The mystery visitor turns his sights on iconic Lowland malt Auchentoshan. Surely he won’t savage that, too?
Apparently the Editor has been getting complaints. Some distilleries have felt that recent reviews have been a trifle harsh, unfair even.
But I haven’t been asked to hide my claws, and they haven’t even been trimmed a little. I thought you ought to know that because, as it happens, this report is g...
Mystery Visitor
from Issue 53 published on 12/01/2006
Glen Moray is Glenmorangie’s third distillery and is somewhat forgotten,lying as it does in the shadow of Tain’s finest and the wonderful Ardbeg.But is it underrated? The mystery visitor had a look…
The road to Glen Moray takes you past some rather smart housing, largely comprised of ‘executive villas’ and climaxing in a mock gated estate (in Elgin?) rejoicing in the name of Bruceland Mansions.
I couldn’t help reflecting on the contrast between this pretentious gentility and the honest-to-good...
Mystery Visitor
from Issue 52 published on 30/11/2005
Our mystery visitor discovers a melancholy garden at Glen Grant
I visited Glen Grant on a late summer’s day, keenly anticipating a stroll in the famous gardens (that’s middle age for you).
However, though it may be a truism, first impressions do count for a lot. Unfortunately, after parking your car, the first thing you see here is a sign directing you to the v...
Mystery Visitor
from Issue 51 published on 07/10/2005
The Mystery Visitor slips into Blair Athol and discovers that a week is a long time in whisky.
It’s tiring work, this mystery visiting. No sooner do you compile one of these fearless and hard-hitting reports than the management go and change things and all your work is out of date.
To make it worse, they don’t always tell you and then you have to find out by accident. Take Blair Athol, for e...
Mystery Visitor
from Issue 50 published on 09/09/2005
The Mystery Visitor travels to Islay and puts Lagavulin under the spotlight
They’ve built a splendid new reception area for the ferry traffic at Port Askaig since I was there last.
The steep hillside has been cut back and the precipitous old road replaced with new tarmac – equally precipitous, but rather less alarming. The twists and bends have given way to a smooth and gr...
Mystery Visitor
from Issue 49 published on 15/07/2005
In our visitor centre round up we weren’t altogether complimentary about Aberfeldy. Our Mystery Visitor takes issue with that view
There seems to be two divergent schools of thought about Aberfeldy, even here at Whisky Magazine. On the one hand, when it opened, we acclaimed it as “the ultimate Scotch whisky visitor centre” yet just last issue our review of visitor centres dismissed it as “an interactive family experience of onl...
Mystery Visitor
from Issue 48 published on 10/06/2005
Dallas Dhu is a distillery musuem. But does it have any soul left? The Mystery Visitor went to the eerily deserted site
Dallas Dhu styles itself a ‘historic distillery’ – quite fittingly, as it is in the charge of Historic Scotland.
Better known for its castles and heritage sites this government agency seems an unlikely custodian of the cratur.
But there is a logic to all this. As the excellent guide book explains,...
Mystery Visitor
from Issue 47 published on 05/04/2005
Tullibardine is a distillery crossed with a shopping centre. Can it keep whisky fans happy without alienating the general public? Our man had a look
I had distinctly high hopes of Tullibardine. It’s not every day that you get to see a re-opened distillery and a brand new visitor operation – and one that’s going to be very important at that.
I’d better explain. Tullibardine may not be the best known of malts, but the distillery enjoys a fabulous...
Mystery Visitor
from Issue 46 published on 10/3/2005
Our mystery visitor made the long trek to Tomatin and found a distillery not geared up for the tourist or casual visitor
Whatever else they were thinking about when they built Tomatin, it wasn’t tourists. Located just 18 miles south of Inverness, and handy for the main A9 road from the south, Tomatin is not the tourist board-approved image of a distillery.
For one thing, it’s situated on a bleak piece of moorland. Th...
Mystery Visitor
from Issue 44 published on 25/11/2004
The Scotch Malt Whisky Society is under new ownership and enjoying new premises. Our Mystery Visitor went and checked out one of our more interesting members’ clubs
If you haven’t joined yet, you are running out of excuses. I refer, of course, to the Scotch Malt Whisky Society, a group of enthusiasts dedicated to the pursuit of their own single cask bottlings of very special malts, and their rather handsome new premises at 28 Queen Street, Edinburgh.
The Socie...
Mystery Visitor
from Issue 42 published on 3/9/2004
It takes some getting to but Scotland’s most southern distillery is worth the effort. Even when it’s silenced
After driving for some hours, I decided that the quickest way to get to Bladnoch is probably to fly to Belfast, hire a car, take the ferry back to Stranraer and potter along to the distillery – from which you’ll deduce that Bladnoch isn’t the sort of place you find by accident.
Yet that’s what owne...
Mystery Visitor
from Issue 41 published on 16/7/2004
It’s four years since our mystery visitor was at Edradour, and a lot has happened since then. So what’s the tour like now?
It’s been some four years since I reported on Edradour and, as nearly two years have passed since this tiny distillery was sold to the enterprising Andrew Symington and his Signatory operation, a repeat visit seemed overdue. After all, perhaps there had been some vast expansion, with production cran...
Mystery Visitor
from Issue 40 published on 4/6/2004
Our Mystery Visitor travels to Arran
Isuppose that most, if not all readers of Whisky Magazine have dreamt of running their own distillery. Back in 1995, after a distinguished career in the industry, Harold Currie did rather more than that – he built his own brand new distillery, from scratch, and started producing single malt whisky....
Mystery Visitor
from Issue 35 published on 17/11/2003
Campbeltown was once a thriving centre for whisky production. Now little remains. Is Springbank worth the journey? Our mystery visitor made the lengthy trek to find out
It took a long time to get to Campbeltown and, when I arrived, the profusion of palm trees in this delightfully Victorian town convinced me
that I had been magically transported from Scotland to the Caribbean.
Surely this was a little rum distillery that I was visiting? Instead, in Springbank, I fo...
Mystery Visitor
from Issue 34 published on 5/10/2003
Ruffling a few feathers? The Whisky Magazine Mystery Visitor tries out the Famous
Grouse Experience
Glenturret Distillery has the distinction of being the first visitor centre to be reviewed by the Mystery Visitor, right back in the launch issue of Whisky Magazine. But things have moved on at Glenturret, with the creation of the £2.5 million ‘Famous Grouse Experience’, so a return visit was defini...
Mystery Visitor
from Issue 33 published on 25/9/2003
