Sadness and light

The brilliant folks at the Whisky Exchange in Vinopolis here in London sell whiskies in the cask, bottled at your convenience. A few weeks ago I had a close look at the 5 casks they had in store - 1 was empty (used to contain Pampero rum I think), the rest were Ardbeg Quite Young (gone now, sadly), an Aultmore, a Clynelish 1992, and a Rosebank 1990. Rosebank 1990? I was quite attracted to that - hadn't heard of Rosebank before, not any bottlings or of the distillery itself. I bought a bottle unnosed and untasted, and brought it home.

I didn't try it until a few days after, but when I did... oh boy! Lovely notes of apples, lemons, rhubarb and custard sweets, marmalade and hay. All this in the nose, and a lot more powerful in the mouth, with the tannins adding some tea and grass notes to accent the fruit. Spring and south Scotland in a bottle.

My next thought was what official bottlings there were out there, so I could get my greedy paws on some. Unfortunately, it appears that Diageo closed the distillery back in 1993 (apparently because the other Lowland distillery they owned, Glenkinchie, was prettier and more easily accessible to tourists from Edinburgh), sold the site to the British Waterways Board in 2002. The BWB has now given permission for the site (see aerial photo right) to be converted into upmarket flats. The distillery has already been demolished and the stills and equipment removed.

Diageo continues to bottle a Rosebank every so often and release it on the market. It's a great profit spinner, as prices can only go up due to the lack of supply. Witness Brora, closed in 1983, whose whiskies now sell for several hundred quid a bottle, and well beyond my price range (*sniff*).

Could Diageo revive Rosebank if they chose to? Unlikely now - they've just decided to expand their Cameronbridge grain distillery and build a new 100m pound distillery called Roseisle in Speyside, to supply whisky for blends. Surely they could have held on to Rosebank and spent a few million quid reviving it? By 2002 the whisky boom was well and truly underway, and Rosebank is probably more suited to emerging market tastes than the peatier whiskies. The output could easily sell for 40 pounds a bottle, more than Diageo are charging for their Talisker 18yo (another delicious whisky). I know I'd pay that much, and possibly more, for a bottle of Rosebank on taste alone, and I'm by no means the richest drammer around.

So, a toast to Rosebank. So light and refreshing, but laden with sadness, as every dram I drink is one less dram left in the world.