Whisky Magazine – August 2019

Whisky People Dr. Bill Lumsden

38 Whisky Magazine | Issue 161

proud of my industry, but part of me is a

little bit frustrated that there's an awful

lot of 'me too-ism'.”

Bill is quick to clarify that this doesn’t

mean he feels there’s not some truly

original thinking and experimentation

going on – “There’s loads happening!” –

but that some of the results are perhaps

best left unreleased. “I've tasted one or

two examples of people just doing silly

stuff for the sake of making it different

• but does it actually taste good, at the
  end of the day?”
  He continues, gesturing to the laden
  shelves in his lab, “These cupboards are
  full of examples of things that I've tried
  that tasted terrible, and guess what?
  They're not going to be bottled. It's as
  simple as that. I don't commit tens of
  thousands of pounds to hundreds of

casks until I've at least trialled one or

two of them.”

Of course, even small trials take

time and money – resources that some

producers simply don’t have. But that

doesn’t mean there’s no pressure on

the big players to get new and unusual

products out of the door – even those

that have been decades in development.

The latest Glenmorangie Private

Editions release is a perfect example of

this. Named Allta, it was the result of

Bill’s long-brewing idea about culturing

production yeast from a wild strain.

“If I'm ruthlessly honest about it,

I bottled Allta probably a little bit

sooner than I would ideally have liked

to. And for two reasons,” he begins.

“Firstly, I didn't want to lose the unique

difference of the yeast,” he explains,

referring to the delicate balance

between the influence of wild yeast on

the spirit character and impact of cask-

derived flavours.

“Secondly, I was well aware that every

distiller under the sun – especially the

new, so-called craft distillers – would

soon be saying, 'Oh look at what we're

doing, looking at wild yeast.’ I thought, 'I

did that ten years ago.' I wanted to give

my product the spot it deserves.”

It’s easy to understand why he feels

protective. After all, though discussion

of yeast’s importance has risen to the

fore of late – largely thanks to new

distilleries such as Kingsbarns, Ncn’ean,

Lone Wolf, Raasay, and Inchdairnie,

all of which are experimenting with

different yeast varieties – Allta was in

the works over a decade ago.

Opening pages:

Dr Bill Lumsden

in the still room at

The Glenmorangie

Distillery in Tain.

These pages, left

to right:

Bill inspects a

cask; Bill at a

Glenmorangie

warehouse; the

Glenmorangie Allta.

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