Balvenie founder William Grant was no slouch himself in the marketing stakes: he pioneered the idea of single malts; and his son-in-law Charles Gordon was sent around the world selling his scotch. You can look at the tour of the Balvenie distillery (which has to be advance booked) as a marketing ploy; but it is also a celebration of the whisky craft in all its stages. The question has to be asked: does appreciation of how something is created help in enjoying the final product? With Balvenie’s Signature it surely does.

Signature is master blender David Stewart’s attempt to capture the essence of Balvenie, towards which end the spirit is matured in three different types of cask. When you stick your head in one of the casks that Balvenie coopers are repairing, or smell a freshly singed cask interior redolent of bonfire toffee, you begin to get an understanding of what each brings: the sharp woodiness of the first fill bourbon; the mellower notes of refill bourbon; and the fruity depth of the sherry cask.

I was guided around the distillery by brand ambassador Andrew Forrester, who told me: “Essentially a distillery can be seen as a chemical plant; but working with something that is alive makes it much more than that.” We felt the barley in its delivered state; then after it has been soaked to begin the brief germination process; breathed in the malt; listened to the different tones of fresh and malted grains as let them fall through our fingers; even crunched a grain between our teeth and plunged a hand into the warm furrows of barley - Balvenie is the only mainland distillery in Scotland that still hand turns some of its own grain; it even retains its own coppersmith who ensures the shining stills exactly follow the Balvenie model.

In the dunnage warehouse we nosed a selection of casks, something which makes you realise how important the blender’s art is: malt from the same year in apparently identical casks can have individual characters; whisky separated by just a year can be almost unrecognizably different. 

Tasting spirit from the three cask types destined for a batch of Signature gave further insight into its complexity: the first fill bourbon was sharp with redcurrant fruit; refill bourbon had damsons; and the sherry butt prunes and raisins. But this insight was confounded by tasting the blended malt: pudding-spicy; honeyed; a touch of citrus zest, lime rather than lemon; but reassuringly still plenty of raisiny depth; the inevitable vanilla from its oak containers during maturation; and a bit of pepper. Dr Forrester calls it: “A conversation whisky,” meaning it’s something to sip while chatting with friends, but also that the whisky talks to you, tells a story. I for one will enjoy continuing the dialogue over the years to come as new releases of Signature appear.