Mannochmore Connoisseurs Choice 1999 18 años Single Malt Whisky

Speyside is home to many distilleries—over 50 in total—and most are quite easy to locate. Some can be spotted from several kilometers away. Mannochmore distillery, while relatively conspicuous, is not easily found. If you're traveling along the A941 toward Rothes, don't be too quick to photograph the Longmorn distillery on your left; you can see in the distance on your right the roof of a warehouse and a large, white building emitting white smoke. You might think that's Mannochmore, but you'd only be half correct. That's merely an animal feed factory sharing the same site. Even when you're heading directly toward the distillery, it takes some effort to find it. All you can see is the pagoda roof of Glenlossie distillery's old kiln. You must enter a restricted area to properly locate Mannochmore distillery. There, you'll find a newly expanded mash room with large windows, a saccharification room, and eight fermentation tanks. Mannochmore was established in the early 1970s when the whisky industry was thriving. The distillery was built to produce malt whisky for blending purposes. Mannochmore and Glenlossie operate as "sister distilleries," sharing staff for many years. The two distilleries work alternately, each running for only half the year, with employees rotating between them. Since 2013, the distillery has been equipped with an 11.1-ton Briggs full-lauter mash tun, eight wooden fermentation tanks, eight outdoor stainless steel fermentation tanks, and four sets of stills. Pure wort and long fermentation (up to 100 hours) give the new spirit a fruity character. The distillery currently operates on a seven-day production week. Mannochmore's malt whisky is a crucial component in Haig blended whisky. Haig is a whisky brand that first emerged in the 1880s. The Haig family represents Scottish whisky nobility, having been involved in the whisky industry since the mid-17th century. Currently, the distillery's official bottling is the Mannochmore 12-Year-Old under Diageo's Flora and Fauna series. In autumn 2016, Diageo released a Mannochmore 25-Year-Old (distilled in 1990) as part of its Special Releases series, bottled at cask strength of 53.4%.