The people of Knockdhu - Part 2

The "Knock" - courtesy of Dramming.com

My friend Oliver Klimek visited the lovely distillery of Knockdhu in 2011 and wrote this great little article: 

http://www.dramming.com/2011/05/21/dramming-in-scotland-10-knockdhu/

It certainly wasn't as a result oh him writing the piece that put these whiskies on my radar, but once I found them I did scour the websites to see what other people had written. 

I love the fact that this distillery is one of the smallest in Scotland and as mentioned in Part 1, there is no automation. For me it represents a very tight knit group of people who work together closely in the creation of a great whisky. What else could better defines my lovely whisky fabric. 

Ladies & Gents, we continue with Part 2 which is a short profile of: Alastair Legge.

Alastair arriving in style

Alastair, Ali for short, was born in August 1972 and is another of the shift supervisors at the distillery. He along with his brother Fraser who also works at Knockdhu (we will get to him later) were born and raised on the neighbouring farm. Literally "home grown" you could say. Ali started working at the distillery in January of 2007, also coming from a mechanical background (time served motor mechanic) like Alex from part 1. 

His previous job was to maintain and keep a fleet of lorries on the road for a local haulage company. He is married with two kids of their own but he and his wife Jane have also been fostering children for a few years now. Alistair interests are his American cars which he has 3 or 4 of and his dogs. Nine Australian Cattle dogs to be precise which he also breeds. In July of this year he had two litters of six pups each which means 12 little fur balls were terrorising all the big dogs!  

 Ali is a very handy lad to have around since his extensive knowledge of mechanics and welding are a tremendous asset.  

This year, Knockdhu only shut down in July for three weeks. They call it their silent season and it's when the essential maintenance or upgrades get done to the plant not to mention it is when the guys get a well earned holiday. Other than stopping for two more days at Christmas and New Year the distillery is producing AnCnoc for 49 weeks of the year and making 1.8 million litres which is a fair bit more than the 450,000 they made back in 1989 when they reopened. 

So that was shift supervisor #2, stay tuned for the rest of the series in the next few weeks.  

Always learning, always having fun!

Johanne

The people of Knockdhu - Part 1

Knockdhu circa 1959

Very recently I was at a whisky supper with friends where many great discussions took place. One of which dealt with "who" makes the whiskies we drink. As many know, whisky has been made for hundreds of years and the process, albeit much more modernized these days, is still the same. We talked about the fact that a few of the "next generation" whisky makers are coming to the table equipped with degrees or doctorates in chemistry, etc.. However there is a heart and soul at distilleries and it isn't just ONE person who makes the whiskies. It is still created by 1 part alchemy, 1 part magic and 1 part luck, well at least in some of our opinions anyway. Whisky is not an exact science, it truly is a wonderment of checks/balances, and surprises at times. 

Recently Chip Tate from Balcones created a whisky called Brimstone Resurrection and I quote Chip in a blog from www.Smokybeast.com: "in the case of this one barrel, we messed up. We burnt the corn to the bottom of the still while distilling it. Badly burnt it ... very badly ... hammer and chisels badly... I couldn't just throw it out so I put it aside. The result is a wonderfully powerful and subtle Brimstone whisky. Sun grown corn, then roasted, burned, twice boiled and then "raised up" in a heavily charred barrel to be released as Brimstone Resurrection!"

People make whiskies, even if using modern machines with bells and whistles.  People... So when I contacted a few distilleries to see if I could do an exposé on what makes them "tick", Alasdair Reid from Knockdhu gladly started sending me biographies, photos and lovely stories of the people that work there. For those of you who don't know it's where one of my favorite scotches comes from: AnCnoc.  www.ancnoc.com  

This week I will be presenting you with one of the six shift operators who works there: Mr. Alex Elrick.

POSING FOR THE CAMERA...

Alex is the most recent addition to the Knockdhu team and is also the youngest by far, having turned twenty five in August. (Just a pup!)

His interests outside the distillery are his car, the gym and on weekends off going out with his mates in his hometown of Huntly looking for that special young lady (He’s single at the moment!)

Alex started at Knockdhu in July 2011, coming from a mechanical background (time served motor mechanic) which can come in handy at the distillery when things go wrong. After a few couple of weeks of training from the other guys he was soon flying solo. 

At Knockdhu each operator works single man shifts so that means they are responsible for all aspects of the production of the whisky from: Taking delivery of the malt at one end through the process of grinding, mashing, distilling and all the way to filling casks at the other. AND to some people's surprise this is all still done manually, no computers!  

Right, confession time, when I said no computers that’s not strictly true as they did invest in a new fangled computer thingy to help the lads out a wee bit:

This is the distillery computer :)

Each shift operator also keeps the place clean and polished. Its quite a busy shift with all this going on.

So to sum Alex up: He is young, free and single and the rest of the Knockdhu employees are quite jealous!!!

Thanks to Alex, Alasdair and Knockdhu for allowing me the opportunity to showcase the hands/hearts and souls of this lovely distillery.   

KNOCKDHU TODAY...

I plan on visiting when I head over to Scotland in 2014. I very much look forward to a tour and meeting all of them. Stay tuned in the next few weeks for more of this series. I look forward to presenting them all, one by one to you...

UP YOUR BOTTOM!

Lassie