Tasting Whiskey
Page 15
“Nosing” a cask sample at the Glenfiddich distillery
The blends are going to be a less expensive way to learn what you like from among the general camps of Scotch whisky. You may find you like the restrained smoke of Johnnie Walker (less restrained in the Double Black bottling); consider trying Black Bottle or Teacher’s, a smoky single malt such as Talisker, or one of the Islays. Maybe you like the sherried richness of the Famous Grouse; you could find similar character in the Macallan, or try it with a hint of peat in Highland Park. Find a taste for Chivas Regal? Step up to the 18-year-old bottling, or slide over to the single malt side to try the Glenlivet or anCnoc. If the honeyed notes of Dewar’s do it for you, get more with the 12-year-old, or get at the heart of it with Aberfeldy. Remember, blends are built from malts, but they often arise from a multiplicity of inputs.
It’s in single malts that you’re going to see the distillery character most clearly, unblended. The flagship bottlings are younger, so the influence of the cask is at its least. With these bottlings you can see what a distillery is about.
If you don’t want to shell out the money for bottles, you can find a good whisky bar to try all these. You can also make it to a whisky-tasting event or festival to get the chance to sample multiple whiskys, usually with some expert, enthusiastic commentary.
Scotch: Flavor Profile for Iconic Bottlings
This chart rates five core characteristics on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 = faint to absent, and 5 = powerful and fully present.
“Gone Silent”
Scotch whisky has such a long, long lead time that a lot of things are thought about differently in the industry. It’s nothing to see a warehouseman rolling along a barrel that’s older than he is. In 2007 Glenfarclas brought out a brilliant series, the Family Casks, that was a bottling of their selected malt whiskies from every “vintage” from 1952 to 1994, an amazing tour de force from their deep stocks of aging malts.
Then there are whiskies from distilleries that no longer exist. They’re not re-creations, or fantasies; they’re carefully guarded legacies. Most distilleries are owned by companies that have more than just the one. Diageo owns 28, for instance. When they deem that they have enough stock from one for their foreseeable purposes (or sometimes when they’ve bought a redundant one from a competitor), they may decide to mothball it, carefully close down the workings with an eye toward preserving it for future use while saving money on operations. Such a distillery is said to have “gone silent.”
Malts from these distillers are used in blends, or they may be bottled as single malts; Diageo has a series of them that they call the Rare Malts. But we always hope that they will come back. Ardbeg did, after all; Bruichladdich did; Glenglassaugh and Glen Keith did.
Those that don’t, and won’t, such as Brora, Port Ellen, Glenury, and Rosebank, those that are demolished, or gutted and turned into fashionable apartments, are gone to us. But their whisky lingers on, like a marvelously vibrant and living echo. I had a Brora 30-year-old last year that was simply phenomenal. While it angers you that the fortunes of business, the boom-and-bust cycle of whisky, led to its loss, you still just have to cheer that, thanks to careful warehousing, the whisky is still around.
Enjoy these whiskies while we have them. And yes, these are probably ones you don’t want to pour over ice if there’s a Scot nearby.
As you make your way through Scotch whisky, learning what you like, what you don’t, and what you love, keep in mind that this is a more complex road than tasting the other whiskies of the world. That’s not favoritism; it’s just facts. There are many more Scotch whisky distillers than there are bourbon or Canadian whisky distillers (and the Irish and Japanese aren’t even in the running). Sure, there are more craft distillers, but let’s see how they’re doing in a hundred years. Scotch whisky is lovingly varied, and there’s always — always — more to learn.
Don’t stop learning, don’t stop tasting. Sample, read, visit, discuss, repeat. Every cycle you’ll learn more, and the whisky only gets better as you do.
Islay And The Islands
Scotch whisky is traditionally divided into regions, one of them being the Islands. These include the Orkneys and the Isles of Skye, Mull, Lewis, Jura, Arran, and, of course, Islay.
Islay is home to eight distilleries: clockwise, from the northeast, there’s Bunnahabhain, Caol Ila, Ardbeg, Lagavulin, Laphroaig, Bowmore, Bruichladdich, and the youngest addition, Kilchoman. There are some iconic whiskies in there; at least, they’re iconic now. Thirty years ago you could barely give the stuff away; it was considered too smoky, too rough, too singleminded.
Now, of course, that last sentence is answered with, “Yes, you’re damned right it is; bring me another!” Peat is king, and Islay is the seat of power. You must visit Islay, you’ll be told, if you’re serious about Scotch whisky.
If you approach Islay from the air, you see an island, separated from even its nearest neighbor, Jura, by rough, open water. It looks separate, distinct. But if you approach Islay by sea, you realize how easy it is to slip from island to island to shore to cove, and how everything links together. Once you’ve had some of Bunnahabhain’s unpeated whisky, or tasted the peaty mainland smoke of Ardmore, the continuity of it all comes home. This is about Scotch whisky, not just Islay whisky, or Highland whisky.
There’s debate about whether Scotch whisky has terroir, the characteristic donated by the land that is so much touted for French wine. The question is muddled. The malt may be Scottish grown, but it may also be European; the water is usually local, but it may be from city mains; warehouses may be beside the distillery or miles away.
If there is terroir, it is a minor factor compared to the character that comes from the individual distillery and the generational continuity of the people who work there. On Islay the somewhat idiosyncratic distilleries are staffed by people who
either are from Islay (Ileachs, they call themselves) or have come there and settled in. With about a third of the people on the island directly or indirectly employed in the whisky business, it makes a difference.
I asked Laphroaig distillery manager John Campbell — an Ileach himself — what makes Islay whisky different. He didn’t hesitate: “Peat,” he said. “Islay whisky has flavors from the earth, versus flavors from a cask. It has a depth of flavor.” The heavy use of peat on Islay brings all four of the ancient mystic elements together: water and earth create peat and barley, water then steeps the barley to make malt, and the earth (peat) is burned (fire) to create smoke (air) that permeates and dries the malt. The whisky is a whole.
The aficionados are right: you should go to Islay if you can. The small towns have friendly pubs with good beer, the climate is bracing, and the people are solid. And the whisky’s pretty good, too.
Speyside
Speyside is the region alongside the River Spey. It is a sparkling river, the second longest in Scotland at 98 miles, but not too big, certainly no Mississippi or Hudson. With the heavy density of distilleries in the area, it’s hard to believe the river has stayed clean, but it is quite healthy and protected. You’re likely to see fly fishers in the water during the season.
The density of distilleries is nearly cheek by jowl in spots such as Rothes and Dufftown. Good water flowing over good stone will attract a distillery, and the Spey has done just that. In turn, the clusters of distilleries have spawned subsidiary industries. The Speyside Cooperage is here, banging away on hoops and staves. Forsyths builds the stills and condensers for most of the industry in Rothes (partly on the site of the previous Caperdonich distillery). There is also a “dark grains” processing plant in Rothes that takes distillery waste (spent grain, pot ale) and makes it into animal feed. That’s only fitting: Speyside is also where much of Scotland’s barley is grown to begin with.
But we’re here for the whisky, and there’s plenty to be found. The Speyside character, generally, is an unpeated one. Generalizations are trite, but there you are. Speyside distillers have experimented with peat i
n recent years as smokeheads have demanded more, more, more, but the region is home to some beautiful examples of what Scotch whisky can be without peat.
Speyside distillers listen to their casks, the wood telling them what can be done with extraction and age. Here’s where you’ll find Macallan running its devoted Spanish oak program, paying to build sherry casks for producers, then getting sherry producers to age their wine in them for 2 years so the distillery can dump them and take them back to Scotland. It’s costly — each cask costs about $1,000 — but there’s no other way to get the flavors Macallan wants, which are the flavors we want.
This is a region of complicated topography, filled with valleys, hills, the great ridge of Ben Rinnes, and tributaries to the Spey. It was home to illicit distillers, and to Glenlivet, the first to go legitimate under the rules of the 1823 Excise Act. Founder George Smith, the first to get a license, so enraged his scofflaw neighbors that he carried a pair of pistols for defense in the early years.
You can wander among distilleries for days here; there are over 30 of them. Stop in the small towns along the river, sample whiskies at the Craigellachie Hotel, maybe even try the fishing. It’s whisky country, where there’s a distillery around almost every corner.
Irish: Single, Double, Triple
According to tradition, St. Patrick used the three leaves of the shamrock to explain the persons of the Christian Trinity to the people of Ireland. One leaf was the Father, one the Son, the third the Holy Spirit, and together they made one plant. Similarly, the state of Irish whiskey can be directly tied to the four-leaf clover. The four leaves represent the different whiskeys that the major distillers produce and the places where they make them.
One is the single pot still whiskey at the heart of Irish Distillers’ whiskeys, a unique type of whiskey made only in Ireland.
Two is the double-distillation method used by Cooley, a throwback to pre-1960s Irish distilling.
Three is the triple-distilled whiskeys that are made at Midleton (Jameson) and Bushmills, a process that makes these whiskeys light and approachable.
Four is the number of major distilleries: Midleton, Bushmills, Cooley, and Kilbeggan, the last one being generous, because while Kilbeggan is a large historic distillery, what’s there currently is a mini distillery built inside it. However, William Grant & Sons has broken ground on a full-scale Tullamore Dew distillery in Tullamore, which should be online in 2014, at which time we can count that as four. There are other small distillers popping up, though, and former Cooley owner John Teeling is converting Diageo’s former Dundalk brewery to a distillery, so happily, “four” won’t be a significant number in Irish whiskey much longer.
That’s the real story of Irish whiskey in the current era: growth. After the disastrous collapse of Irish whiskey, as noted in chapter 6, the industry has had to rebuild itself from the ground up. With the steady support of Irish around the world, the growing popularity of Irish-themed pubs — also around the world! — and the generally growing interest in whiskey, Irish is making a fantastic comeback.
Stories
We were drinking in Chicago, and a good friend was leaving the next morning for Ireland, to work with Diageo on Bushmills. What could be more appropriate than toasting his new adventure with a glass of Bushmills 1608, their 400th-anniversary whiskey?
At a whiskey and spirits show, it took me 45 minutes to get to the Jameson table, just in time to get the very last drops they had of the awesome Rarest Vintage Reserve — that’s the kind of luck that makes me laugh.
Ten of us, a boisterous late night in the Buena Vista Cafe in San Francisco, surrounded by rows of Tullamore Dew bottles on the walls. “Irish coffees all around?” I asked. No arguments, and wasn’t that hot, sweet liquor delicious?
Eight of us, heads down against the evening’s gusty wind and rain, walking half a mile to a small beer festival. “Here,” I said, and passed my flask, full of warm, aromatic Redbreast. “Brilliant!” someone blurted, and the flask came back empty; mission accomplished.
Good friends and good whiskey are a great thing, and they’re all a bit different. When I think of nights drinking bourbon, I think of laughter and card playing. When I think of nights drinking Scotch, I think of music and, more often than not, talking about whisky. But when I think of the nights I’ve enjoyed Irish whiskey, what I think of are stories.
Can’t say why. It might be the Irish tendency toward storytelling; it’s been said that it’s as hard to get a Scottish distiller to tell stories as it is to get an Irish one to stop. (Not true, really, but it’s a close contest.)
But it might be the accessibility of Irish whiskey: everyone will take part. Irish is smooth, a bit sweet, and flavorful, without the new-wood roar of bourbon, and — unless you’re drinking Connemara, of course — without the “love me or hate me” polarity of a peated Scotch.
There’s the complexity that multiple-cask aging and blending can bring, there may be that unique brightness of single pot still character, and there’s the depth of malt and the creaminess of grain — but it’s all welcoming. You’re not asked to accept Irish whiskey; it’s as if the whiskey takes a seat and accepts you.
Irish doesn’t demand much, and it doesn’t take itself too seriously. Which brings to mind another story: Bushmills master distiller Colum Egan was in the midst of a very serious panel presentation on “Understanding Irish Whiskey,” before hundreds of very serious whiskey aficionados. Egan was leading them through a tasting of Bushmills 21-year-old.
Don’t just taste it, he urged; use all your senses. Smell the fruity, nutty aromas. Look at the beautiful amber color. Feel the slick, malty slide of a drop. (All very good advice, by the way.) Listen to your whiskey, he said, very seriously, and held the glass up to his ear, furrows of concentration on his face. Leaning into the microphone, he whispered, “It said,” then in a quavering comic falsetto, “ ‘Drink me!’ ” The audience broke into laughter, and he had them in the palm of his hand.
The United States is the largest market for Irish whiskey. Sales have increased by about 20 percent each year for the past 20 years, an amazing stretch of growth, albeit from a sadly small base to start. While Jameson’s is the biggest brand by far, with a bit over two-thirds of the U.S. market, there’s been lots of room for other names to succeed, and the past 10 years have seen a flood of new brands, the surest sign of growth. We’ve even seen the reentry of Tullamore Dew, now the second-largest Irish whiskey in global sales, but missing from the U.S. market for a while.
Astute readers will have noticed that I mentioned that a Tullamore Dew distillery was under construction and will no doubt be wondering where the whiskey’s been coming from. Tullamore Dew comes from Midleton under a long-standing contracted agreement, a fairly common arrangement in the whiskey business, as you may be starting to understand.
That kind of arrangement is where the slew of other Irish whiskey brands are coming from: Connemara, Tyrconnell, John L. Sullivan, Michael Collins, Slane Castle, and others. Mostly they come from Cooley (the first two are Cooley house brands), though that changed when Beam Global (yes, that Beam) bought Cooley in 2011 and soon announced they would be cutting off the supply of contracted whiskey that John Teeling had built Cooley’s business on. These other brands have been scrambling for supply, which is exactly what Teeling hopes to give them with his new business in Dundalk, noted above.
Whiskey, stout, cider, and craic — the classic fare of a lively Irish pub
Midleton: Whiskey Central
But there are a lot of other Irish whiskeys: Midleton Very Rare, Powers, Jameson, Paddy, Crested Ten, Redbreast, Green Spot and Yellow Spot — they all come from Midleton. Or Irish Distillers Ltd. Or Jameson. It’s all the same thing.
Allow me to explain. By 1966 Irish whiskey production in the Republic of Ireland was down to a sad total of three companies: John Jameson & Son, John Power & Son, and Cork Distilleries. They made a bold (or desperate) decision and consolidated into one company: Irish Distillers Ltd.
In the mid-1970s the company brought online a single modern facility in Midleton, alongside the old Cork Distilleries plant, and wound down and closed the other distilleries (including Jameson’s Bow Street distillery in Dublin, which is now a rather fantastic tourist attraction, with a great tour for whiskey education, and tasting). All production would now take place in Midleton, and the surviving brands would all come from there. This big distillery is still run by Irish Distillers (as a subsidiary of French drinks giant Pernod Ricard), at Midleton, and is known for its major brand, Jameson, and you may hear it called by any of those three names.
Welcome to the “Jameson experience” in Midleton, Ireland.
But the important thing about Midleton is what they do there, because it’s bewildering. The distillation paths are complex, multibranching, and resistant to simplification. It’s not just that they have pot stills and column stills and may run whiskey through both; they also use different cut points (when the flows from the pot stills are diverted from the heads, heart, and tails) for different whiskeys, with different redistillation programs of the cuts, emerging as four distinct pot-still spirit streams (or maybe more, according to Dave Broom’s The World Atlas of Whisky, referencing a “gentle quizzing” of now-retired master distiller Barry Crockett, who led much of the design of this system).
Before the spirit even gets to this hot coppery maze, it gets the addition that makes it unique: raw, unmalted barley in the brewhouse. This is the oddity that defines single pot still Irish whiskey, what may well have been the product of a sly cost-saving method in the mid-1800s to duck the UK tax on malt by replacing part of the mash with unmalted barley.