The Highlander Inn, Craigellachie
Our latest Whisky Places feature finds us in the village of Craigellachie, at one of our favourite Speyside spots, The Highlander Inn. Reassuringly no-frills and possessing a genuine charm, both as a comfortable place to stay the night and an unpretentious place to drink whisky, we sat down with owner Tatsuya to chat about Speyside, the Highlander and all things whisky…
RB: Good Evening Tatsuya! Could you give us a brief overview of your involvement with The Highlander Inn?
TM: I’ve been at the Highlander since 2005. So previous to 2005, myself and the previous owner, Duncan, both worked at the Craigellachie Hotel. He was the General Manager and I was the Bar Manager. Then in 2005 he bought the Highlander. We got on really well so Duncan asked me if i’d like to come work for him here. After 10 years he decided that he wanted to retire…he wanted to sell, I wanted to buy, the deal was done!
TM: Going a bit further back. When I was 18 and left school I started working in the hospitality industry, first at a cocktail bar. Then slowly in my twenties I started getting in to whisky. By my late 20’s I was thinking ‘I’ll just go to Scotland for a year’ and then when I returned to Japan people would think ‘oh wow, you know Scotland, you know whisky’. Then I found actually, ok, this is a nice country, maybe I’ll stay another year, another year, and of course now I’m still here!
RB: The Highlander enjoys a great reputation as a whisky bar. What were your aims for the whisky offering when you took over?
TM: I want to be unique but also have an offering for pretty much everybody. Poor people, rich people, pensioners, students, men and women. So our drams range in price from £4 to around £150-ish. We really try to create a bar for everybody. Before I moved up here I was living in Edinburgh for four years.The pub I used to go to nearby was full of a mix of people and I believe that’s what creates a good atmosphere. The Highlander is not a 5 star hotel but it does have something for everybody.
RB: Does your Japanese heritage bring something to the unique offering at the bar?
TM: Yes, I think so. I feel the ‘trendiness’ of Japanese whisky has slowed slightly, say compared to two years ago. Yet lots of people now know that Japanese whisky can be very good. 20 years ago it was a different story, yet still there are lots of people who have never tried Japanese whisky. Obviously if Japanese whisky didn’t taste great I wouldn’t want to introduce people to it but I am from Japan and Japanese whisky is good so I want people to know.
RB: In your 20 years at The Highlander the whisky scene has changed massively. How have you found those changes play out within the bar?
TM: Back in 2005 people who drank whisky here were mostly local people, maybe the older generation and dedicated whisky enthusiasts from all over, America, Canada, Germany Sweden… Today, surprisingly, young local people maybe aged 18, 19 are willing to spend £6, £7, £8 on a dram to learn a bit about whisky. That’s a big change. It didn’t exist 20 years ago and we’ve only really seen this in the past 3 years or so.
If yo look at the labels for example, ok maybe not official bottles but from independents…a lot of them don’t look like whiskies, they maybe look like wines or funky party drinks. We have about 300 bottles in here. We’re nowhere near the biggest but we don’t care about that, we think it’s a good number for what we need. Many people say ‘wow, what’s that bottle, can i see the bottle’? ‘Whats that bottle with a unicorn on it’? It catches their eye and get’s people interested.
RB: Speaking of Artwork, you always have interesting labels for your own releases…
TM: Yes. We do three different ranges. Our Annual single cask release, another called ‘Maggies Collection’ which is 6 or 7 bottles for different markets, and an exclusive blended whisky. For each range we use different artists. Particularly with Maggies, we worked with a local artist, Maggie Riegler for a number of years until she unfortunately passed away. Since then our Dutch friend Hans Dillesse has created the artwork for the range.
RB: Speyside is a destination for whisky enthusiasts the world over. What do you enjoy introducing them to when they visit The Highlander?
TM: If you go to a bar on Islay, they only stock Islay whisky. I have no problem with that. I like Islay whisky and they are very proud of it. We don’t do only Speyside whisky because I like Clynelish, I like Lagavulin…Yet there are over 50 working distilleries in Speyside and we are located in Speyside, so maybe around half of the whisky we stock is Speyside whisky. So we are a Speyside whisky bar, just with a touch of Islay, Highland, Japanese…!
RB: Outside of the Highlander what other whisky bars in Scotland do you enjoy?
TM: I do like the Bon Accord and The Pot Still. Some people at the bar earlier were saying they are heading back to Glasgow tomorrow, so I said ok it’s the weekend, if you want to go to a real Scottish bar, nice and busy, go to the Pot Still. Though if they want to sit down I’d say go to Bon Accord. Both fantastic places! I need to go back to Athletic Arms also, I’ve not been for a while.
These pubs are all similar to here… its not the furniture in a place that people remember, it’s the people and the passion.
RB: Can you tell us some drams that have been important to you over your career?
TM: Ok so Maggies Collection, we bottled a Macduff 16. Doesn’t sound the most exciting, but wow it was good. We actually bottled it under the Deveronside name as people similar to me probably think ok, it’s just Macduff. It made me realise every single distillery has great casks, you just have to look. Since then I’ve tried many Macduffs and it’s actually really good whisky. Bit of an eye openener!
I do like Clynelish generally. For a while there wasn’t much around but now there is a lot more. We don’t have any bottles in the bar at the moment but we did a 23 year old. It was really good.
We are in the priveleged position that we get to select a cask of Chichibu every year. Our latest bottle was very tasty. Around 2003 or so I met the Chichibu founder Ichiro at a bar in Tokyo. My friend works in the bar and introduced us. We exchanged cards and Ichiro said ‘Oh, I’m going to set up a distillery’ and I said ‘Ok, this man is a dreamer!’ Three or four years later he did!
RB: Favourite Speyside distillery?
TM: Glenfiddich.
If you ask people from Dufftown they will tell you ‘Oh Glenfiddich it’s no good, Balvenie is good.’ If I buy older Glenfiddich from auction, following the general opinion you would think the older bottles will be better. However in Glenfiddich’s case it’s the opposite. The newer bottles are much tastier. The distillery manger Ian Millar who took over just before the Millenium, he changed lots of things. I think he made it much better. Today if you drink Glenfiddich 12 it’s fantastic liquid. The image because you can get it cheap in supermarket isn’t great but it’s really good.
You know, people love the words organic, limited edition, hand crafted but sometimes consistency can be good. William Grants ,Glenfiddich and Balvenie care about the small details but even then I think I would always choose Glenfiddich over Balvenie.
RB: That’s great Tatsuya, thank you for your time and the brilliant hospitality from all the team at The Highlander.
Cheers!