28 Whiskies later, Day 2

28 Whiskeys later and Day 2 is over.  We learn by repetition so I started on Makers Mark poured by Rob Samuels again.  An action I will repeat on the last day.  His bourbon remains fantastic.

I was hoping to attend a tasting conducted by Andy Watts, Master Blender at Three Ships, but it clashed with my workshop on whiskies of the world.  So I tasted it the old fashioned way, on the other side of the booth.  The 5yr old is peatier than I remembered.  Checked the half bottle at home, yup remembered correctly.  Peat in whisky I get right; the name of the good looking brunette......The new release of the 10 year old is even better than what I remembered.  Maybe because it went into different barrels.  It is once again a limited release.  The previous time I tasted it was from a bottle kept back at the distillery, because it sold out so quickly it was no longer available commercially.  This time i procured my own.

The same woman ⁽¹⁾ that took me through the Buffalo Trace range took me through Compass Box’s offerings.  Always good, always refreshingly different.  The Spiced Tree particularly filled me with joy. 

I am slightly disturbed that my favourite whisky is owned by LVMH.  A company so pretentious the name is Moet Hennesy Louis Vitton, but the acronym is the other way round.  As theirs is a luxury brands company it can only mean that Ardbeg will get more expensive.  But maybe, and I am clinging to this as tight as a tick to a puppy, they understand the brand thing better than others and they will at least leave it alone and won’t dilute the whisky to a mainstream product.  Stella Artois did not do this right and today it is indistinguishable from most other mass market lagers.

Glenmorangie is also part of MHLV ⁽²⁾ and it is at their tasting booth that I tasted Ardbeg New make.  New make is unaged whisky.  Closer to vodka, eau de vie or witblits.  Witblits is to brandy as new make is to whisky ⁽³⁾ that should explain it.  The Ardbeg smells extremely peaty, even foul.  Dave Broom in his World Atlas of Whisky describes it as: “Sweet-and-Sooty touch of dulse ⁽⁴⁾ and rock pools.  Lightly oily then peat smoke, unripe banana, garlic, violet root, tomato leaf.  With water, creosote and Chinese cough medicine, solvent.”  Essentially we agree then ⁽⁵⁾.  Nothing in the smell of the new make will let ordinary mortals think “In just ten years this will be beautiful!”  Yet, in those ten years the foul bits of the smoke and peat are leached by the wood to make the hooligan juice that is Ardbeg 10.  I said it before :It is an obvious whisky with full flavours.  Few can be ambiguous about it.  This is a love or hate dram.  And I love it! And not a lone ranger on this one.  These people are slightly obsessive. 

The only expression (like models in cars) of Ardbeg we get here is the 10 year old.  When asked where I can get other expressions in South Africa, the answer was you can’t.  Much more polite than that of course. 

So back to the Glemorangie range alluded to earlier.  With examples of the whisky finished in different wine, port, sherry casks the taste differs quite considerably.  I liked the one finished in sweet wine casks.  Not finished as sitting in a barrel emptying the bottle.  Like finishing school.  After years of just hanging about in the miserable Scottish weather in casks that have probably seen whisky before, for the last few months it is transferred to barrels that used to contain something else.  Like port or sherry.

So much is the mismatch between the sherry casks needed and sherry produced, that some whisky producers pay wineries in Spain to produce sherry simply so that casks are available that previously contained sherry.  After maturing for two years in the casks it is then put into the Mediterranean to keep the fishes happy.  The casks go to Scotland as whole units filled only with warm Spanish air in an attempt to heat up the other side of Hadrian’s Wall. ⁽⁶⁾ 

The world whisky awards workshop was somewhat spoiled by the customs official who took more than a month to let through the stuff we were supposed to taste.  A rushed, but good, presentation by Rob Allanson of Whisky Magazine ensued.  One of the reasons Johnny Gold is served frozen is the viscosity of grain whisky changes with low temperatures.  And apparently besides Clynelish there is a lot of grain in Gold Label.   So now I have a bottle of the local grain, Bains, in the freezer.  Combining with ice cream was also suggested.  I will try that as well, martyr that I am to gastronomy.

Interesting whiskies were Highland way and Glenbrynth.  The former a cheap but glugable drink, the latter a well priced vatted malt.  That being a blend of malt whiskies, without grain.

So 28 different whiskies on Day 1 and ditto day two.  Will day 3 push my liver into overdrive?

(1)    Not a booth bunny, she knows her whisky
(2)    At least I can get it right.  Don’t get me started on 11/9
(3)    If you struggled with the language part of the IQ tests, skip this part.
(4)    Edible red Seaweed, I had to look it up too.  Thanks WordWeb
(5)    Am I comparing myself to Dave Broom?  Yes, but not favourably.
(6)    This joke stolen from Gerry Tosh, Brand ambassador of Highland Park