Scotch Addict

Last week, my wife and I met some college friends at Corks, a restaurant in the Federal Hill neighborhood of Baltimore, MD. It had been quite some time since we’d been to Corks, the last time was for Baltimore’s 2007 Restaurant Week, because it’s not very often that we go into Baltimore for dinner. Back then, I hadn’t developed a liking for Scotch so I didn’t really keep an eye out for what they had available.

This time, armed with a little more experience, I spied several well known bottles on the shelf. They had your basic bar standards, Glenlivet 12 and a Glenfiddich, as well as a Macallan Fine Oak 17 that looked appealing. However, tonight I was in the mood for something with a little more punch and noticed they had a fairly healthy bottle of Laphroaig Quarter Cask.

Laphroaig is an Islay, which is generally characterized by a peatiness and smokiness completely absent from Speyside scotches like Glenlivet, Glenfiddich, and Macallan. What’s special about the quarter cask? The story they tell is that when whisky was transported by mules or packhorses, a barrel was too heavy so they used quarter casks. In those smaller casks, the whisky would continue to mature and be in greater contact with the oak – imparting more of the wood’s flavor into the dram.

How much more? It’s 30% more contact, by their calculations. To help maximize the flavor, they decided to bottle the quarter cask at 48 percent alcohol by volume, up from the standard 40 percent. Besides the additional maturation, higher alcohol by volume, the whisky is not chill filtered because it hadn’t been invented back when pack animals were used to transport the whisky!

Here are Laphroaig’s tasting notes:

• Colour: Autumn gold
• Nose: Slight peatyness, smooth, velvety, coconut, creamy aroma with water.
• Taste: Soft velvet moderates peatyness
• Finish: Creamy, zesty orange

When I enjoyed it, the peatyness and smoke were very evident. I think this has more to do with my own whisky experience, I enjoy mostly Speysides at home (a problem I must remedy in my next trip to the store), and less an indication of how strong those flavors are in Laphroaig. Also, there was a slight medicinal nose that persisted the entire dram. On the palate, it wasn’t as sweet and dry fruity as Speysides, those flavors likely dominated by the peat. I didn’t get any coconut, as the notes say, but the finish did hint of oranges once the heat of the higher ABV subsided.

I’d love to get this and the 10 year old Laphroaig side by side for a real comparison.

Tasting Notes Laphroaig, Laphroaig Quarter Cask

The other Scotch-related treat I had while in Scotland was the chance to try The Macallan Fine Oak 30 Year as part of The Macallan Most Precious Tour. The Most Precious Tour, which cost us a mere £15 a person, ends with a tasting of their New Make Whisky (whisky before it’s put into the barrel), 10 Year, 15 Year Fine Oak, 18 Year, and 30 Year Fine Oak, and is overseen by the guide, who tutors you on the process. They have slides that help explain the various flavors and notes of the whisky, which gave me, the novice, a bit of guidance. When we sat down, I had no idea I was going to be able to try whisky that normally sells for £321 a bottle (in the distillery store, it retails in the US at around $900).

The Fine Oak line is a fun idea because they mature it in three different casks – Spanish oak casks seasoned with sherry, American oak casks seasoned with sherry, and American oak casks seasoned with bourbon. My novice ability probably wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between triple cask matured versus a blend of three separately matured whiskeys blended together but I imagine there’s a difference. You don’t go through all that trouble for it not to come out in the end product (or it could just be marketing?).

Incidentally, they say that the Precious tour takes two hours but the guide will stay with you in the tasting room as long as you want. The Precious tour normally has ten people but six people on our tour never showed up, so it was an intimate four-person tour that lasted nearly three hours!

So how was it? Smooth… so smooth that my wife, who doesn’t like whisky, said that she liked it. She liked it! She went from hating the taste of scotch to liking a Macallan 30 Year Fine Oak… she has expensive tastes.

So, here are the notes they offered on the nose that I found entertaining – “Rich, exotic, heady and aromatic, reminiscent of an orange grove.” I get everything in that statement except… exotic. What does an “exotic nose” mean?

Besides that little descriptive quandary, I definitely got a lot of orange peel, vanilla, with a spiciness on the back end. It’s light color, atypical for a 30 year, gave away its slightly muted oakiness. All of the Macallans in the Fine Oak line are far lighter than the standard bottlings, so I’d imagine the oakiness is toned down as well.

Tasting Notes Macallan

I spent the last week in Nags Head, North Carolina, with a few of my friends renting a vacation home and we took advantage of the numbers to buy a few bottles of whisky. One of the prime choices was Ardbeg 10, a bottle I’ve wanted to try for a while but hadn’t gotten around to it.

As a fan of Lagavulin and Laphroaig, I wanted to try what is billed at the peatiest of whisky. When I poured it from the bottle, I was struck at how light it was. It’s a pale yellow, very pale, and the peat and smoke is very evident. I added a few drops in and it opened up a little, with a little fruit sweetness hiding behind the smoke and warmth of the whisky.

Overall, it was pleasant but nothing shouted “peaty!” like the billing leads you to believe. In the future, I think I’d like to try one of the more mature bottlings to get a more complete picture. Or… I just need to try it some more.

(Photo: ppz)

Tasting Notes Ardbeg, Lagavulin, Laphroaig

I first tried The Balvenie DoubleWood (12 Years) in England at my friend David’s home in Beverly last Thanksgiving (had a great Thanksgiving meal too!). Well, it wasn’t until only recently that I bought a bottle for myself (two in fact, I forgot I already had an unopened bottle when I bought another in duty free two weeks ago) and it wasn’t until last night that I uncorked it.

At the time, what struck me about the DoubleWood was that it was matured in both whisky oak casks and oak sherry casks. The term “whisky oak casks,” listed on the label of the bottle, refers to bourbon whisky casks purchased from bourbon producers in the United States. US law states that bourbon casks may only be used once, so after the first use they’re useless to bourbon producers! The second cask of oak sherry is known as a finish, where the whisky is allowed to spend six to twelve months in a cask once used for sherry and picks up a bit of flavor.

Last November, my experience with scotch had been very limited. I was familiar with the smokiness and peatiness of Islays, as my friends had taken a liking to Laphroaig and Lagavulin (and to a certain extent Talisker). I was also familiar with the easy going clean and smooth flavors of Speysides, but it wasn’t until The Balvenie that I had something quite as sweet.

Tasting Notes

I get a strong vanilla on the nose and a hint of fruit sweetness, though I can’t place what fruit it is. Tasting is a thoroughly enjoyable experience as it’s sweet with a bit of spiciness. It benefits from breathing, as the strength is very present, and I used the time as an opportunity to continue sniffing it. The finish is warm and inviting but not terribly long, just long enough until the next taste.

(at some places the Balvenie DoubleWood is listed as 40% abv, my bottle was listed as a 43% abv)

Tasting Notes Balvenie, Balvenie DoubleWood 12 Year

I’m a huge fan of Glenlivet, one of the reasons why I visited them only a week ago near Tomintoul, Scotland. The tour of their distillery was a lot of fun, more on that later, but my real treat of Glenlivet wasn’t until I visited the World Duty Free store in Heathrow Airport. I visited the store, which you can’t possibly miss, last year after a trip to England and picked up quite a few bottles of Scotch, many of which still sit on my shelves, and this time I wanted to get some more.

I started talking to one of the salespeople and we got to discussing The Glenlivet. I told him about how I had visited the distillery, something he wanted to do, and I told him I enjoyed the 18 when he asked if I was interested in trying out the XXV. I had been looking at their taster’s try earlier and didn’t really see anything I wanted to try (mostly younger maturities of brands I was already familiar with), so I was surprised when he opened up the cabinet and pulled out a bottle of the XXV.

The Glenlivet XXV was silky smooth and spicy, reminiscent of their 18. You could tell it was finished in sherry casks because it had a definite sweetness. The tasting notes say it has raisins with a floral nose but I was lost in the nutty spiciness. Overall, it was a fantastic dram and what you would expect with a bottle priced at £175.00 retail. This would rank as the second most expensive dram I’ve ever sampled, second only to the Macallan Fine Oak 30 year, priced at £321 at the Macallan Distillery.

I enjoy scotch but the thought of spending £143, or about $236, on a single bottle was a bit much. I’m not against spending money for quality, but I don’t think I have the ability to truly appreciate and enjoy scotch of that caliber. With that being said, I think my money is better spent buying three or four bottles of more affordable scotch.

That’s when I took a look at The Glenlivet 21, which was a fraction of the price (£68.99 retail). The salesperson surprised me even more when he said that he has the 21 too, pulling it out from the secret compartment to let me try a bit. I enjoyed the 21 a lot, it lacked the spicy finish of the XXV and the nose had a lot more fruit and cinnamon. I’m glad I tried it because otherwise I would never have bought it! £68.99 (it was much less in duty-free) is a lot to spend on a brand you like when you don’t know what the scotch will be like, £68.99 is not a lot for a 21 year old scotch you know you’ll enjoy.

The real lesson here is that you should try before you buy and try it in duty free for free.

Tasting Notes Duty Free, Glenlivet 21, Glenlivet XXV, The Glenlivet

While in Edinburgh, we stopped by the Scotch Whisky Experience. The Scotch Whisky Experience has a restaurant and scotch bar in the basement, with the restaurant cleverly named Amber.

While we were waiting for a table, we stopped by the bar which boasted a selection of three hundred scotches. While we didn’t count them, it certainly looked as if they had close to that number!

We sat at the bar, enjoying a few drams as you would expect, and chatted up Steve, the young man working the bar. We asked him what he enjoyed, what he thought was the best value (Glen Goyne 21 was his choice as best value if you like a smooth and long finish, as a bottle is a great price for a 21 year scotch, though his first pick was the Balvenie Double Wood, also one of my favorites).

Eventually, he pointed out the Amber Macallan. None of us had heard of it before, though later internet research would reveal it is hated by most whisky enthusiasts (rightfully I think), and my friend had to try it. Just one sniff of the bottle was enough to dampen my interest!

It’s not whisky and if you try even a little bit with the expectation that it is, then you’ll hate it. However, if you accept it as it is, a liqueur, then it’s actually quite nice. You’ll need no tasting notes, as the maple syrup and pecans practically assaults you from the glass (when I sniffed it from the bottle nose, the maple syrup flavor dominated everything).

My friend, Rick, enjoys anything sweet. This liqueur was nearly perfect for him and that gave me a chance to try it. Since it smelled so strongly of maple syrup, I was surprised by its mouthfeel. It was like a regular whisky, not like a syrup despite its smell! The flavor of pecans is unmistakable and mixing it with the syrup actually gave it a flavor similar to hazelnut.

I was glad to have tried some of it (thanks Steven!) but there’s no way I could have more than a sip. It’s said that it goes well over ice cream, not surprisingly, but I can’t imagine drinking a whole glass of it. I do have to give Macallan points for creativity!

Tasting Notes Amber, Macallan, Scotch Whisky Experience

Lagavulin 16 is another scotch I’ve had on many an occasion but I never really sat down to sip it with the intent of breaking it down and pulling out the flavors. Lagavulin is rated a 95 in Michael Jackson’s Complete Guide to Single Malt Scotch, pretty high praise when you consider most of the scotches listed don’t even crack 90, let alone hit 95. In fact, in my brief flipping through the book, I’ve only seen a couple 96 and they’re all extremely limited vintage Macallans (“1841″ and The Macallan 1948). In fact, the 95 puts it on par with the Macallan 25 and Macallan 30, but at a fraction of the price. All I know is that I enjoy Lagavulin for its smoky peat and it’s rich textures.

Jackson’s guide says that the palate is a peaty dryness like gunpowder tea (never had it, must try now). As the palate develops, oily, grassy, and, in particular, salty notes emerge. I can’t tell whether it’s oily and I also can’t get a sense of the salt, but the grassy is certainly there. It has a hint of what a freshly mowed lawn smells like, the sharpness of that flavor is in there. The finish is cutely described as a bear hug.

One tip I read online in helping get a better sniff is to cover the top of the glass for a few seconds. This lets the aromatics accumulate in the glass so you can get a better smell of it. I find this helps since as a child I had my note cauterized (because of nose bleeds) and I think this may have had an effect on my olfactory sense. It definitely stings when I take a deep breath, it is 43% alcohol (a little higher than the standard/required 40%), but I can’t get the sea spray sense that is often called out.

Either way, it’s tasty.

Tasting Notes Lagavulin

Tonight I decided to have some more of The Glenlivet… I feel a little pretentious writing “The” Glenlivet, it’s like when football players say “The” Ohio State University. I suppose The Glenlivet’s history gives it more right to add the “The” than OSU, but in this post I’ll call it Glenlivet from now on!

Glenlivet is one of my favorite to drink when I was something crisp, smooth, and soothing. It doesn’t have the peatiness and smokiness that my other favorite, Lavagulin, has so I feel compelled to engage it. I can just relax and sip it down.

According to Michael Jackson’s Complete Guide to Single Malt Scotch, the palate is flowery, peachy, notes of vanilla, delicate balance. Having had this many times, I’ve noticed the vanilla flavor in the past (though had a difficult time identifying it) but the peachiness never really struck me too strongly. I think one of the difficulties with the Glenlivet 12 is that the alcohol attacks your senses, dulling them for the flavors that come after it. The heat it brings, both when you taste it and when you sniff it, seems to hide the rest a little unless you carefully look for them. However, as I looked online for tips on how to accentuate my palate, I came across a note about how you should be properly sipping scotch.

I can’t find it but the notes say that when sipping, get enough to coat your moth, and then swirl it around so that you coat everything part of your mouth and tongue. I hadn’t done that in a while so I tried it… and the peachiness came through. It wasn’t until it touched the sides of my tongue did I really discover it. It was a little surprising too because I wasn’t thinking “taste the peach,” I was only thinking “coat my tongue and see what happens.” It was certainly a delight, especially since it came through the heat of the alcohol.

I’ve always enjoyed Glenlivet and haven’t had much of the 12 until recently, opting as the novice does, to go for the older bottles (older is better, right!?); but I’m becoming a fan of the 12 as I notice more of its subtleties. The heat is at times a little off-putting but I don’t mind it too much.

Tasting Notes The Glenlivet