Brace yourselves – it’s the 50th anniversary of ‘The Sound of Music’. Expect a sing-a-along at a venue near you soon! The perfect Mother’s Day gift perhaps? Alternatively we have the usual fine range of whiskies!

Also on the horizon is St Patrick’s Day. While we are fully aware that this usually entails the sampling of a glass or two of the Black Stuff, it would be amiss of us not to highlight the strong growth (not forgetting the long history) of the Irish whiskey category of late.

Elsewhere the whisky year is shaping up very nicely with a plethora of exciting new releases becoming available. Last month we had some very short lived Springbank, Highland Park and Glendronach. This month we have Arran, Tomatin, Benriach and Teeling, to name but a few.

NEW BENRIACHS & GLENLIVET

BENRIACH 15 Sauternes £48.95

Not one to shy away from a cask finish or two, this delicious Benriach has spent some of its time maturing in fine Sauternes casks.

BENRIACH 18 Albariza £71.95

Heavily peated and PX sherry finished. “Albariza” is the chalky white soil, regarded as the best for growing grapes for sherry production.

GLENLIVET Nadurra US Oak £46.50

Nadurra fans rejoice! Glenlivet continue to treat domestic markets with great value cask strength versions, while in travel retail it’s ‘only’ at 48%!

www.ralfy.com explores conscious-moments with the valuable assistance of Whisky Review 527 – Glengoyne 21yo @ 43%vol and consciousness.

The Benefits of Adding Water Your Dram

One of the most frequently asked questions that I encounter from curious and eager enthusiasts who are just commencing their discovery of whisky is whether to add water to their dram and if so how much?

For some reason this question is quite contentious in the whisky world and evokes strong emotions on both sides of the debate.  I have frequently noticed that the strongest emotions come from the group representing “No Water in Whisky!” who are quite militant in their belief, flawed as it is.

Now if you have any kind of background in law enforcement, or even as a school crossing guard, you will recognize my last comment as some form of a ‘clue’ about which side of the debate I’m on. I have yet to hear one unbiased argument for not adding water to your whisky sample when making an initial assessment.

This small epistle is not a guide on how to nose and taste whisky but is a simple inventory of the advantages of adding water to your sample. The initial amount of water added is up to you and after your initial assessment you may decide in the future that this particular whisky is best taken neat. You may also conclude that it is best enjoyed with a large measure of water. Experience will help determine how much your sample requires but start off with small measures; you are aiming at reducing the nose ‘prickle’ so that you can appreciate the underling aromas. Professional noser’s dilute to 20% but they nose many, many samples in the course of their work and most enthusiasts find that 35% is a suitable level but once again your experience will be your best guide.

You should also understand the difference between making an initial assessment and simply enjoying you dram in a social setting. In the latter case some people actually add lemonade or cola to their whisky but we will pretend that this doesn’t actually occur; some subjects are best not discussed in too great a detail.

In your initial assessment of a whisky, you are doing yourself a disservice if you do not at some point add a small amount of water to your sample. This simple act of adding a little bit of water will have the effect of opening up the whisky to reveal hidden aromas in both the nose and taste which may be pleasant or in some cases, not so pleasant. The discovery of off notes and flaws is just as important as discovering unique and wonderful highlights hidden in the whisky. The addition of water, in varying amounts, reveals another dimension of whisky that would other wise not be viewed and experience will help you determine the amount to add to each sample.

However if you never add water you will simple miss these important aspects of whisky assessment.

I have attended and organized numerous whisky tastings over the years and have seen a myriad of approaches to sampling and assessing whisky from shaking the whisky to the other extreme of dribbling water down the inside of the glass so as not to disturb the spirit and bruise it. While each presenter has had their own unique approach and methods they all have one point that they agree on; the addition of a little water opens up the sample to reveal hidden pleasures.

The water should be room temperature and never chilled and the addition of ice, for assessment purposes, is completely forbidden. Ice dramatically chills the whisky, closes down the nose of the sample and chills the mouth reducing the ability to taste. The water should be of the still variety and not carbonated. With experience you will find the best still water for the task. In some locations plain local tap water will suffice along as it is not chlorinated.

I have heard of many silly excuses for not adding water from ‘it’s not manly’ which is too stupid to comment on further to ‘it’s the natural state’ of the whisky, this also is quite spurious as the Alcohol by Volume in the bottle is often mandated by local taxation rates. As an example the standard official bottling of Laphroaig 10 is bottled at 40% ABV in Canada and 43% in the United States of America*. Which is ‘natural’? Local laws and marketing are now determining the natural state? Further one could argue that the ‘natural’ state for a whisky is not how it is poured from the bottle but rather how it is taken from the cask or even straight off the still however in the later case it is not legally whisky.

I can respect an individuals choice whether to add water or not but I have to wonder about their trying to prevent people from adding water under any circumstances. In any case you earned the money to purchase the bottle of whisky and it’s your choice whether to add water or not but if you don’t, you’re missing a large part of the whisky experience. Go on, try it, your hair won’t fall out if you do….

The above article was published in 2007* by the Malt Maniacs & written by Lawrence Graham.

The author can be seen in this photo hypocritically enjoying an un-watered Hibiki 12yo.

BELTRAMO’S

1540 El Camino Real, Menlo Park, Ca. 94025

Phone (650) 325-2806, (888) 710-9463, Fax (650) 323-8450

Store Hours: Mon-Fri 10 to 7:30 Sat 9:30 to 7:30 Sun 10 to 6:30

NEXT WEEK’S EVENTS

Mother’s Day Brunch > The Vaults, Leith – Sun 15 Mar

Complimentary dram for Mothers who order brunch!

Free Live Music > The Vaults, Leith – Wed 18 Mar

Being the day after St. Patrick’s, we’ve invited back Gillywolfe.

Irish Whiskey Tasting > The Vaults, Leith – Thu 19 Mar

Contrast and compare Society and proprietary Irish bottlings.

Sheffield Preview Tasting >  Leopold Hotel, Sheffield – Fri 20 Mar

Society Ambassador, Les Harrow introduces a preview of truly remarkable drams

Scotland v Ireland Tasting Lunch > 28 Queen St, Edinburgh – Sat 21 Mar

3 drams and 3 substantial courses: perfect warm up session for the game

Whisky & Beer Theme Night > The Vaults, Leith – Tue 31 Mar

As part of our Spritzich Whisky & Beer celebrations join us for a night focused on beer & whisky pairing

Browse All Tastings >

The Scotch Malt Whisky Society, The Vaults, 87 Giles Street, Leith EH6 6BZ Contact: sales@smws.com or call 0131 555 2929 (Mon-Fri 9am-4.45pm). Visit the Society at here for membership information This is your chance to join and to take advantage of their great offers!

Spot the SMWS bottles in this amusing You Tube video

Hello to old friends and new, We hope that the year 2015 is treating you well! We have lots to tell you about in this update, busy and exciting times at the Trace including:

– The completion and opening of Warehouse X – our new experimental warehouse

– Latest awards – Upcoming events at the Distillery – Our Visitor Center expansion

– Our ever expanding distillery

– Our first coffee table book

– Employee anniversary celebrations

Warehouse X We completed construction of our experimental warehouse at the beginning of last year and rolled in the first set of barrels this past summer, beginning the first batch of experiments. The warehouse is comprised of four independently operating chambers that will allow specific variables to be tested, in order to determine their effect on aging barrels, along with a barrel breezeway with an open air rick that will allow a small number of barrels to age while being exposed to the natural elements. The very first experiment that just began this past summer is focusing on the effect of natural light over the next few years. Now that we’re more than six months in, we’ve pulled some samples and have some interesting results so far.  These next couple of years will be very enlightening! If you would like more information about Warehouse X you can find it at www.experimentalwarehouse.com.

Latest Awards We have continued to be honored with awards for our whiskeys. Some recent highlights: The Distillery was named “Distiller of the Year” at the International Wine and Spirits Competition, “Brand Innovator of the Year” by Whisky Magazine at its Icons of Whisky America Awards, and our William Larue Weller Bourbon and Sazerac Rye 18 Year Old Whiskey won second and third finest whiskies in the world, respectively, by the esteemed Jim Murray’s Whisky Bible.   To see all of the awards the Distillery has won, click here.

Community events We’ve recently wrapped up some exciting dinner events at the Trace including our Legendary Craftsmen Dinner Series and our Buffalo Love dinner.   Later this month, on March 28, we will have our most favorite community event – the annual Easter Egg Hunt which sees almost 1,500 happy, smiling faces looking for Easter eggs and on May 1 will be our Oaks Day Festival.   We host several community events at the Distillery throughout the year. To learn more about upcoming events, check out our 2015 Events Stampede on our website at http://buffalotracedistillery.com/events.

Visitor Center One of the most enjoyable aspects of our work at the distillery is the number of folks coming to visit us, especially since we love showing visitors around the Trace.  Last year we entertained over 100,000 guests!  Unfortunately, our visitor center started to get a little overcrowded so we are expanding upstairs! Our visitor center is housed in a beautiful building constructed in 1881 and it has a lovely second floor still in its original condition, so we are adding 5,500 square feet of visitor center space right above the current footprint to include an additional tasting area and meeting and event space. The expansion is expected to be complete by June 2015.

Expansion! In response to the growing demand for fine Kentucky bourbon whiskey the distillery continues to expand.  We have been very fortunate to acquire an additional 233 acres of land adjacent to the distillery on which we will be able to accommodate new barrel storage warehouses as needed.  We are also using the land to plant corn and other grains as we are planning to have our own “farm to table” bourbon in just a few years’ time!   Even more significantly, we have been able to buy back warehouses R, S, T and U which had been sold off and converted into office buildings during the great industry crash in the 1970s and 80s.  We have converted them back into barrel warehouses and are already filling them with barrels!!   In total, the distillery now covers 376 acres and has 125 buildings, spanning four centuries of construction – 1700s, 1800s, 1900s and 2000s.   Also, rest assured, we are making lots more whiskey as we try to catch up to the demand but aging cannot be rushed, so thank you for your patience during this period of shortages on our brands.

Coffee Table Book For the past few years, we have been working with the very talented photographer David Toczko of Lone Dakota Photography on a coffee table book featuring more than 200 color photos of Buffalo Trace Distillery. This beautiful book is now on sale in our Visitor Center as well as online at http://buffalotracegiftshop.com/. David did a spectacular job of capturing the distillery in all its glory and we are very appreciative of the work and effort that he put forth on the project.

Anniversaries Long service, tenure and experience are critical to a distillery’s success.  We recently celebrated two of our finest team members for their contributions to the Trace. We recognized our Jimmy Hall, process technician, who monitors our stills and has now worked at the Trace for 51 years, and our Warehouse Operations Manager, Leonard Riddle who has worked here 50 years! We appreciate all of their hard work!

Future Updates Hopefully, the updates are helpful and not too intrusive, we are certainly glad to be able to be back in touch on a regular basis now! Look for upcoming updates about our botanical gardens, Visitor Center expansion, tours, whiskey experiments underway as well as the conclusion of the Single Oak Project.   If we can be of any help at all with questions, needs, wants please just reply to this e-mail and it will be personally answered.  If there are topics you would like to hear about from us, please do let us know that too.   In closing, and on behalf of all the 425 folks at the Trace, thank you for your support of our whiskeys, it is very much appreciated.   Cheers,   Mark and Kristie, Mark Brown The Buffalo Trace Distillery Direct: (502) 696-5978 E-Mail: MBrown@BuffaloTrace.com www.buffalotracedistillery.com www.greatbourbon.com   Kristie Wooldridge The Buffalo Trace Distillery Direct: (502) 783-5652 E-Mail: kwooldridge@buffalotrace.com

Brace yourselves – it’s the 50th anniversary of ‘The Sound of Music’. Expect a sing-a-along at a venue near you soon! The perfect Mother’s Day gift perhaps? Alternatively we have the usual fine range of whiskies,

Also on the horizon is St Patrick’s Day. While we are fully aware that this usually entails the sampling of a glass or two of the Black Stuff, it would be amiss of us not to highlight the strong growth (not forgetting the long history) of the Irish whiskey category of late.

Elsewhere the whisky year is shaping up very nicely with a plethora of exciting new releases becoming available. Last month we had some very short lived Springbank, Highland Park and Glendronach. This month we have Arran, Tomatin, Benriach and Teeling, to name but a few.

NEW FROM TOMATIN & ARRAN

TOMATIN Cask Strength £48.95

Very welcome addition to the core range. This is the first release of Tomatin Cask Strength and it’s a delicious fruit and nut cracker!

CU BOCAN Virgin Oak £49.95

Another limited release (only 6,000 bottles) of the Tomatin’s Cu Bocan stalks onto the shelves and our staff have been mightily impressed.

ARRAN 18 year old £72.95

.An actual age statement new release! The first ever 18 year old single malt from the Isle of Arran distillery. Long may it continue.

Ireland – Irish and Blended Scotch

• Powers & Sons 12 Year Old John’s Lane Pot Still Irish Whiskey 750ml – 4 available ($69.99)

• Teeling Small Batch “Rum Cask Finish” Irish Whiskey 750ml ($36.99)

Scotland – Single Malt Scotch

• Aberlour 12 Year Old Speyside Single Malt Whisky 750ml ($39.99)

• Bruichladdich Black Art 4th Edition Islay Single Malt Whisky 750ml – 12 available ($299.99)

• Bruichladdich Octomore 6.1 Heavily Peated Islay Single Malt Whisky 750ml (Previously $200) – 6 available ($149.99)

United States – Bourbon and Rye

• Old Potrero Single Malt Straight Rye Whiskey 750ml – 4 available ($69.99)

K&L Wine Merchants
http://www.klwines.com
Phone: 877-KLWines (toll free 877-559-4637)
Email: wine@klwines.com
San Francisco, Redwood City, Hollywood CA

www.ralfy.com shows how to settle down a hot-finish  malt with Whisky Review 526 – Edradour 2003 Vintage @ 57%vol and space.

Glenfarclas 60 Year Old launched in Taiwan, 5^th of February 2015

J.&G. Grant officially launched the Glenfarclas 60 Year Old in Taipei, Taiwan at the beginning of this year – a great start to the 2015 calendar for Glenfarclas! Preparations were underway for 2 days to make a spectacular Glenfarclas themed event for the 60 Year Old unveiling.

The interior of the events hall was decorated with a Glenfarclas style living room, including a cabinet full of Glenfarclas whiskies, artwork on the walls with Grant family pictures, warehouse photos, a collage of old whisky labels and even a Glenfarclas vinyl next to the family’s 175^th Anniversary book.

George Grant took to the stage to present the Glenfarclas 60 Year Old – a rich and full bodied whisky which develops full flavours of dried fruits, coffee, cinnamon and cloves. George explained the Grant family history and the momentous decision of his grandfather, also George Grant, to start putting stock aside during the late 50s & 60s for the future generations. Thanks to this foresight, Glenfarclas now presents an exceptional age statement from a first fill sherry butt which since late 2014 has been sold in over 20 markets and continues to be launched worldwide.

Grant says “It’s such a pleasure to see the Glenfarclas 60 Year Old reach so many corners of the globe, and achieve such high demand. Out of the 360 bottles available worldwide, the majority of these have been sold in Asia, principally in Taiwan and China, which makes this Glenfarclas product launch in Taiwan seem only fitting”.

Glenfarclas 60 Year Old reaches Bulgaria, 7^th of February 2015

Ian McWilliam, Marketing Executive, continues the worldwide Glenfarclas 60 Year Old Launch in Bulgaria at the Whisky Experience Festival. It was presented during the first Whisky, Rum & Wine Master Test held at Fabrica in Sofia attracting quite the sizeable crowd of whisky enthusiasts!

The Glenfarclas 60 Year Old was described as an incredibly rich & fruity whisky specially selected from a first fill oloroso sherry butt; it boasts a beautifully dark mahogany colour and intense flavours of sherried fruits, treacle, oaky tannins and roasted coffee beans. Presented in its Glencairn crystal decanter, with crystal base alongside a hexagonal box, the Glenfarclas 60 Year Old is designed to represent the 6 generations of the Grant family. The family signatures, from John Grant (1805-1889) to today’s 6th generation, George Grant, Glenfarclas Sales Director are inscribed around the crystal base.

This monumental Glenfarclas expression sincerely reflects the core character of Glenfarclas as a product, but also as a company. The Grant family’s commitment to sherry cask maturation and their exceptional history in stocking so many single casks reinforces the family vision of creating a Single Malt Scotch whisky which is unique and continues to stay true to the Grant values of independence, authenticity and quality.

Glenfarclas Email: info@glenfarclas.co.uk Website: www.glenfarclas.co.uk Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/glenfarclas/ Tel: +44 (0) 1807 500257 Fax: +44 (0) 1807 500234 Address: Glenfarclas Distillery, Ballindalloch, Banffshire AB37 9BD, UK