Winter fuel: the good and the not

Funnily enough, our two national alcoholic beverages go down better in the dark months. Scotland has a good reputation for whisky and winter - at least in terms of events. Starting with St Andrew's Day and continuing through the old winter Solstice festival - now known as Christmas - and then to Hogmonay before finishing with Burns' Nicht, Scotland is the place to be for barry booze in the dark months.

The quality of our beer has been somewhat more mixed though. Recent years has arguably given us an explosion of sorts in the number of ales, porters and lagers available from local or small enterprises. Some of it is every bit as good as anything from Belgium or Germany. Some though is as every bit as bad as what the bodach used to make in his garden shed.

Here's a sample...

• Innis & Gunn. Wow! Not only is the standard supermarket range expanding but there's always one or two extra special releases at this time of year. The Highland Cask is superb - bursting with all the flavours you'd expect from a beer aged in casks that once held 18 yo whisky. This year has seen several supermarket offers on the Original, Rum Cask and Blonde which cleared the shelves in no time. All of them superb and start at a healthy 6.6% abv.
• Ola Dubh. 8% abv. Darker than an Auld Reekie close on a January night. The standard is matured in casks that formerly held Highland Park 12. This is a meal in itself from Harvieston Brewery. Usually retails at around £3 but some offers recently had it for a decent £2 odd.
• Paradox. By Brewdog. Aged in ex-Isle of Arran casks and similar to the Old Dubh above but with a whopping 10% abv. Mouthfilling and satisfying stuff. Try it with veggie haggis. The best product I've tasted from the Brewdog kennels.
• McEwans Champion. Very malty and with some serious dark fruits in there. Comes across as a traditional bevy that my grandfather might have enjoyed down in darkest Gorgie Dalry. 500ml of 7% Scots ale. Has a slight bitter aftertaste but goes well with scran once again. Widely available at supermarkets and the price has fluctuated somewhat between £1.25 and £2.

The sheer amount of ales and porters available now makes it easy to snag a fair amount of driftwood too, if you pardon the nautical theme. Williams Brothers in Alloa are one of the better ones and their Midnight Sun 'dark and spicy' porter is as good as any other on the market. Traquair House and their Jacobite Ale at 8% abv is another hero.

Some of micro-breweries can produce the odd guid yin though its fair to say that maybe some should stick to home brewing for their pals. As much as I like the islands, some of the 'local' brews there are underwhelming to say the least. Colonsay make some palatable if uninspiring brew. I've also had the misfortune to taste two of the Islay Ales and the less said about that the better though thankfully Islay's more traditional 'cottage' industries are still producing stunning malt whisky.

Whisky is for another day though it's only fair to namecheck some that have kept the hame fires burning this winter...
Laphroaig 13yo 60.6%, October 2011 bottling from Cadenheads.
Bunnahabhain 20yo 49.7%, January 2012 bottling from Whiskybroker
Longrow CV 46%, distillery bottling from the Springbank family
Glen Scotia 12yo, 62%, 'Immense, manly, meaty and peaty -93.48' from SMWS
Invergordon 18yo grain, 'Extraordinary taste intensity - G5.3' from SMWS

Onwards to Dark and Royal Lochnagar

Leaving Pitlochry behind, we continue onwards towards Braemar. This takes us through Highland Perthshire and Aberdeenshire with some amazing landscapes. This is Scotland at its best - distillery tours, glorious scenery and April sunshine. A stunning clash of ancient environment and and an auld culture, though both have been scarred. The Braemar region is where the last speakers of Aberdeenshire Gaelic were recorded in the 1980s and the indigenous tongue has left her footprints everywhere here.

Today though, this republican Gael and East German child of the DDR are heading to Royal Lochnagar, one of crown jewels of the Kingdom of Diageo. This is a small distillery and neither of us have visited it before nor tasted the malt. Iain Banks praises the place in his book Raw Spirit and sure enough, it's a cute and almost perfect distillery. You could imagine a Saxe-Coburg wife or Phil the Greek using the place as their local when on holiday.

We expect another well manicured and impeccably safe Diageo clone-distillery. Expectations sink further when we are greeted by a rather stiff lady with a royal accent and grey Thatcher style bouffant helmet. We guess that for women of a certain age in Royal Deeside, this is the height of cool. We don't flee but persist in our quest. The tour however is pretty good and we get an informative look at almost all aspects of production, including an aerial view into their open mash tun.

In Dutyfree Warehouse 1, there is a selection of casks from each of the Diageo family of distilleries. Our mouths water as we eye a cask of Lagavulin. Unfortunately, we are not invited to 'get intae them' but are allowed a sniff of Lochnagar from the cask. Apparently, there is a large group of Diageo employees visiting Lochnagar on the malt advocate course and the casks are there to further their tutelage in the art of tasting and blending. Its strictly off-bounds to even the local employees, nevermind eager visitors.

The free dram of Royal Lochnagar 10yo at the end is a good one. We get the opportunity to compare it to some spirit and are talked through the flavours. We are told that there is no cask strength available to buy and very little ever makes it to independent bottlers. However, we spy a self-bottled RL at 46% in the nearby George Strachan grocery in Braemar. On return to Auld Reekie, we are delighted to discover that the proles in Cadenheads had liberated a cask and were selling of bottles of the RL single-cask 12yo at 58% for a very reasonable price to any horny-handed son of toil who wished one. Excellent stuff.

We retire to our hostel, dreaming of a whisky republic.