Scotch Addict

Balvenie emailed me a special sweepstakes they’re running for the holidays – you can win a scotch whisky aroma nosing kit.

Just in time for the holidays, The Balvenie is offering the chance to win a one-of-a-kind prize: An exclusive Scotch Whisky nosing and tasting kit. This unique kit contains 24 separate aromas and a dedicated nosing guide, as well as other essential whisky tasting tools. The lucky winner will also receive an exquisite Balvenie hipflask.

One of the coolest parts of the Macallan tour was their coopering and nosing areas where we could smell various aromas (it really highlighted the difference, at least for us, between dried and fresh fruits). This nosing kit is that fantastic experience in a kit and it’s appropriate that another premium scotch producer, Balvenie, is the one to come up with it. I’m a huge fan of their DoubleWood and at the moment I have a PortWood I bought in Heathrow duty-free just sitting in the case… waiting for the perfect occasion.

This would make a fantastic holiday gift, but I don’t believe they sell it.

General Balvenie, Macallan, Nose

In early October, I, my wife, and a couple of my friends, went down to Washington D.C. to a Celebrate the Macallan scotch tasting event. Unfortunately for us, they overbooked the event and we didn’t get farther than the room of small eats and a sampling of the Macallan 10. They did make it up to us by pouring us generous helpings of the Macallan 18 so it wasn’t a terrible waste of a trip.

Through the power of the internets, I know now what actually happens inside the tasting room courtesy of David at Scotchblog.ca. From the photos, the event seemed to be much like the tasting room at the Macallan distillery tour. Tasters were treated to the 12, 15, 18, and 21 (plus the 10 in the beginning), making it a pretty good tasting considering the price (free).

As an added bonus, each taster was given a leather-bound, velvet lined shoe box with a Fine Oak 10, 12, tumbler, and pen. Not bad!

General Macallan

When I visited Macallan in Craigellachie (we stayed at the Lynwood B&B, which is literally a minute away from Macallan and run by the most lovely and inviting of people), I really wanted to pick up a bottle of the sherry oak Macallan 18. I didn’t only because we figured we could buy it in the duty free shop at Heathrow and, since we still had a week left in our European Vacation, I didn’t want to carry around a bottle all the time (for weight and fearing that I’d break it!).

Unfortunately, the duty free shop at Heathrow doesn’t carry any of the standard bottles of The Macallan. Much like how The Macallan Elegancia was created for duty free and travel retail outlets, all of the Macallans at Heathrow (and I suspect elsewhere) had special names and lacked an age statement!

As it turns out, they announced on July 21st, 2009 (we started our trip before the announcement!) that they were launching The 1824 Collection specifically for the Global Travel Retail market! There are four expressions: The Macallan Select Oak, Whisky Maker’s Edition, the Estate Reserve, and the 1824 Limited Release.

While Macallan has spun this as a exclusive offer available only in duty free, maybe they did this so that you couldn’t just wait to buy the sherry oak or fine oak Macallans on the cheap in duty free.

General Duty Free, Macallan

Last night, my wife, two friends, and I went to a Celebrate the Macallan event in Washington D.C. We drove down from Columbia, hopped on the D.C. Metro, and walked about ten minutes or so to the Andrew Mellon Auditorium on Connecticut Avenue. When got there at around 8:20ish for an 8:30 event and the line was pretty long, but we weren’t worried.

We weren’t worried until one of the staff walked to the group in front of us and warned that the building only held 200 and they were around 220. Yikes. We didn’t travel nearly an hour just to turn around and go back!

Fortunately, they decided to let everyone in but only take the first 200 into the actual presentation and event. We first went into the entryway of the building, where small tables were setup along with a bar. As you entered, you were given a gold Macallan token that you could trade in for a sample of their 10 Year Fine Oak. We immediately made our way to the bar to get our sample!

As we waited in the next line to get into the presentation, we discovered that we were the first group to be denied entry. When we peeked inside, we saw that the other room they were in was packed to the gills. Even if we were let in, it wouldn’t have made for an all too pleasant experience.

We stayed in the outer room where very light h’orderves were served and were treated to samples of the Macallan 18, a treat we certainly accepted as a nice consolation prize. All in all, we still had a good time. They offered to put us on the VIP list for another event this week, which simply meant we were given priority to get in, but we didn’t think we’d make the trip a second time.

In the future, I hope Macallan fixes their RSVP system so that they don’t have this problem but they handled the circumstances quite well.

Events Macallan

Correction: My wife found the 15 year, not the 18 year, and it was $49.99.

My wife stopped at a Costco store in Delaware, where they are able to sell liquor, on her way to a friends’ house. While she was there, she saw a bottle of 18 year old scotch sporting both the Kirkland brand, which is Costco’s private label, and The Macallan Distillery! (I was very surprised to see this, but apparently they’ve done this in the past)

She immediately called me up, asking me if I wanted to give it a try. Apparently The Macallan does this regularly with any extra scotch that doesn’t make it into their other bottles because 1,200 cases are available at $59.99 a piece. A typical Macallan 18 goes for around $150, so the $60 price is a steal.

This particular bottle has a sherry oak finish and you can read more about it from the product label. I’ll be sure to give it a try the next time I get a chance!

General Costco, Macallan

My friend Mapgirl at Mapgirl’s Fiscal Challenge let me know about a Macallan whisky tasting going on in early October in Washington DC. Macallan lists its tasting events on Celebratethemacallan.com and a quick search of the area yielding a tasting going on at Mellon Auditorium at 1301 Constitution Ave NW, Washington DC on October 6th, 7th, and 8th. There are two sessions on Tuesday and Wednesday and only one on Thursday. Each day has a 6:30 PM – 8:30PM tasting with Tuesday and Wednesday adding an 8:30 – 10:00 pm tasting.

Not sure which day I’ll be going, leaning towards Wednesday, but I wish there was more information online about what happens during these celebrations. I’m thinking it might be like the tasting I experienced at the Macallan distillery?

Events Macallan

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

One of the best parts of the Macallan tour was the special barrel/art of coopering section they had above the warehouse. In it, they explained the difference between American oak and French oak, barrel construction, and other aspects of coopering.

Did you know that a barrel has a standard volume of 36 gallons? I didn’t, I figured barrel was a general term for a container of that general size and shape. Well, to make things more interesting, there are actually many varying sizes of “barrels,” some of which have very funny names:

• Firkin – 9 gallons
• Kilderkin – 18 gallons
• Barrel – 36 gallons
• Hogshead – 54 gallons
• Butt – 108 gallons
• Tun – 216 gallons

Firkin – It’s an old English term derived from a Middle Dutch word vierdekijn, which means fourth. It’s appropriate because a firkin is a fourth of a barrel in volume.

Kilderkin – Again an old English term derived from Dutch but it doesn’t mean half, it just means small cask, but it is a half barrel.

Hogshead – I wasn’t able to find the origin of the term but it was standardized as 54 gallons by an act of Parliament in 1423.

Butt – This size in wine is called a pipe, so when The Balvenie Portwood Finish 21 states it was finished in Port pipes, it means barrels of this size.

Tun – It sounds like ton because it shares the same origin though the latter refers only to mass/weight.

It’s always interesting to learn a little bit of trivia!

(Photo: schlaeger)

Reference Butt, Cooperage, Firkin, Hogshead, Kilderkin, Macallan, Tun, Volume

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

In August of this year, I’ll have the great pleasure of visiting Scotland on the tail end of what will be a nearly one month-long vacation in Europe. We’re visiting Scotland because my beautiful wife, knowing that I love scotch and knowing that it’ll be my birthday, thought it would make a fantastic birthday present – which it will!

We’ll be staying a night or two in Edinburgh for the Fringe Festival, a month of comedians and other performers, and then drive our way up to Inverness. For those familiar with the geography of the region, that takes us in the heart of scotch distilleries in Scotland. We’ll be driving up the A9/A95 towards Craigellachie, home of The Macallan.

General Macallan, Scotland, Vacation