Whisky Tasting Guide

Graham Moore

Description

Why should you buy this book? Easy: I've written a straightforward and easy-to-follow guide to malt whiskies which will point you straight in the direction of malts which will be to your taste, based on whiskies you'll probably be familiar with and which are readily available to try out in many pubs. Based on those malts I'll show you which are similar in character so you'll know that if you like such and such a whisky then you'll probably like these also. The tasting notes give an overall guide to each malt, and I've concentrated on the distillers' standard, readily available bottlings, without trying to confuse you with details of other variants. If you find a malt which invites further investigation you'll probably find a number of bottlings, and knowing it's to your taste your explorations will be well founded. Many people stick to the same brands, or don't know what else to look for. There are hundreds of malts out there, all crying out to be tried, and this guide will point you in the direction of malts to try, based on your established tastes. I'm sure you won't be disappointed.

Informations

• Publié par: Andrews UK
• Date de parution: 12 juin 2014
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9781849896535
• Langue: English

Extrait

Title Page


THE WHISKEY TASTING GUIDE

A BEGINNER’S GUIDE TO THE SINGLE MALTS
OF THE UK AND IRELAND


BY
GRAHAM MOORE





Publisher Information

The Whiskey Tasting Guide
Published in 2011 by
Andrews UK Limited

www.andrewsuk.com

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior written consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published, and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

The characters and situations in this book are entirely imaginary and bear no relation to any real person or actual happening.

Copyright © Graham Moore

The right of Graham Moore to be identified as author of this book has been asserted in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyrights Designs and Patents Act 1988.



Introduction

Why should you buy this book? Easy: I’ve written a straightforward and easy-to-follow guide to malt whiskies which will point you straight in the direction of malts which will be to your taste, based on whiskies you’ll probably be familiar with and which are readily available to try out in many pubs; and I don’t intend to blind you with excessive detail and irrelevant scores and star ratings before you spend the best part of £30-40 on a bottle.
Many people stick to the same brands, or don’t know what else to look for, and some distillers are getting fat on the proceeds from people who never try anything different. There are hundreds of malts out there, all crying out to be tried. The vast majority are well worth it; there are very few ‘duffers’. If you’ve tried and liked the odd whisky, be it a blend or a malt, I’ll point you in the direction of malts to try, based on your established tastes. Some malts are rare outside Scotland itself, but if the chance should present itself you’ll find here ones to try of which you may never have heard, and I’m sure you won’t be disappointed.
A number of malts are easily found: you can try them in many a pub for a couple of pounds. Based on those malts I’ll show you which are similar in character so you’ll know that if you like such and such a whisky then you’ll probably like these also. The distillery pages give an overall guide to each malt, and I’ve concentrated on the distillers’ standard bottlings, those readily available, without trying to confuse you with details of other variants by the same, or independent, companies. If you find a malt which invites further investigation you’ll probably find a number of bottlings, and knowing it’s to your taste your explorations will be well founded.




A History Of Distilling

Distilling is an extremely ancient art which it has been suggested originated in China and made its way through various Middle Eastern and European cultures who used it to make medicines, perfumes and even poisons. In Europe it would have been discovered by Irish missionary monks who would have brought it back to Ireland, and in particular to the court of the clan O’Donnell, a prince of which clan would later become St Columba. Columba’s position made him an important figure in the Celtic church and he established his abbey on Iona in AD563, and so distilling arrived in Scotland.
Distilling started out in Scotland as a Celtic craft, unknown to other Britons, and was spread through the offices of the church. The first written record of whisky, or aqua vitae (water of life) as it was then known, appeared in the Exchequer Rolls of 1494: ‘eight bolls of malt to Friar John Cor wherewith to make aqua vitae’. Friar Cor was certainly no novice; eight bolls is over half a ton of malt. Monasteries have always made their own alcoholic beverages but the Scottish climate would have precluded the growing of grapes to make wine, as those in the south would have done. Conditions would have encouraged the growing of barley, the raw fuel of aqua vitae.
The first Excise tax was imposed on whisky by Charles I in 1644. People were going short of food due to the amount of barley being used for distilling and the government had to pass legislation to redress the balance. After the Act of Union the government introduced the Malt Tax which affected the price of ale as well as whisky. Riots ensued in Glasgow and Edinburgh and one MP had his house burnt down by the protesters! The Lowland distillers began to mix unmalted barley with their malt to offset the tax and their whisky suffered as a result. The Highland distillers could not generally afford to pay for a distilling licence and since they were already working illicitly the new law had little effect on them. Once the government realised this a new Act was passed in an effort to account for the Lowlanders’ economic advantage. The Wash Act set a licence fee based on the still capacity, which in theory favoured the Highlanders and the small stills they tended to use. The Lowlanders reacted by developing special shallow stills which could be worked and recharged very rapidly, and families such as the Haigs and Steins became extremely wealthy and powerful as the industrial revolution took hold.
The Highlanders’ refusal to submit to the government’s legislation had the Excise ‘watchers’ combing the region in an attempt to confiscate the illicit stills. They were not helped by King George IV’s declaration that he drank nothing but illegal Glenlivet whisky, and reward money offered for information leading to the seizure of a still was often claimed by the owner of the still himself, who then promptly spent the cash on a new and better still than the one he had just given up! It was estimated that every household in Glenlivet was operating an illicit still and the area saw pitched battles between the farmers and the Excise soldiers. By the time the Duke of Gordon addressed the House of Lords on the subject some 14,000 illicit stills had been seized and the Duke was instrumental in the introduction of the Excise Act in 1823, the first realistic legislation to govern the industry and which is still in force today. The Duke was also the landlord to the owner of the Glenlivet distillery and he offered help in the building of a new and bigger distillery in return for the owner, George Smith, taking out the first licence under the new Act. Slowly, other distillers followed Smith’s lead and the industry came out into the open.
Within two years there were 263 licensed distilleries operating in Scotland. This period saw the introduction of the Patent still, a continuously-operating column still devised by the Lowland distiller Robert Stein. The design was improved upon by a former Excise officer, Aeneas Coffey, who ran the Dock Distillery in Ireland. The Irish were not interested in Coffey’s design but the Scots took to it immediately. A Coffey still could distil 3,000 gallons of wash per hour, and due to an oversight by the Excise whisky from such stills was not taxed until 1838! The vast increase in licensed production which resulted inevitably signalled the end for the Highland smugglers who found it impossible to compete.
The Coffey still led to the introduction of blended whisky. It produced a relatively characterless whisky in comparison with the strong and flavoursome pot still malt whisky and the obvious conclusion was that mixing the two types would produce whiskies which would appeal to a wider range of tastes. Andrew Usher is reckoned to be the first commercial blender, and introduced his ‘Old Vatted Glenlivet’ in 1853. The Blending Act, which governed the mixing of malt and grain whiskies was passed in 1865. The popularity of whisky was given a boost at this time when the French wine and cognac industries were decimated by the vine louse Phylloxera vastatrix, and brandy all but disappeared from England.
The whisky industry suffered a setback in 1898 when the blending company Pattison’s of Leith collapsed. The company issued shares to fund its expansion but the founders actually spent the cash on their own extravagant lifestyles and the company crashed, taking with it a number of distilleries. It was found that Pattison’s ‘malt’ whisky was actually grain spirit with a tiny amount of malt added. A similar case occurred in 1906 when Islington Borough Council charged an off-licensee with selling ‘malt’ whisky which was found to contain 90% grain spirit. This case led to the appointment of a Royal Commission which eventually came up with a legal definition for whisky, the romantically-sounding ‘spirit obtained by distillation from a mash of cereal grains saccharified by the diastase of malt’.
The industry was further emasculated by the two World Wars and the Depression. Lloyd George, a confirmed teetotaller, cut down the production and consumption of alcohol, and the economic climate during the Depression saw the closure of many distilleries. Some survived by merging with American companies which were themselves riding out Prohibition. After World War II the labour government, which obviously did not share Churchill’s liking for whisky, decreed that cereal crops were to be used for food production and steadily hiked up the rate of tax on spirits. It was not until 1953 that grain rationing was lifted and the industry began to revive.
Distilleries came back into production, new ones were built, and foreign companies began to take greater shares in the industry, encouraged by government subsidies. Despite this expansion the public south of Hadrian’s Wall seemed blissfully unaware of the distilleries’ contribution to the national heritage until finally Wm Grant began to export its Glenfiddich single malt. Despite an initial lack of success (after 503 sales calls they had