Whisky Advocate Blog

Stephen Mathis from The Malt Impostor (http://maltimpostor.com) talks friends.

And I’m not talking about the sort of friendship one finds when, to quote Billy Joel, “they’re sharing a drink they call loneliness / but it’s better than drinking alone.”  Even though drinking alone has more virtue than that quote implies, sharing whisky with friends allows mere alcoholic consumption to transform into something truly extraordinary.  At the risk of waxing philosophical, sharing whisky with others renders both the friendship and the whisky itself more meaningful.  Even if the whisky you’re drinking is atrocious, having friends present who are willing to sit with you and slag that liquid atrocity transforms the whole experience into something wonderful.

It was precisely this effect that gave rise to a very silly project called The Malt Impostor:  One cold January day, Bill, John, and I set out for a great scotch bar to sample single malts.  Over the course of the afternoon we spent there, whisky became something more to us than it had been before. And it was that same laughter-filled afternoon that inspired us to create a website with humorous takes on whisky tasting notes.  Since then, the one thing we have appreciated most about our “work” has been the opportunity it has given us to deepen our friendship.

What was the best whisky drinking experience you’ve ever had?  Let us know in the comment section (you can change names to protect the innocent—or the guilty, whichever the case may be).  I’m willing to bet friends played a key role in making it great.

Nick White, Managing Director of A.Dewar Rattray Ltd, Independent Bottler, is today’s guest blogger on “What Do You Know?”. Nick questions “ What would visitors to a new whisky centre like to see and do?”

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We are opening a new head office, shop and whisky centre in Kirkoswald, South Ayrshire.  This is a development that the company owner, Stanley Walker Morrison (former part owner of Morrison Bowmore Distillers), has always wanted to do.  Now in association with A.Dewar Rattray Ltd we are developing a unique whisky centre with :

• a small warehouse room where you can fill your own bottle straight from an actual maturing cask
• an extensive sample room where you can nose and taste a plethora of samples from single casks
• a formal tasting room with whisky artifacts, collectibles on display, cooperage tools and other whisky related memorabilia

My problem is there is nothing like this currently in existence.  Apart for the Whisky Experience  on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh the only whisky centres are part of distilleries.  In addition, there is nothing like this at all on the mainland West of Scotland.  Arran is the nearest distillery that you can visit.  Grants/Ailsa Bay is very near us but they are not open to the public.
 
I would be fascinated to know what would attract enthusiasts to visit us.  Any new ideas on what is missing from distillery tours?
 
Please note that the Whisky Centre does not open until April 2011.  Renovation work has just started.

Guest blogger, Jason Young takes you along on his journey toward knowing whisky. He blogs along the way at www.discoveringdionysus.com and asks for your guidance here.

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When John posted the question ‘What do you know,’ I thought it was perfect because it is a question I have been asking myself for awhile now. Or, more specifically, I have asked how people like John have come to know what they know, and how I might gain some of that knowledge and experience. You see, I am a mere 24 years old and am just beginning to explore the wonderful world of malted beverages. As I continue this exploration, I have become more interested in appreciating their many nuances and this, in turn, has led me to scour the many great writings and reviews out there by people like John. While these writers have taught me a great deal, I often wonder how they managed to achieve the level of expertise that they now possess. In this blog post I wanted to share my own strategy for gaining tasting ‘expertise,’ in the hopes that I might spark a conversation about how others have learned to better appreciate and understand their drams. Hopefully some of the comments will help me and other young whisky lovers as we fine tune our palates.

Obviously, the most effective (and enjoyable!) way for me to better appreciate a good whisky is to try as many different whiskies as I can… nothing beats experience. Since college my whisky collection has steadily grown from a young bottle of Glenfiddichto now include aged malts from around Scotland and the rest of the world. However, this can get quite expensive, particularly when you want to taste some of the older or rarer varieties (and who doesn’t?!?). So, lately I have been looking for ways to expose myself to a larger variety of whiskies for a lower cost. One strategy is to go out to a good whisky bar, but, unfortunately I haven’t found a great one around me. Instead, I recently came across Master of Malt’s sample collection, which allows me to buy a handful of miniatures for a fraction of the cost of a full bottle. I purchased about half a dozen samples from them a few weeks ago, and I have to say that it was a great experience. Lately I have also been thinking about joining For Scotch Lovers’s Whisky Explorers Club, which sends out 24 50mL samples a year to members. I’m curious what other strategies people use to get their whiskies? Obviously, receiving free official samples from distilleries would be nice, but I don’t see myself becoming lucky like that anytime soon…

In my mind, though, it isn’t enough to simply taste a dram… drinking, and its appreciation, is a social phenomenon and I find that sharing the tasting enhances the experience and leaves everyone with new perspectives. Nothing is better than getting a couple of friends to bring over their own bottles, put them all up on the table with a couple of glasses, and make a night of it. However, even when friends aren’t around, I have found another way to socialize my drinking experience—writing. Very recently I started my own blog (www.discoveringdionysus.com), where I am attempting to explore the process of growing a better appreciation of various wines and spirits. I find it has been extremely helpful, if only on a personal level, to write down my thoughts on whatever I am drinking. I often then go out and find other reviews of the dram, so that I can directly compare my experience with other people’s thoughts. At times my own notes correlate closely with others, and at other times I swear that some flowery reviews must simply be invented as part of a poetry project… But, at any rate, not only have those comparisons been very rewarding in themselves, but throughout the process I have encountered many new blogs and magazines that have helped me hone my tastes and expand my knowledge. So, perhaps another question for discussion is, what are your favorite sources of whisky knowledge (aside from What Does John Know?, of course)?

Finally, there are more institutional ways to expand one’s palate. I will admit that this is an area that I haven’t explored much, but I would love to learn about any good opportunities. For example, in college I took a semester-long wine tasting course, and I strongly believe that those classes did more to evolve my relationship with wine than anything else I’ve ever done. In all likelihood the techniques I learned in that class probably highly influence the way in which I taste other beverages. I would love to take a similar class created specifically for whiskies. I am even interested in the whisky nosing kits I sometimes see advertised, which supposedly help me identify the scents in my whiskies. I would also love to visit more distilleries, or perhaps participate in some of the society events that I sometimes read about. In the past I have only ever been to the Jameson distillery, but it was a blast, so I’m hoping to save my pennies for future international outings.

So, these are a few of the ways that I’ve thought of to increase ‘what I know.’ Hopefully I have gotten you to think a little bit about how you have come to know what you know, and hopefully you will share your journey with me. I would love to know about great places to buy or drink odd drams, obscure magazines I might subscribe to or books I might find, or classes and events I might look forward to attending. I will say with utter certainty that the one thing I do know is that I am very excited to be a new member of this great community!

The guest blog, “What Do YouKnow?” rolls on with Steffen Bräuner of http://danishwhiskyblog.blogspot.com/. Steffen explores the changes in whisky over time in “Whisky Improved”.

 I have a range of favorite distilleries. 

Everybody does I guess. For me this has clearly been affected by what’s available out there on the open market for us whisky consumers. When I started with malt whisky I was purchasing the major brands, but as I got in the know about where to find bottlings and located strange bottlings in speciality stores my preferences became more nuanced. Unless you live in a place where the available selection is very limited, I guess this goes for most of us.

I also have a range of distilleries I don’t like and have been avoiding. I tried their whiskies and found them not to my likings (Bad whisky?) or maybe the whisky I tried was just very very forgettable.

Well, avoiding distilleries as a principle might not be the best idea. The last couple of years I did decide to be more open-minded and retry whiskies I had a very set opinion on as being BAD! or BORING!

And I didn’t regret that!

Quite a lot of distilleries has improved their products a lot. Bowmore lost what seemed to me like perfume characteristic and has become “normal” a few years ago. I did look upon Isle of Jura, Ledaig/Tobermory and Fettercairn as producing a whisky more similar to sour socks than anything drinkable, but my recent retries of these malts has proved me wrong. I’d like to single out Tobermory/Ledaig which by going to 46.3%, 10yo age statement, unchillfiltered and probably also a change in production methods lifted their whiskies up to a much higher level. Burn Stewart did a similar thing with Deanston that improved a lot as well.

I didn’t have that high thoughts about Tomatin, but that changed dramatically when they revatted their bottlings last year (with higher ABV as well). Arran wasn’t really my favourite either, but this is an ugly duckling amongst the distilleries and as it has been coming of age, I have started to really enjoy their whiskies. It’s no secret I regard the Arran Peacock as one of the best malts of 2009.

Balblair, BenRiach and also Imperial has impressed me a lot the last years. Balblair due to their vintage series, BenRiach with a change of ownership and Imperial due to Duncan Taylor’s extra attention. (Duncan Taylor thought they were gonna buy Imperial so I stocked up, and what fine malts, quite young even, they released recently).

And who wasn’t surprised by the things BenRiach has been releasing since Billy Walker took over?

Moral: Be open-minded. Whisky changes, distillery changes, the people bottling the whisky changes. Things do improve.

Any distilleries surprised you lately ?

Ryan Beard of Boozeblogger.com serves as today’s guest blogger. “One last drink”  is a deep approach to get to the bottom of a very simple question.

Christopher Hitchens is dying. Whether you love him or hate him the man is now faced with a fate we will all meet by a method of departure most of us hope to avoid. He’s been diagnosed with late-stage esophageal cancer and if he’s very, very lucky he might make it another few years. People die every day and while there may be better men to mourn there might be no better man to answer the question concerning libations and departures we pose to you today.

These are Hitchens’ 10 Commandments for Drinking from his recently released memoir: Hitch 22

1.Don’t drink on an empty stomach: the main point of the refreshment is the enhancement of food.
2.Don’t drink if you have the blues: it’s a junk cure.
3.Drink when you are in a good mood.
4.Cheap booze is a false economy.
5.It’s not true that you shouldn’t drink alone: these can be the happiest glasses you ever drain.
6.Hangovers are another bad sign, and you should not expect to be believed if you take refuge in saying you can’t properly remember last night. (If you really don’t remember, that’s an even worse sign.)
7.Avoid all narcotics: these make you more boring rather than less and are not designed – as are the grape and the grain—to enliven company.
8.Be careful about up-grading too far to single malt Scotch: when you are voyaging in rough countries it won’t be easily available.
9.Never even think about driving a car if you have taken a drop.
10.It’s much worse to see a woman drunk than a man: I don’t know quite why this is true but it just is. Don’t ever be responsible for it.

So here’s the question. Imagine you are told the date and time of your death and, in that final hour, given access to one last dram of any whisk(e)y in existence or out of existence. One final drink before you shove off into the darkness. What would you choose? Would you choose the most expensive in the world? Maybe the oldest you can think of? Maybe that one that you never could find. Maybe the same one your father or grandfather drank, the scent of which you still remember wistfully when you think of Him. Would it be your old standard or a new favorite? Would you break into the Buffalo Trace distillery and crack open a barrel knowing that they’ll NEVER TAKE YOU ALIVE?! I might. 

Either way let us know your thoughts in the comments. And make it a good one; it’s your last.

Nate Nicoll, blogger at www.whiskywall.wordpress.com, joins “What Do You Know” as today’s guest blogger and opens the whisky war chest.

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While drinking does not always need to be a battle, and hopefully most of the time it is not, of fundamental importance to the savvy and seasoned imbiber of spirits is how one stocks the war chest.  And this isn’t just any war chest, this is the cache of whiskies that must have a proper balance of bottles to fortify one’s abode against any unprecedented or decidedly welcome peril.

Let’s get the obvious out of the way.  One must stock a celebratory-grade whisky.  This is something you tend to ignore, perhaps dusting it off occasionally and admiring it, pondering when the day will arrive when you will be justified in cracking the seal.  This object of your fawning, this grail of sorts imparts to you a sense of purpose.  The mere idea of trying to justify savoring such a pour will inspire you to set the bar higher, to clearly state goals in your mind, the achievement of which will permit you to raise a chalice of this superlative spirit.  Simply possessing the celebratory-grade whisky can make you a better person.  And if you torture yourself for long enough, holding out till the moment when you feel you’ve earned your reward, you will probably be so deranged that the whisky will taste as nectar and in the manner of self-fulfilling prophecies, you will love it no matter what.  Depending on the depths of one’s wealth this prized bottle can be astronomically expensive.  Thoughts of bottles from now long gone distilleries like Port Ellen or Brora come to mind.

Then there is your guest whisky.  This term may be bifurcated depending on your relationship with your guests.  If your guests are limited to solid friends and family, this should be something a cut above.  More importantly, it should be an expression of you.  This whisky is an opportunity to let those you invite into a private setting to get to experience an aspect of yourself that you have come to terms with and that you entrust to those around you.  It is easy to impress a guest with something rare or fine, but to share a whisky with them that reflects something of your own tastes and personality give them insight into who you are, brings them into your inner-circle.  An expression that might surprise them or that you think to yourself “you have to try this.”  As you can see this is a highly personalized choice and will vary from drammer to drammer.  For my purposes I like to have an independent bottling of an Islay or Lowland malt.  

Then there is the other guest whisky.  If you have occasion to suffer guests that aren’t particularly welcome but seem to occasionally wash up on your shore, you might need something to make them feel special while you hide any whisky of real value.  A decent blend serves this purpose well.  Something you can use on your own when you need to inject several ounces of medicinal booze into the system and you don’t have time for sipping. And when you need to serve it you start out with the old, “I stumbled upon a surprisingly decent blend, you’ve got to try it…”  They won’t question you. They are a guest.  Such bottles are not difficult to think of or find as there are many at your local supermarket.

Perhaps the most important component of the war chest, one that is overlooked or under stocked at your own peril, is the table whisky.  The table whisky, like it’s name implies, is your daily dram.  Of supreme importance is to not be lulled in by the somewhat proletariat common-sounding term “table whisky”.  The whisky is easily the most difficult to settle upon and requires far more research then any of the previously mentioned bottles.  This whisky has to be eminently sip-able but also able to be gulped without a tinge of wasteful regret.  This is the whisky you will spend most of your time drinking.  And if you value your time, your quality of life, you will make sure you really like this whisky.  It serves as both comfort and medicine depending on the situation.  It can precede a meal and/or round a meal out.  And unless you are rolling in it, it can be inexpensive.  For a whisky to satisfy all of these things, you usually have to move on to a new table whisky every 3-to-6 months, or so.  Otherwise the familiarity takes away from the overall experience.

Solid table whiskies can be found in the $40-$60 price range, and when you find one you need to keep it well stocked.  The table whisky is the last line of defense.  Failure to properly stock a good supply of table whisky and keep that supply well tended will result in you coming through the door one night and decimating every more rarified, special occasion whisky in your collection in a misevaluated need to get further lit.  Even a few beers can trigger a run on your whisky stash, and to avoid any next-day recriminations over your rare moment of rashness, you need the table whisky to stand up against your temporary lack of judgment. 

Just like a balanced financial portfolio you must maintain a nicely diversified whisky war chest.  One that will be able to competently ride the waves of a fluctuating market of guests and fend off an unexpected run on resources. 

What is your strategy to keeping a diverse whisky war chest and what is currently in it?