Ailsa Bay distillery is located on the same site as Girvan, in the Lowlands. It is a technologically advanced distillery with 16 stills, founded in 2007 by William Grant & Sons, mostly to reinforce its malt whisky production for blends like Grant’s and to allow for experimentation.
This specific expression (the first official release) was made with peated barley (“heavily peated”, they say: 21 ppm) during one of the two weeks each year that the distillery does peated runs. It was matured in four types of casks: refill American oak, first fill Bourbon, new oak and Baby Bourbon casks from the Hudson Distillery in New York.
Ailsa Bay single malt
(48,9%, OB 2016)
Ailsa Bay single maltNose: simple and clean, showing some sweet apples and lemons, then also more acidic lemons, together with light hints of smoked ham and ashtray. Ozone. A bit of vanilla cake underneath. Pepper. A hint of wet cardboard in the background as well.
Mouth: more ashes now, much more than on the nose. That’s pretty much all it does: instant liquid smoke for a blend. Same secondary notes of pear drops, vanilla pastry, porridge and ginger syrup.
Finish: not too long, peppery, tarry, with some rough oak coming out too.
Not the most convincing inaugural release for a new distillery: it’s fairly mono-dimensional and young. The balance of sweetness and smoke is right, now let’s wait until it offers complexity. Around € 65.
Score: 76/100