New Arrival of the Week: Tomatin The Sherry Collection

Tomatin Distillery has unveiled a trio of new single malts as part of a range called The Sherry Collection. 

It celebrates sherry’s “modern renaissance”, driven in part by the growing interest and globalisation of Spanish culture with tapas and sherry bars popping up around the country, as well as interest driven by the use of sherry casks in whisky production. 

The Sherry Collection features three Scotch whiskies aged in a different sherry cask: 

Tomatin 10 Year Old 2014 Sherry Collection – Manzanilla Cask.

Tomatin 15 Year Old 2008 Sherry Collection – Palo Cortado Cask.

Tomatin 17 Year Old 2006 Sherry Collection – Pedro Ximénez Cask.

The new collection prompted us to want to dig a bit deeper into the distillery and the art of sherry cask maturation and happily Tomatin blender and global brand ambassador, Scott Adamson, was on hand to answer all our questions.  

A short history of Tomatin Distillery

Tomatin is located in the Scottish Highlands, 16 miles south of Inverness, and is owned by the Japanese company Takara Shuzo International. In 2022, Tomatin was awarded ‘Scotch Whisky Producer of the Year’ and ‘Outstanding Spirits Producer of the Year’ at the International Wine & Spirit Competition (IWSC). Adamson says that one thing he finds fascinating about Tomatin is that it is a distillery that “Has always moved with the times and evolved. It’s not a distillery where you can say ‘We’ve been making whisky the same way for over a hundred years…’”.

The distillery was built in 1897 by a consortium of local businessmen led by a local merchant named John Macdougall, many of the original shareholders were merchants and hotel keepers in their own rights and the distillery existed to service them and similar businesses in the local area. Adamson explains, “It was small and the whisky was what customers in the Highlands were used to, lightly peated and heavier than what we produce today (more akin to our Cù Bòcan spirit), it was matured in sherry casks and sold quite young”.

The distillery was purchased by two London-based wine and spirits merchants in 1909 and, although its production remained small-scale, they began selling the spirit to the biggest blenders in Scotland. From the 1950s, the distillery entered a period of expansion. By the 1960s it was already the largest malt producer in Scotland and by the 1970s it was the biggest in the world with an annual capacity of 12.5 million litres of pure alcohol (MLPA). Adamson says efficiency was the order of the day and Tomatin was regarded as “the most thoroughly equipped distillery for the finest Highland malt”. By in large, the blenders were looking for a much lighter, more versatile style of spirit; fruity, not peated. “This is the origin of what we recognise as our house style today,” he summarises.

How does Tomatin Distillery make whisky?

Tomatin today has a capacity of around 5MLPA but only produces 2.5MLPA. The one thing that has remained the same since 1897 is the water source, with every drop of single malt ever produced at Tomatin starting as soft water from the Alt-na-Frith, a small burn that gathers high up in the Monadhliath Mountains and flows right past the distillery before feeding into the River Findhorn. Only Scottish barley malted to Tomatin’s specifications is used, all of it unpeated save for a run during the last week of the year when Cù Bòcan is made. 

“We occasionally run malt trials with things like roasted malts, heritage varieties, local barley and upcoming varieties, but for the most part, we are currently using Sassy which is grown and malted in the Highlands,” Adamson says. “When it comes to yeast, we are using Pinnacle MG+. We’ve recently moved from pressed yeast to liquid yeast which is stored in an insulated tank and has led to much more consistent fermentations”.

He outlines that everything Tomatin do in production is driven by a desire to create a quality new make spirit, one he describes as an “Elegant yet complex fruit-forward spirit with a malty backbone”. Adamson explains that the malty characteristic is driven by the mashing regime. “Sassy is a big, bold barley variety and we use a semi-lauter mashtun to produce a relatively cloudy wort. The presence of barley particles in our wort ensures that its influence is going to be present in our new make”. 

Long fermentations, still shapes, and maturation climate

It’s in fermentation that the signature fruity flavours Tomatin is known for emerge. Adamson reveals that the distillery has one the longest fermentations in Scotland at over 160 hours and the result is an incredibly fruity wash. “Fermentation as a process of yeast converting sugar into alcohol is complete at 48-50 hours. At that point your yeast is dead and no matter how long you leave it, you aren’t going to get any more alcohol. But once the yeast has died, all of the bacteria from the malt, water and plant, that has been dormant springs into life and offers a massive amount of flavour development”. He adds “There are times I’ve walked into the tunroom and it smells like a Solero ice lolly”. Wonderful. 

Tomatin runs a balanced distillation regime with six wash stills and four spirit stills. All of them have a massive boil ball at the base of the neck, a tapered neck and a slightly inclining Lyne arm leading to a shell and tube condenser. “This design leads to a huge amount of reflux which in turn gives us that elegant spirit character,” Adamson explains. “Again, the key here is time. We run the stills incredibly slowly, even when we shift from spirit to feints, we’re not ramping the speed up, the feints are going to be part of our next spirit run so we treat them like an ingredient in their own right. This, along with our spirit cut between 75% and 65% ABV is going to lend to that complexity that we are looking for”.

The spirit is created to be incredibly versatile to allow Tomatin to mature its whisky in a wide variety of casks. The Highlander has its own cooperage on site where every single cask is inspected before filling, which gives them a level of quality assurance when sourcing casks not only from cooperages but also directly from wineries, breweries and distilleries around the world. Once filled, all casks are fully matured on-site in one of thirteen warehouses. At this point, the distillery’s local climate comes into play. “Tomatin is one of the highest distilleries in Scotland and we notice that there are slightly lower evaporation losses here than at other distilleries, I think this gentle maturation is one of the reasons we can produce incredibly vibrant aged whiskies,” Adamson says. “Tomatin, even in its 50s, is an explosion of tropical fruits that is really difficult to find elsewhere”.

Tomatin Distillery and sherry casks

Adamson and I both share a background in history as well as a fascination with the heritage of whisky’s ties with sherry. “It’s certainly not a new occurrence, as we all know, with some of the major Scotch players having been working with sherry for centuries. Tomatin is the same,” Adamson says. “For me, what stands out is how normal it was. Today sherry maturation tends to have an air of ‘luxury’ about it, it’s sought after because it’s not the norm; since the 40s bourbon barrels have been the go-to for Scottish distillers. 

In 2015, Adamson found an old warehouse book that recorded every cask filled between 1909 and 1923 and included details such as previous contents. While there was more experimentation than he anticipated, there wasn’t a page that didn’t have some form of “Fresh Sherry”, “Own Butt”, “II Sherry” or similar beautifully handwritten in the ‘notes’ column. “The oldest examples we have of Tomatin bottles are non-age statements and 9 Year Old expressions from the 20s, 30s and 40s and they are clearly fully sherry matured,” he says. “Simply put, this is how whisky was matured 100 years ago”.

The love of history extends to knowing as much about the history of a sherry cask before it’s filled with Tomatin whisky. Some producers are happy enough to take a barrel that previously held “sherry”, pop whisky in it and call it a day with little scrutiny or transparency regarding the cask’s profile. Most Scotch whisky brands don’t go into much detail about their sherry casks, beyond wine variety. Adamson says Tomatin does things differently. 

Not so shady sherry

“We pride ourselves on our first-class wood policy at Tomatin which is built on knowing as much about the history of a cask before we fill it. We purchase the vast majority of our sherry casks from a cooperage based in Montilla called Toneleria Juan Pino. When it comes to casks for our core range where we require consistency, we have a seasoning programme in place that allows us to select the oak type, cask size, type of sherry, length of seasoning, etc. and these will be seasoned in Jerez,” he says.

Adamson then reveals that every so often, Tomatin will receive a call to let them know that a bodega is looking to sell part of a solera and ask if it is interested. “Again, the level of detail provided here is pretty high, we typically know what bodega the casks have come from and what product they produced (which is great for sherry and whisky pairings). It’s not always possible to know how long the casks have held sherry, that really comes down to the record-keeping of the bodega itself, but in general, if the cask has been in a solera, it has held sherry for decades”. 

He adds, “In all honesty, these opportunities are too good to turn down most of the time, what we lose in control and consistency, we gain in the opportunity to create completely unique products and these “Bodega” or “Solera” casks are used for limited editions like the Sherry Collection”. Gotta admire that honesty. 

Knowing and drinking sherry

This isn’t the kind of conversation you get to have all the time in whisky and I’d be an advocate for more education and transparency around sherry cask maturation. Adamson thinks that the people representing brands need to be highly educated, saying “You don’t need to be a sherry expert, but you should be comfortable speaking about the wine itself, not just the whisky”. 

In terms of the information presented to the customer, he thinks it depends on the product and the intended consumer. “Let’s take the Sherry Collection as an example, this is a series of limited editions absolutely designed for whisky enthusiasts like ourselves. On something like this, I look forward to offering as much information about the cask, its origins, its history, its production, its influence, etc. as possible whether that is on pack, in our comms or events. The customer for this type of release wants that information, it will increase their enjoyment of the product”.

He continues: “On the other hand, something like our Tomatin 12 Year Old Sherry Cask was developed with a more casual whisky drinker in mind. The type of information outlined above is often too much, it’s potentially intimidating and off-putting. For this type of release, we need to make the whisky as accessible and as appealing as possible”.

Overall, Adamson thinks whisky needs to be made more accessible to newcomers and casual drinkers and producers need to be more transparent with enthusiasts. “Ultimately the information we give should add to the drinking experience”.

Drinking whisky and  sherry

As part of this push, we agree that we’d like to see more brands encourage whisky drinkers to sample sherry, not just to further understand casks, but also because it’s a delicious drink. “I would encourage any whisky drinker to explore sherry, full stop,” Adamson says. “Sherry has so much to offer whisky drinkers. I was introduced to sherry through whisky and fell in love with it. All of the history, unique stories, incredible people and, above all, the range of flavours that you love in whisky, sherry has that!” 

This approach fits into Adamson’s wider belief that modern sherry culture is about exploration. “It’s no longer “sweet sherry, please”, consumers are keen to explore the differences from one style to another from bone dry Manzanilla to the decadence of Pedro Ximénez and trying to unravel the mystery that surrounds Palo Cortado. He recommends understanding each style as individual flavour profiles and enjoying a glass with traditional Spanish food to appreciate how it is meant to be drunk. “Then sit down with the Sherry Collection and pick out how each influences the final whisky!”.

Tomatin The Sherry Collection

Speaking of which, let’s get into our new arrivals. A good cask-finished whisky balances distillery character with maturation character in both mine and Adamson’s book so that’s what we’re looking for here. As he puts it, “The malty, fruity, elegant Tomatin spirit, that we work so hard to create should be in harmony with the influence of the Manzanilla, Palo Cortado and Pedro Ximénez”. 

We start with The Manzanilla edition, which Adamson says, “Is not your typical sherry-matured whisky, it’s bright and zesty”. He explains the butts have created a whisky with notes of sourdough bread and salted popcorn and flavours of chamomile tea, dried fruit and maple syrup. I’ve got a soft spot for Manzanillia, I love the salty edge it brings to the whisky and this bite of grapefruit citrus creates a nice bittersweet quality. 

Then onto the Palo Cortado edition. Adamson calls this, “A rare and endlessly fascinating style of sherry”. He adds, “I’m still not totally convinced I know how it’s made, one cellar master once told me “It just is” and I love that. What I do know is that this whisky, our first ever Palo Cortado matured Tomatin, is utterly captivating. Cinder toffee, dried orange, toasted fruit loaf and Brazil nuts come in waves with a tangy and layered finish”. This is my favourite, constantly evolving with a balance of citrus zing, spice, dried fruit, and a creamy fudge quality underneath. 

Then to the Pedro Ximénez edition. “Tomatin loves a PX cask. It’s the sweetest natural wine in the world and offers a depth that no other cask can,” Adamson explains. “However, a lot of the words I use to describe the aroma and flavour would normally be considered bitter, espresso, dark chocolate and liquorice spring to mind. This particular expression also has really indulgent notes of sticky toffee pudding, lemon curd and muscovado sugar”. Woof, man that’s something. I’m not actually much of a PX lover, I think it can be overwhelming, but this manages to be rich without being overly indulgent. Like a posh fruit preserve infused with all these different qualities, bitter, herbal, medicinal, nutty, creamy, sweet, and sharp. Impressive. 

You can buy Tomatin’s The Sherry Collection from Master of Malt now. For further information on sherry, we recommend our ultimate guide to the drink by the incomparable Henry Jeffreys. 

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