How Sherry Became the Secret to Great Scotch
atlasobscura.com
atlasobscura.com
* lots of Scotch has no sherry, and, particularly, the smokey peaty Islays tend not to be sherried at all. Sherried Scotch is a distinctive style, mostly centered in Speyside.
* There are better, cheaper sherry bomb whiskies than Macallan; try Aberlour A’bunadh (cheap, excellent) and Glendronach (still substantially cheaper than Macallan, and I think much better).
The big trend in Scotch is towards “no age statement” (NAS) bottlings, because Scotland is not keeping up with resurgent global demand. NAS bottles are younger spirits, but tend to have more interesting casks, which is a bonus if sherried whiskies are what you’re into.
For what it’s worth, my mental model is that ex-bourbon casks add basically no flavors other than the wood; I think of them as “neutrally casked”.
Occasionally, (apparently) you'll find a NAS is actually comprised 80% of some 18 year old or 25 year old stuff but the master blender has added some 5 year old (say) not because of shortage but because it improves flavour. Of course then you need to sell that either as a 5 year old blended whisky or not mention its age at all. Frustrating for marketers and consumers alike, because one person can't say what they are selling other than the promise of high quality, and the other side has no real idea what they are buying (because the marketing would claim high quality regardless).
A few years back Compass Box, finding themselves in this situation, published the full recipe for one of their blends online (not even on the packaging) and this was found to be in contravention of EU regulations. They launched a campaign to have this rule relaxed in the case where full recipes are posted.
Another side to it is that the current rules might be considered by some to give an unfair advantage to your massive conglomerates i.e. Diageo and Pernod-Ricard who have massive purchasing power over the "old stuff".
I see both sides of the argument: on the one hand it's hard to feel like people are misled by a full and accurate recipe being posted. But maybe it carries with it that because your blend is comprised <qualitatively high number>% 18 year old then your average consumer might decide it is of comparable quality to a straight 18 year old even if you've mixed in some paint thinner.
My take is that Compass Box's particular situation is different than that of the distillers as they blend off the shelf whisky. They would be saying "we blended 18 year old Glenlivet with 12 year old macallan" as opposed to "we took some of an 18 year old cask and some of a 12 year old cask" - I think it's less clear that the latter is a recipe than the former.
(All this isn't to say lack of stock isn't a problem - it is and it is the main reason for NAS - just not always the only reason.)
Now you have a situation where it can be just marketing fluff that causes a large increase in cost, which could lead to a market for lemons emerging...
Now you just have the ever more fancy boxes and words of marketing department to assess whether a given bottle is worth the price tag...
The concern here is that this opens the door to companies who are good at marketing and not so great at creating good whisky..
Where are you getting cheap Aberlour A'bunadh?? It's my favorite scotch but I cannot find it for less than 2 to 3 times the price of Macallan 12.
Also, Glenmorangie is a delicious sherry scotch. Tastes a lot like Macallan and usually cheaper.
> The big trend in Scotch is towards “no age statement” (NAS) bottlings, because Scotland is not keeping up with resurgent global demand. NAS bottles are younger spirits, but tend to have more interesting casks, which is a bonus if sherried whiskies are what you’re into.
Interestingly, Macallan in the US still has an age statement. This, however, is not the case in other countries. They have names instead (like "Ruby").
I wonder if this is because the USA allows it? In a country where you can sell Argentine cheese as Parmesan and Oklahoma beef as being from Kobe, it doesn't seem like a stretch that you could sell 3-year-old coloured vodka as fine 18-year-old Scotch whisky.
Aberlour A'bunadh is great, as noted, as is Glendrodach, but they've run out of 15 year old casks, and the 18 isn't enough better to justify the price hike.
Another favorite is the Bunnahabhain 18, a non-peaty, sherried Islay whisky.
Aberlour A'bunadh $140 (Dan Murphy's, so pretty much everywhere)
Bunnahabhain 18 $199.00 (Nicks, mail order only)
Glenmorangie Original $80 (Dan Murphy)
It's actually not that much higher that US prices, which is surprising
These are the lowest prices for each in the 3 places I usually buy stuff online:
Aberlour A'bunadh: €53 ($61 / AUD 84)
Bunnahabhain 18: €91 ($105 / AUD 144)
Glenmorangie Original: €29 ($34 / AUD 46)
The Aberlour has gotten back down (interestingly) to what it used to be when I started buying it about 7 years ago. Glenmorangie used to be €25 at the grocery store. And the Bunnahabhain used to be about €65 when I found it.
I was going to ask that, as well. :-) In Chicagoland at least, there isn't a huge price difference, though ($67 for Macallan 12, $90 for A'bunadh). On the other hand, last time I had a bottle of A'bunadh, it was in the $60-$65 range.
Fortunately, being cask strength, the A'bunadh bottle can go farther, provided you dilute it properly.
While I like the Speyside style, I like peated Islays as well. I'm interested in the Lagavulin 8 - the 16 is still just a bit too dear (though down in price from a few years ago).
It’s not worth $90. You can get a Dronach for that much.
A good relatively inexpensive sherry Speyside is Dailuane (in my experience only the cheap Dailuanes are good).
I'm annoyed that even though the warehouse is right here in Raleigh, many of the local stores have crappy selection. I don't even understand why the selection varies between stores, especially within a county, since they are all state run.
(Actually, Binny’s current Mac 12 price in Chicago appears to be higher than Abunadh or Dronach 12 [which is fantastic]).
I will say I had a dram of the 18 in a bar once, and it was indeed very very good, but I can't really justify spending ~$250 bottle for it.
The Kilchoman distillery is doing some really fascinating stuff, but they've only been open a decade or so it's mostly NAS stuff, but it gets rave reviews.
I think NAS is a positive step for the whole industry.
Scotch can be aged in any oak, new or previously used, and more recently, there have been other types of casks (such as port, or French oak) used for either aging or short-term finishing.
I've had some wonderful wine finished whiskies - Leoville Barton Green Spot was amazing - and also some horrifying wine finished ones - Chateau Montelena Zinfandel Green Spot was hard to swallow.
For some new producers like Kavalan or Amrut, whose almost entire lines are sherry, ex-bourbon, rum, and port finished casks, it seems like the way to make a dent in the market hype without having to have really good base whiskey.
I'm just waiting for all that noise to be replaced by interesting woods - Quercus Garryana in the PNW of American whiskies is like the IPA of whiskey. Throw in some biology whizzes and the American craft whiskey market is going to be very interesting in the next 10 years.
"... why not scrape out the inside of the cask and toast it again? After toasting the cask is charred anew, and voilà: You have a new, activated cask. ... A bourbon cask, used for 2 to 4 years in the USA, can be used for another 30 years in Scotland."
https://www.whisky.com/information/knowledge/production/deta...
my point is that if the oak is the same species as that used in bourbon barrels, and if the barrel is charred in a manner similar to a bourbon barrel then the whisky flavor has a greater tendency toward bourbon-like flavor than if sherry or wine barrels or plain, un-charred oak barrels were used.
bourbon barrel availability to scotch producers increased significantly after 1935 when US federal law required single use bourbon barrels, and, more so later in the 20th century when the supply of Spanish sherry barrels dwindled.
Typically vanillas, nuts, toffees, woods, caramels, and some cereal notes (other cereal notes from the barley of course, which oak may not drown out as much as the fruitier sherries).
From what I understand, Bourbon casks are also often re-conditioned and re-charred, which further supports this point.
I'd also recommend Clynelish 14 as an entry level sherried scotch. The Signatory Vintage releases of Clynelish distillate tend to be a bit more ($90-140) but are some of the best scotch money can buy in my opinion.
If it's a 1st-fill cask you can get a lot of flavour imparted from bourbon. A lot of my favourite "tropical fruit" flavour whiskies come from 1st fill bourbon casks.
What I think is that if you did a triangle test between 1st and refill ex-bourbon, you wouldn't be able to tell the difference.
Lagavulin, my personal favorite, is the exception.
Ardbeg Uigaedail is another with the magic peat+sherry combo, and it's cask strength to boot (Typically about 115 proof).
Had it, prefer the 16.
> Ardbeg Uigaedail
I’ll keep an eye out, thanks.
> So it was only a matter of time before the Scots started storing their local moonshine, a clear distillate called uisge beatha (“water of life”), inside them. “Around 1800, distillers in Scotland realized that putting this clear spirit in a barrel not only made financial sense, but also made the liquid look and taste better,”
whereas Scotch whisky has been around for at least 500 years. In the second half of 18th century and early 19th century making distilled spirits was outlawed in Scotland, so, naturally, people turned to moonshining - much less risk in that than storing casks for decades to mature into proper whisky; that's the reason for the prominence of clear spirits.
But I will say...Sherry by itself is totally underated.
I spent a week in Jerez a few years ago studying Sherry and it is truly an art.
If you like Single Malt and Sour Beer, you owe it to yourself to seek out a Sherry bar and explore the magic of Fino, Amontillado, and the ever evasive Palo Cortado.
We had a restaurant in Chicago, Vera, with a huge sherry list. It was kind a of a miracle; I’d rather go there than to Longman with their equivalently long whiskey list. Gone now though :(.
The peat smoke in Scotch is another good example of this. They only used peat to dry the malt as coke was too expensive and hard to source in Scotland.
It's difficult and expensive to make a really good "spirit led" whisky so many distilleries use casks as a way to imbue more flavours. Of course, a good cask helps (and you can't have whisky without casks) but beware of marketing departments trying to bamboozle you with fancy barrels.
The real art is in the distillation itself.
Because of US laws that require aging bourbon in new, freshly charred, American oak barrels, a large quantity of the barrels sold to distillers across the globe are "ex bourbon."
So, now, an awful lot of booze out there -- and not just whiskey, but also American brandy and some Caribbean rums -- tastes sorta like bourbon.
What historical evidence supports the notion that rum and brandy were, even to a first approximation, basically always aged in ex bourbon casks?
Lately it seems like there's so many sherry-aged whiskies and whiskey-aged something or other, or first-fill, second-fill, ends up traveling over three continents. Seems like the barrel coopers are the ones doing the best, but even then the wood itself is pretty contentious in terms of quality versus hype.
Kilchoman's port cask Scotch is really amazing.