Hopefully they have forgiven me, but I had to ask Phil and Simon Thompson what their favourite whisky is. It’s a horrible question to ask, not just because it is such a cliché but because it is generally impossible for the discerning whisky drinker to answer.
And yet, this question is central to understanding Dornoch Distillery. Founded just over seven years ago, the tiny distillery is a tool in the Thompson brothers’ mission to produce a homage to their favourite single malts. Old-fashioned production principles such as heritage barley varieties and brewer’s yeast are at the core of their philosophy.
The Thompsons did not — or maybe could not — give a clear-cut answer, but it was telling that Phil scurried to grab a bottle of 1920s Dalmore bottled in the late 1960s. It had been opened recently for a tasting. Phil went off on a tangent about old tinctures, oils, tea chests, and “all these beautiful tertiary flavours”. Both Phil and Simon were born in the 1980s, yet this is the kind of unattainable, holy-grail whisky they frequently reach for.
“You can find many distilleries from the 1960s that were
