The Balvenie - Balvenie 'Edge of Burnhead Wood' 19 Year Scotch Whisky (750ml)

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Producer	The Balvenie
Country	Scotland
Region	Speyside
Subregion	19 Year
Style	Single Malt Scotch Whisky
Size	750ml

Through the winding paths and steep Speyside hills to a glorious moor of heather. This is the story of what would fondly come to be known as The Heather Trials, and how the people behind them helped create the first ever expression of The Balvenie made entirely with ingredients grown on its Dufftown estate. Their creativity resulted in a delicately fruity and fragrant expression of The Balvenie, crafted with heather from the Balvenie estate.

"One bright May morning, back in the year 2000, Dave Stewart (then Estate Manager at The Balvenie, and not to be confused with our Malt Master David C Stewart) got up unfashionably early and headed out to the Conval Hills that surround the distillery. Up past the Robbie Dhu spring he went, and towards the edge of Burnhead Wood...

The Convals (Meikle Conval and Little Conval) are two rounded hills separated from Ben Rinnes by the ‘Beatshach’, the pass that links Speyside to Glen Rinnes. They can be seen from any point of The Balvenie Distillery, covered with a cloak of fragrant heather.

Ian Millar was the Distillery Manager at the time. He explains the idea behind using heather in the kiln during malting: “We were looking inside a handful of thousand-year-old peat one day” – he cups his hands as if to demonstrate – “when we realised amongst the ancient mulch of leaves and grasses and roots there’s centuries of compressed heather. It was those oak-strong, honeysuckle-sweet heather roots that made us wonder – could we give this most beloved and intrinsic element of our landscape a bigger part to play in the whisky-making process?” Back to Dave Stewart, who continues the tale with a map of the distillery hills. “That’s the footpath up there; you go up through the fields and then you go up into this bit, here, and there’s this road straight over the hill. It’s a footpath really. Heather grows high in acidic soil. Balvenie’s springs come out of here, so you’re collecting the Balvenie water from the same place as the heather at the edge of Burnhead Wood.” Dave spent the entire morning cropping the fresh heather with his scythe. Before long, his arms were full of bags over-spilling with heather. “It’s got to be young, fresh spring heather, wobbling about all day.” And holding heather in his hand, he says he felt it was a natural match for the strong-stemmed barley from the Berrylyes field used to make the traditional Balvenie taste. 

Dave took the heather to the maltings where it was stored and dried, ready for Robbie Gormley to use in the kiln. Robbie remembers how things did not work out as planned the first time. “We threw the dried heather on top of the red hot coals and the whole lot just went up in flames and disappeared with a whoosh.” For the second go, Robbie dampened the heather, placed black coals on top of the red hot ones, and layered up the damp heather with dry heather on top. This time it worked, and a plume of blue grey smoke billowed up from the kiln and out of the pagoda across the distillery.

The Heather Trials – as the notes of the Spirit Quality Meeting called them – were, in the end, a resounding success. The heather burned beautifully, sending a subtle, down-to-earth fragrance through the heat used to dry the barley. And the final expression has the familiar robust Balvenie taste with a delicate fruitiness, as well as notes of light spice and juicy fruits.Perhaps most exciting for Dave, Ian, Robbie and the team though, was the fact that this was the first ever Balvenie expression made entirely with ingredients from the estate: home-grown barley malted at The Balvenie Maltings, water from the natural springs on the estate and, of course, the heather from Burnhead Wood. Our majestic landscape captured and celebrated by some of The Balvenie’s most loyal, determined and inventive craftspeople."