Whisky Intelligence has reproduced (with permission) The Gauntleys Whisky Newsletter for May 2010, the author, Chris Goodrum, has some excellent insights of whisky, which makes for excellent reading on a Sunday.  However W.I. has carefully excised any mention of r*m or V*dk*.  The full newsletter can be viewed on the Gauntleys website.

Dear Whisky Customers

Well, talk of the newsletter’s demise was a tad premature, but as sure as death and taxes, it will eventually change to a more ‘blog’ format. But for now you lucky people get another edition. And it’s crammed with what I think is interesting stuff.

Chris Goodrum

COMMENT

In the latest issue of the Whisky Magazine (Issue 88, July 2010) Gavin D. Smith asks the question if sherried whiskies are still relevant to whisky drinkers. Although he personally doesn’t proffer an answer to this question the general tone of the piece concludes that sherry matured whiskies have a place in the pantheon of malts.

As you know I am more of a bourbon man, but I will give praise to a sherry casked whisky if I believe that praise is due. In my experience far too many of these bottlings lack complexity. The personality of the spirit is cloaked or in some cases bludgeoned to death by the sherry. Sometimes the provenance of the spirit is totally lost and it would seem to me that the spirit is purely there to add alcohol to the wood character.

In the article Richard Paterson is quoted as saying “I see Sherry wood as a way of dressing my whiskies in the right clothes. If sherry suits your style of spirit then use it – if not, leave it alone”. These are very wise words. He goes on to state that “Dalmore does well with Sherry because there is a citric, lemongrass note in the new make spirit which interacts beautifully with Oloroso sherry casks to give that lovely marmalade and Christmas pudding character.”

Again I can’t argue with that. I think the Dalmore 12, is a classic example of the vatting together of both sherry and bourbon aged spirits which allows the sherry to enhance and compliment the character of the spirit. Other notable similar bottlings are the Macallan Fine Oak and the Balvenie Signature. Again Richard Paterson echoes what I have said for years “However, you must never loose sight of the character of your whisky – you must dress it not drown it.”

When it comes to whiskies that have been solely aged in sherry casks it’s a different matter, especially if we are talking about first-fill Oloroso ones. As my recent vertical tasting of Glengoyne (see later in the newsletter) reveals, these casks swamp any inherent distillery character and lack charm and personality. However this is not true of all their range. The 21 year old is very good and it goes to show that sherry aged malts; with age can often reveal a complexity of flavours, which can mitigate the lack of distillery character. Going back to Dalmore, the 1974 and the 40 year old are excellent examples of what age and good wood can produce. Of course whether the 40 year old is worth its £1000+ price tag is of course open to debate, but as a whisky it’s phenomenal. (See newsletter No36 – July 2009 for tasting notes).

The biggest issue with sherry casks is of course cleanliness, and it’s sad to see that there are still dreadfully sulphured drams coming onto the market, and when I see a deep amber hued less than 10 year old malt, the tasting note will often write itself.

So coming back to the question of relevance. Well of course they have a place in the world of malts, just as wine cask finishes and all other weird and wonderful ones. At the end of the day, the whisky industry is driven by the consumers and currently consumers want choice, and long may that continue.

NASTY BOTTLING OF THE MONTH AWARD WINNER!

Bunnahabhain 9 year old 59.2% – Adelphi-Sherry

The nose is pure balsamic vinegar with some malt and sherry wood tannins. The palate isn’t much better, in fact it’s worse. All one can taste is green wood, tannins and alcohol. This is nasty and unevolved. Shocking!

A COUPLE OF ARRAN’S

Arran 13 year old 57.7% Single Cask £48.95 – Sherry Cask 536

The nose opens with the leafy Oloroso, but it is by no means overpowering. Delightfully fruit, verging on the tropical with a gorgeous liquid orange thread running through the trade mark honeyed cereal character. This is stunningly complex with coastal dark fruits, flowers, liquorice and dry wood spices balancing the honeyed sweetness and even a late subtle peat note wafts in for good measure.

Open with sweet, honey coated banana and apricot along with hints of green fruit – kiwi/ gooseberry plus heather and gorse. The intense alcohol dumps liberal amounts of salt on to the tongue. Very bracing and slightly fishy. Subtle peat notes lurk in the background all the while. Superb bitter-sweet balance as the wood battles the sweet malt. This is entertainment of the highest calibre. Finally the almost youthful cereal note holds the high ground and the after taste is delicately floral.

A drop of water allows the fishy brine character to come to the fore, pushing the already subtle sherry note into the background. Still gorgeously fruity and subtly phenolic. Strangely enough the palate is less coastally. More rounded and honeyed, with the sherry taking on that candied sweet character. Still superbly balanced and long though.

Arran ‘Peated’ 3 year old 57.7% Single Cask £49.95 – Cask 116

Strangely this was bottled 4 days before its 4th birthday (distilled 12/12/05 – bottled 07/12/09), why they didn’t wait I have no idea.

Quite a shy nose. Faintly phenolic and briny notes float over a crisp, youthful honeyed barley and oat biscuit base. Slightly soapy and obviously immature, it takes some serious swirling to tease out the fragrant pine needle infused peat aromas.

Clean and slightly sooty on the palate. Very much like the nose, the trade mark honeyed barley is in its infancy and there is plenty of briny alcohol. Resplendent in its youthful intensity, softly peated and very salty.

With water the peat takes on a more Longrow-esque earthy/ peat character. Still quite reserved though. The palate I probably more complex, although less peaty now. The honeyed cereal character is embryonic and youthful, clean botanical marc-like notes abound. Still very coastal, maybe more so and the slightly phenolic peat puts in an appearance at the death.

It’s an interesting dram, which I’d like to see with maybe a few more years under its belt. However being rather modestly peated I would imagine that like Longrow for example the peated flavours would be eventually overwhelmed by the oak and distillery character. Maybe a CV bottling would be fun, blending both younger peated malt together with older spirits?

NEW DUNCAN TAYLOR

Laphraoig 1997 (12 year old) £55.95 Bourbon Cask 56441

Soft and quite subtle for a phroaig. Seems older than 12. Quite tarry and rubbery with a gorgeous depth of luscious, rich orange/ tangerine fruit. Impressively bold. Over time it develops a candied barley note and some sawdusty oak kicks in which holds the phenolic intensity in check. Surprisingly un-coastal, which leads one to think it has spent much of its life inland.

The palate is buxom and rounded, slightly candied but exuberantly fruity. Phenolic peat builds as does a sweet parma violet note. Very oily now, and the oil seems to have had heather and bracken seeped in it, oh and the peat is just so sweet and carbolic – yum! A really complex spirit with hints of tar, creosote and finally a subtle rubbery note. Superb length, like the nose it seems older, either way it’s an exceptionally good bottling.

With water the nose becomes more bog myrtley and heathery, the oak recedes to release a tad more phenolics and it seems to have metamorphosed into Ardbeg, an un coastal one though. Really honeyed now – in an old Glenrothes style, this is an ever-changing dram, or should that be a schizophrenic dram?

The palate is sweeter and more candied now. Still quite oily and maybe more smoky in an old skool Bowmore peat-briquettes style – see what I mean about schizophrenic! – Yes it’s a phraoig but not as we know it! Great fun!

THE OCTAVE CASK

An octave cask holds around 50 litres of spirit and yields around 70 bottles. These casks are currently being offered for sale by Duncan Taylor in collaboration with a website called quatercasks.com. These range from a cask of 1996 Teaninich for £1610 (ex duty, vat and bottling costs) through to £26,250 for a 1973 Ladyburn and £49,000 for a 1969 Kinclaith.

The basic reasoning behind the use of these casks is that there is more spirit to wood contact in these smaller casks which has been successfully demonstrated by Laphroaig. The smaller cask allows the spirit to take up the oak character quicker, thereby rounding off the rouge edges and giving it a feeling of maturity. Plus in the Laphraoig’s case, also keeping in-tact the youthful peatiness of the spirit.

So, for younger spirit this can be a beneficial process, both in terms of flavour and commerciality. But how about older spirits that Duncan Taylor say “Have not quiet matured [i.e show enough wood character] to the level of quality expected”. In this respect ones cynical hat is on and after tasting the sample of 1972 Glen Grant (£6,300 for an octave) it confirmed that the one possible use is to attempt to restore tired old spirit with a vast injection of oak. As you will see from my notes below the oak is big, brash and in your face. Briefly there is a wow period, but peer past the oak and the cracks appear.

I imagine all Independents face the challenge of what to do with a tired old cask or two. Unfortunately they don’t have the resources or stock that a distillery has, thus the ability to loose a poor cask in a vatting is not available to them. I will say that Duncan Taylor have been in the forefront of experimentation, not only with Quarter and Octave casks, but with the Lonach range as well.

Business however is business and at the end of the day ones investment in the cask must be recouped. Thus in that instance money triumphs over being fair to the customer. I am not singling out any one company here but making a broad observation from my years of tasting. In my experience once a sprit has gone over the edge either in terms of flavour or lack of alcohol, it is very difficult to raise it from the dead, and there always seems to be a compromise. In the Lonach samples I have tasted, they have lacked freshness to balance out the sometimes flabby spirit. I have often postulated that it may be better to vat some young grain spirit into them to at least try and balance out that flatness.

The other point is that these venerable spirits are not cheap. The average retail price, depending upon age from their Rare Auld range is £80-£120. From their Lonach range, which doesn’t appear on their price list anymore you were looking at £130+ and the retail price for the Octave Cask 1972 Glen Grant that I tasted, would be around the £170 mark. As you know I’m a pain in the ass (to the reps that is!). If a customer is going to spend over £100 on a bottle of whisky then I want to sell him or her a bottle that is worth that amount of money. This is why I badger reps for samples and will not compromise my ethics and sell a bottle purely because it is old.

This may make me a bit unpopular with some people but when I taste an old and expensive whisky, the first question I ask myself is would I pay that amount of money for it. If the answer is yes, then I’ll stock it, if not I won’t. If the Independents price these less than perfect spirits more appropriately, say at half the price, we as retailers could be honest with the customer and explain what was being done.

I would be more than happy to say – “Look this is a 40 odd year old whatever that has slightly gone over the hill, but it’s still drinkable. It’s not worth £100+ quid, but at this price it’s not a bad deal.”

I’m sure the ‘top brass’ at Duncan Taylor may feel that I’ve got it in for them, but I’ve not. I praised no end of their bottlings (see the Laphroaig above) and I always try to be fair in my judgments. They have bottled some amazingly memorable sprits over the years, their range of old grains is on the whole stunning, but they know that they have bottled some stinkers!

Also I’m definitely not dismissing the whole idea of octave casks based upon the tasting of just one example that would be crass and unprofessional. But I won’t buy into anyone’s advertising blurb. I will make my own mind up, based upon what is in my glass. And that is what I would like to hear when I am a customer.

Glen Grant 1972 (37 year old) 51.8% – Duncan Taylor Octave Cask Bourbon Cask 44486

A big wow nose. A humongous oak impact – freshly sawn oak, sawdust and marzipan. Subtle it isn’t! There is some herbal honey, menthol and eucalyptus, but the reality is that take away all the fresh oak and the spirit beneath seems somewhat watery.

The oak bites hard to begin with, opening with a bitter salvo of oily sawn oak, the herbal honey fights back with the menthol and eucalyptus notes that were found on the nose and there is a brief cinnamon laced Armagnac-esue dried fruits, raisins, figs and a touch of black pepper on the middle. However the oak returns to crush all in its path and scream ‘look at me’. I think it’s hiding some tired spirit and I would imagine once some water is added we will really find out what is what.

With water the oak retreats on the nose as expected. To its credit the honey
has a crisper, more brittle edge to it but it has exposed the creaking spirit which gives off notes of oily turpentine interwoven with burnt butter. The palate really suffers now. Watery and flat although the peppery spice tries its best to liven things up, but I fear rigor mortis has set in and this sprit expired some time ago.

As Mr Praline, might put it – “This whisky is no more! He has ceased to be! ‘E’s expired and gone to meet ‘is maker! ‘E’s a stiff! Bereft of life, ‘e rests in peace! ‘Is metabolic processes are now ‘istory! ‘E’s off the twig! ‘E’s kicked the bucket, ‘e’s shuffled off ‘is mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin’ choir invisibile!! THIS IS AN EX-WHISKY!!”

(This newsletter is so chock ful of interesting bits that it is too large for WordPress to handle in one go and has been arrnaged into four sections).