At a time when lots of people are starting to tire of their “new year, new me”, I have taken more of a “new year, new distillery” approach. Or at least, new to me.
The foundations for the Bonnington distillery were laid down in 2019 under the ownership of Crabbie & Co. The team seemed to be in a race with nearby Holyrood distillery to reach the landmark of being Edinburgh’s first single malt whisky in over 100 years. As it would happen, Crabbie & Co were able to pip the competition to the post by releasing a small batch of whiskies from an initial pilot distillery called Chain Pier, who released their first whisky in 2022. The distillery would only run for a year and was the precursor to what would become the distilling process to be adopted at the much larger Bonnington distillery, who started their whisky production in 2020.
This state-of-the-art distillery has unique Twin-Linked Receivers, which means the distillers can create two different spirit types from the same distillation. In addition, the two enormous 30-tonne grain silos mean we can use two tonnes of malted barley per mash. There is a single 2.5-tonne mash tun and six 10,000 litre fermentation vessels inside which the wort is fermented for at least 48 hours. We also have two bespoke-made squat-neck stills which are made by Speyside Copper Works.
The Bonnington distillery launched its inaugural release in January 2024 . Here we have their second effort and again this appears to be a limited run with just 250 cases produced.
We carefully selected five Pedro Ximénez casks from our inventory for this bottling and I am delighted with the result. Our plan with Bonnington releases is to keep them small batch. We have exciting ideas for 2024 with further limited bottlings planned.
Given the (now standard) demand for the inaugural releases, this PX sherry cask is more readily available but is a limited release nonetheless. In fact, the Bonnington team have committed to only releasing small batches of whiskies initially, using the spirits that they deem good enough to put out and build up the Bonnington name.
Here then we have a 3-4 year old spirit, which has been solely matured in Pedro Ximenez sherry casks. The final product is bottled at 47% ABV at its natural colour and without chill-filtration, available around £50 GBP per 70cl bottle.
Nose
Its a fresh and fruity start with the smells of ripe orchard fruits and fizzy sweets (love hearts to be precise). It keeps a good fruity nose with a bit of heat. Think orange zest and hot cinnamon.
Taste
The sweet fruit flavours continue with the first sips revealing crisp apple, peach, and barley sugar flavours. That barley note remains quite pronounced with a grist-like powdery malt flavour. The heat of the alcohol and the cask influences build with a gentle heat. a slightly bitter/tannin note and a final drying oak sensation.
Finish
The heat quickly fades and leaves a slight red berry smack of cranberry or cherry/ Its rather sweet actually with fruity hard boiled sweets, and another final touch of drying oak.
Verdict
A really enjoyable welcome to a new distillery. I think it has an excellent use of the PX casks [ed: wise to go with full maturation rather than finishing at this younger age] and its bottled at a good, manageable strength. The 47% seems a specific choice and it hits well.
The casks seems to be imparting a good bit of fruit, to what seems like a classic malt spirit profile of orchard fruit flavours. It has a distinct bittersweet note that stops it from being all overly sweet and sickly. Kind of like the sensation of drinking a negroni – or more appropriately a boulevardier.
Whilst Holyrood has the more central location to the city (and I’m sure they will hate the constant comparison language that appears in this post and other media), this represents the first single malt distillery in Leith, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the team from Woven make themselves known and look to make use of this good stock being produced here.
Having not heard of the name until recently, I was wondering if this was a bold mission by whisky expert Keith Bonnington, but that’s not the case, as it transpires that the name comes from the site having once been the location of a Bonnington House. Just a happy coincidence. Speaking of whisky experts, its great to see Crabbie & Co getting into the production game here as their own company goes back over 200 years and once used to blend and sell whiskies, and they have been building quite the arsenal of releases and hefty age statement whiskies in recent years. The quality of this PX single malt is testament to that legacy and I look forward to following and tasting their journey with this new distillery.
M
Dram disclosure: This sample was received as part of the Master of Malt Pour & Sip paid subscription. All notes are intended as an honest, fair, and independent review of the whisky, and not as a promotion. Please drink responsibly. Please drink wisely.
Cover photo and logo (c) Crabbie & Co
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