheson’s legacy has gone from strength to strength and you can gain a piece of it by availing yourself of Stewart and Robertson’s very special Dalmore cask offer.