Cardhu distillery

The name of the Cardhu distillery in the middle of Speyside means something like black rock. Cardhu was written as Cardow until 1975. The famous Cardhu Distillery is also noteworthy as the only distillery founded by a woman. While in the past most of the single malt production was used for the Blend Johnny Walker, this changed after Cardhu became more and more popular as a single malt and most of it is now sold as a single malt. Cardhu is particularly popular in the Iberian Peninsula and France due to its light character.

Malt Whisky Trail

Cardhu is part of the world famous Malt Whisky Trail. A marketing tool for tourists to visit whiskey distilleries in the Speyside area. The Malt Whiskey Trail gives visitors the opportunity to visit Speyside distilleries and also to watch the staff at work. Also on the Malt Whiskey Trail are Glenfiddich, Strathisla, Benromach and Glenlivet. Not far away is Craigellachie and Aberlour.

How does Cardhu taste?

The character of Cardhu was considered heavy and powerful in the early days, which was due to the small stills. With the installation of new and much larger pot stills in 1897, it was possible to highlight today’s still beloved elegant and noble style. With its delicate single malt qualities, Cardhu is one of the lighter products on the market. The flavors are wonderfully harmonious and balanced.

The Speyside style is typically creamy and mild. Often you can find aromas of blossom honey, caramel and oranges, which are contrasted with a pleasant spice of oak and a little malt. The barley malt for Cardhu is not smoked over peat, which is why the whisky is not smoky. Overall, the whiskies are round and well balanced.

Bottles

The light character starts with the 12-year-old and is a solid introduction to the highly awarded family of this single malt series. This Speysider represents the region and its diverse producers of high-quality, matured barley grain brandies in a very classic and wonderful way. The Cardhu 12 years, the standard quality, has a soft body, is comfortable and of medium weight. With an alcoholic scent of sweet apple blossom and heather aromas. It has a well balanced taste with a warming, drying finish. A real beginner and connoisseur whisky.

With increasing age in the 18-year-old, the character becomes significantly more abundant and yet velvety in texture. It is a rather quiet and secretly extra matured whisky that is not immediately noticeable. It opens slowly with enchanting finesse to give the connoisseur an exquisite structure, a rich body all while preserving the delicate Cardhu character. In between there is the 15 year old and other Non Age Statement whiskies with the Amber Rock and the Special Cask Release.

Independent bottlings are extremely rare because the distillery prefers to keep their whiskies for their own production.

Production

The Cardhu Distillery uses a 7.2 ton mash tun, 8 fermentation vats with a volume of 37,000 liters each and distills the whisky in three wash stills and three spirit stills, all of which are heated by steam. The water for the almost 2.5 million liters of whisky comes from the Mannoch Hill spring and the Lyne Burn.

History

John Cummings and his wife Helen ran the Cardow estate around 1810. The company, which initially emerged as an illicit distillery, was legally licensed in 1824. The story goes that whenever tax officials came by, Helen disguised the mash tuns and fermentation tanks as containers for fermenting bread dough. While the officers then drank their tea, they hoisted a red flag on the barn to alert the surrounding neighbors that the tax investigators were in the area. The Cummings were caught three times for illegally distilling so when the tariffs were reduced by the tax law of 1823 John & Helen took the opportunity, bought new stills and sold their whisky on a large scale with the help of their friend George Smith, later founder of the Glenlivet distillery.

After John died in 1846, Helen and her son Lewis continued to run the distillery from then on, while the operation officially became the property of George Smith. A brewer and a maltman were also hired at this time. When Lewis died in 1872, his wife Elisabeth took over the farm, which she ran with Helen and their two sons. In the following years the demand for whisky increased and a new larger distillery could be built. After the renovation was completed, the old stills were sold to William Grant & Sons to build the Glenfiddich distillery.

The well known Kilmarnock merchant John Walker was a regular customer and Cardow was a constant component in his own brand blends. Over time Cardow, became indispensable for the Walkers. In 1893, Elisabeth sold the distillery to John Walker & Sons for £ 20,500. In return, she and her family received shares in the company. From 1893 until 1908 the distillery was known as Cardu after which the name reverted to Cardow. This purchase proved fortunitous as with the larger company behind them, it was possible for the distillery to survive the difficult times that came with the collapse of the whisky market following the Pattison whisky crisis. In 1917 production is stopped due to the war but resumde in 1919.

https: //www.whisky-frog.de/cardhu/

https: //www.vintageacquisitions.com/cardhu/

The Walker company went public in 1923. Two years later Cardow became part of the newly created The Distillers Company Ltd. and became the property of Diageo in 1987.

In 1930 the distillery finally passed to its current owner, the Distillers Company Ltd., now Diageo. It received its current name (Cardhu: black rock) in 1965.

The new stills were increased by two more to a total of six in 1960. Expansions were made, experiments were carried out and, finally,

Diageo’s attempt to introduce a Cardhu Pure Malt in 1993 is notorious. This was not a single malt, but a vatting from various distilleries in the area around the Cardhu distillery, because Cardhu was hardly able to meet the great demand from Spain on his own. Diageo’s attempt caused a great outcry in the Scottish whisky world, as it was seen as a danger of weakening the single malt quality feature. As a result, even the Scotch whisky Association changed its labeling rules. The discussion about whether these changes were good or bad (Vatted Malt now had to be called Blended Malt) continues to this day.

At the time when Cardhu did not have enough single malt in stock, the owner, Diageo, tried to market a blend with other malt whiskies from various distilleries under the name Cardhu Pure Malt, but failed because of the admission of Glenfiddich. The terms “Pure Malt” and “Vatted Malt” have been replaced by “Blended Malt”.

Cardhu factsheet

Can I tour Cardhu?

Yes Cardhu distillery is tourable. On Trip Advisor the distillery has been rated as excellent by 391 of 540 tours to date. This gives Cardhu an overall rating of 4.5