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Blair Athol 2015

On a tour to Pitlochry we went past Blair Athol Distillery. It stated on the internet that they were closed due to reconstruction of the production site, but the distillery shop would still be open. We thought it would be fun to see the place when we were in Pitlochry anyways, so we stopped by.

We walked around for a while when an employee approached us and told us we couldn’t be here “without a guide”. Wait a minute… “You do tours?” one of my friends quickly asked. They did, and he actually had a tour we could join which started a few minutes after.

We were only 6 people on the tour, so we had a lot of time to ask questions. There were a lot of other tours on the site with a lot of people, so it was a bit crowded and industrial and we weren’t allowed to take pictures. But we went through the production and had a quick peek at one of the warehouses. In the end we had a taste of their standard expression Flora & Fauna 12 year old.

A couple of features that is special for Blair Athol, which is worth mentioning: 
- Blair Athol is from 1798 and owned by Diageo.
- They only run water through the Mash Tun 2 times, and only the first run will be used.
- You will only find Blair Athol Single Malt from 1st fill sherry casks. That means that they never reuse their sherry casks, which will be resold after the first use.

If you have never seen or tasted Blair Athol it makes sense. They sell almost their entire production to blends and the only single malt whisky they produce, the Flora & Fauna 12 year old, is only sold in very few countries.

It was a fine tour on a great day with a lot of sunshine. What is not to like? Perhaps the chance to taste more than the 12 year old, or at least we could have been seated when we tried it and we could have had a whole dram. All of the tour was just taken to the shop where we got a small Glencairn glass in hand with a small dram. I know the tour is cheap, so at least the chance to buy a more exclusive tour would have been great. Well, it was still a fine tour and I will rate it 5/10.

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