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Definition: The Death of the Vatted Malt
Earlier this week, the term ‘Vatted Malt’ was finally outlawed. This was the consequence of an attempt by Cardhu distillery to release a blended malt which was named after only one of the distilleries in the blend, something that the industry and the Scotch Whisky Association found confusing. So here is the definitive guide to the basic Whisky categories and a wee bit background on the reasons for the changes:Cardhu is by far the most popular single malt whisky in Spain. So popular that the rest of the world could not get their hands on any stock. Therefore the decision was taken to blend Cardhu with another malt whisky, changing it from a Single Malt to a Vatted or Pure Malt. The flavour profile would remain the same (that is down to the immense skill of the master blender), the packaging would remain the same, the only difference would be the word Single changing to the word Pure on the box. All in all, a fantastic business decision… or was it?
The one thing about us Single Malt Drinkers, is that we notice when something changes. Had we been told about the changes and informed of flavour profiles staying the same, some of us may have been okay with the new product, but losing the word single from the box is a huge problem for some of us who haven’t been to a distillery, or an educational tasting and have never heard of this ‘pure’ or ‘vatted’ stuff before. Especially if we’ve been brought up to believe that SINGLE MALT is the best of the best. Quite rightly, we started to ask questions.
Soon the SWA and the rest of the industry started asking questions too. This led to a very quick turnaround from the distillery. But not before they tried a few other tricks, working with the SWA and taking their advice to try to avoid confusion. These steps involved changing the box green and even changing the name of the distillery to Cardow, a historical reference to a previous name for their whisky.However so much furore was created that Cardhu was very quickly re-released as a single malt, returning everything back to normal, including the issues with stocks. Therefore there is still so little Cardhu around these days that you can only buy it at the Distillery or in Spain. That’s why I can’t wait to go visit them next week, as it’s a dram I enjoy immensely.To avoid any confusion in the future, Diageo, along with the rest of the industry and the SWA worked on solving the problem once and for all by coming up with some new definitions. These have caused uproar in the industry, many branding them useless and confusing themselves. Here’s a run down of all the terminology, let me know what you think:
Whisk(e)y: A grain based spirit, which has spent some time ageing in oak casks
Scotch: Whisky distilled in Scotland, Aged in Scotland in oak for a minimum three years and bottled at a minimum 40% abv.
Malt: Whisk(e)y made using 100% malted barley and distilled in copper pot stillsGrain: Whisk(e)y produced using any mash bill or other distillation techniques, usually continuous distillation
Single: Whisk(e)y that is the product of a single distillery
Blended: Whisk(e)y that is blended from more than one distillery or more than one type of whisk(e)y
Quite simple really. Combining these terms give us the true definitions of the following products:
Single Malt Scotch Whisky
Single Grain Scotch Whisky
Blended Malt Scotch Whisky
Blended Grain Scotch Whisky
Blended Scotch Whisky
Single Blended Scotch WhiskyAm I sad that the terms ‘Vatted’ Malt and ‘Pure’ Malt are gone? Not particularly, I’m sure the staunch supporters of these terms will keep using them but I don’t know many Vatted Malt drinkers anyway, and what everyone seems to forget is that Whisky is 100% about the flavour, not the words on the bottle, or the colour of the label. We always have the right to question what we drink, and indeed the terms being used to describe it, but ultimately if the wool is being pulled over our eyes, and we are being fed inferior products, surely our tongues will tell us and then we have the freedom to shop elsewhere. Don’t get hung up on the terminology and make up, these are simply talking points for AFTER you’ve poured yourself a healthy dram.
Cheers,
Craig
In my glass: Compass Box Last Vatted Malt -
Definitions: Cask Sizes
In the last post we looked at how the Scotch Whisky Industry formed without oak and how this style was available legally as Whisky until as late as 1915. Now we are going to delve into the depths of maturation, focussing on the cask’s previous contents (this will give you a new outlook on where the flavours come from) as well as the different types of oak and even different cask sizes and their effects. Not to mention the unquestionable skill and craftsmanship of the cooper.I’d like to draw on all of my experiences over the last 8 years and finally give an explanation of what is happening in a cask as far as we can tell at the moment. It’s a complicated business, one that most people pay lip service to, but one that is brushed over despite it’s vital importance, especially when you realise that without it we would not have Whisky as it exists today. Hold on to your hats, and jump into casks!The first topics I’d like to tackle are the different cask sizes, where they come from and the effect of maturation on each, regardless of the previous contents that were seasoning the casks. Scotch Whisky must mature in Oak in Scotland for a minimum of 3 years and a day, and it must be matured in a cask no greater than 700 litres in size to ensure sufficient wood contact.
Cask Sizes in use today:Gorda 700 litres: A cask used for marrying American whiskies, legally the largest capacity cask we can use for maturationMadeira Drum 650 litres: Very uncommon in the Scotch Industry but used from time to time, mainly for aceing and finishing.Sherry Butt 500 litres: A cask traditionally used for maturing and fermenting SherryPort Pipe 500 litres: A cask traditionally used for ageing Port, taller and thinner than a ButtPuncheon 500 litres: A cask constructed from spare staves, shorter and fatter than a buttHogshead 250 litres: A cask size introduced to make warehouse mathematics easierFrench barrique 225 litres: A cask used for maturing wineQuarter Cask 80 litres: A small cask recently re-introduced into the industry to age whisky ‘quicker’Bloodtub 50 litres: A tiny cask rarely used these days used(All cask sizes are approximate. Remember that these are hand crafted vessels and can vary from cooperage to cooperage. This is why all casks are weighed before and after filling to ensure exact content knowledge)The first casks used in Scotland would have undoubtedly been small. Bloodtubs and Quarter Casks would have been kept in the cellars of the wealthy and filled with the local Whisky. These casks would be tapped half way up and refilled with new spirit (legally Whisky at the time remember) in a crude solera ageing system. The rich would have been amongst the first to experience the effect of oak on spirit and would have been extremely proud of the unique product ageing in each of their cellars. This was not done on a grand scale though, as people filled only what they could afford and cooperage was expensive.The first cask sizes used on any great scale, would have been standards in the European wine industry. The first people to have wood policies as such in Scotland would have been the blenders. Distilleries would have been storing Whisky before the first blends in the 1850s, but even these products were stored to be sold at the greengrocers. These are the greengrocers who would eventually go on to become the blenders. A perfect circle and a fact that allows us insight into how the industry at the time was shaping up and exactly where the roots of today’s business were planted. These gentlemen were extremely important, many of them went on to become barons and landowners due to their entrepreneurship and innovation!
Sherry Butt in construction They learned the art of blending from the tea trade, and were in an extremely privileged position when it came to ageing Whisky, as they were also the bottler’s of the time. This meant they imported casks of French wine, ports, Madeiras and Sherries which they blended and bottled themselves. It was only natural then that they sold these empty casks to the whisky industry for storing Whisky that they would then buy back.So the first casks used on an industrial scale would have been Sherry butts, Port Pipes and French barriques. When the law changed in 1915 outlawing unaged whiskies, the distilleries jumped at the chance of buying second hand casks from the blenders and greengrocers probably without realising the importance or indeed the legacy laid down which still emanates through the Industry today.French barriques however threw up an unusual problem. One which continued as we went on to source barrels fron the Bourbon Industry in the USA. The warehousemen of the late 19th and early 20th century were not the most literate of workforces and the guagers were rarely sober. To switch between 180 or 195 litre casks and 500 litre casks was not the easiest mathematical task in the world for either profession. Something had to be done.
French Barriques being disgorged at Bruichladdich This was the reason that the industry introduced a Hogshead (a traditional 15th century measurement) into the mix. It simply made the mathematics of the day easier. Coopers would bring in three or four barriques or barrels and build two 250 litre hogsheads to make stock-take easier.Today the most common size of cask in the Whisky industry is undoubtedly the American Standard Barrel. These can only be used once by law to mature Bourbon and therefore offer an extremely cheap source of oak for our industry.
American Standard Barrel Today distilleries are rarely building hogsheads, (a process making even more sense when casks were shipped in flat pack form) as it is now cheaper to ship casks whole. Factor in that the smaller a cask, the larger the percentage of the Whisky inside is in contact with the wood at any giving time, therefore the quicker the Whisky picks up the characteristics from the oak as well a the introduction of computers into the stock system and it makes perfect sense to use American standard barrels.The final thing I should point out about casks is their finite lifespan. Casks contain lot of compounds and goodness that we look for in our Whisky (more on the specifics later) however they will lose these benefits as they get older and the Whisky leeches them out.
I like to think of a cask like a teabag. If I made myself a cup of tea and then you used the same teabag for your cup of tea, yours would be lighter in colour and less pungent in taste and aroma unless you left the teabag in longer. Casks work the same. Each fill will remove more from the wood eventually rendering it exhausted. Subsequent fills will require longer and longer periods to gain significant flavours and most refills will never match up to the colour or aroma of a previous incumbent. The life of a cask looks like this:
A trail of tannins from European Oak stacks Virgin oak is filled with Sherry/Bourbon/Wine for 1-8 years. These products remove lots of colour and woody aromas from the cask.These casks are then filled with Scotch. What we now call a first fill cask. The Scotch removes more aromas and flavours during it’s life in here. Around 12 years.The cask then becomes a refill where we put another batch of Scotch in. This batch will be lighter and less woody in flavour but can stay in the cask much longer if need be. Up to 40 or 50 years in special cases.If the wood still has more to give a third fill may take place, but this is less common these days.The cask can then become a marrying tun for resting blends and marriages of single malts, or if no longer watertight we can make garden furniture or woodchips out of the casks.Some companies today still use casks up to 6 or 8 times. However, gladly the industry is realising that after 3 fill maximum a cask will have very little left to give and we are seeing more and more Whisky makers refuse to use casks more than three times. These casks will still be in our industry for over 60 years, Oak really is the most important part of our final product and the more us drinkers know about it the better our Whisky Adventures will become.Next time we will focus on types of oak and their special properties.
Cheers,
Craig
In my glass: PC9 a perfect marriage of different wine casked whiskies from Bruichladdich to give a superbly married and well balanced peaty monster. -
Definition: Whisky or Whiskey? To ‘e’ or not to ‘e’, that is the question.
One of the most hotly debated topics in the world of Whisk(e)y is the spelling of the word itself. I have heard many excuses for the origins from religion to folklore, and I have heard far too many people get hot and bothered because someone has put an ‘e’ in Scotch Whisky. Seriously, it’s just a word. Anyway, I am here to shed some light on the situation and explain who uses what spelling and the origins of the ‘e’ in modern labelling. If you have had this debate, or know someone who has, please share this with them, as it’s one of the most fascinating stories in the world of aged spirits.So here are the spellings and how they are used:
Whiskey is the only spelling used when talking about spirits distilled from grain in Ireland, matured in Ireland in oak for a minimum three years and with a minimum of 40% alcohol by volume. There are no rules regarding the number of distillations used. (Cooley is Irish Whiskey distilled only twice.)
Whisky is the only spelling used when talking about spirits distilled from grain in Scotland, matured in Scotland in oak for a minimum three years and with a minimum of 40% alcohol by volume. Again there are no rules regarding the number of distillations used. (Auchentoshan is Scotch Whisky distilled three times, as is Hazelburn. Springbank, Dailuaine, Benrinnes and Mortlach all have unorthodox variations on number of distillations too.)
Spirits from Japan, and Canada also exclusively use the spelling Whisky. Surprisingly, despite the New York Times dictionary listing Whiskey as the official spelling, American producers have the right to spell with or without an ‘e’. Just look at a bottle of Maker’s Mark next time you’re out. This seemingly links back to the lineage of the distillery founders. Bill Samuels is definitely of Scottish origin.
As for new distilling markets, they, like everyone else have the choice to use the ‘e’ or not. It is looking like the Swedes, Welsh, Germans, Australians, Kiwis and Indians will follow the Japanese and Canadian examples by omitting the ‘e’ and the English are indecisive. The St. George distillery omits the ‘e’ and the new Hicks & Healey brand seems to pop it on their labels.It definitely is a baffling minefield of politics, lineage and lets face it unimportant marketing decisions, because the contents are infinitely more important than the labels. However, the Scottish and Irish spellings do have a story.Here it is as far as I can tell:This all starts back in the 1800’s. At the beginning of this period, Irish Whiskey was far and away the more popular of the two brands. They had Ambassadors in Queen Elizabeth and Peter the Great, equivalent to Lady Gaga and maybe Jay-Z these days when it comes to celebrity endorsements. Scotch Whisky was still very much a localised product, only just going into the Industrialisation of their distilleries and using alot of peat smoke, alienating a huge segment of the drinking public.
Dublin Whiskey on the other hand had wooed a larger market with it’s smooth easy drinking effects. Then up stepped Aeneas Coffey. Aeneas Coffey deserves a post all by himself and will get one in the near future, what we must acknowledge here is that in 1831 his revolutionary column still reinvigorated the Scotch Whisky industry, while it was shunned by the Irish. From 1850 onwards, the Scots blenders produced and marketed smoother, more appealing and more importantly consistent blended Scotch Whiskies which started to close the sales gap opened up by the Irish.However, even then any spelling could be used by any brand, and the two were commonly used by both Scotch and Irish brands alike.
The big fall out came as the Irish lost their second biggest market. (The unfortunate demise of the Irish Whiskey Industry is yet another story worthy of yet another post.)We are of course talking about Prohibition. During Prohibition, the Scots actually managed to increase exports. Of course, very little was sent to the USA directly, but exports to the Bahamas and Canada were massively increased. There was also the allowance of Scotch Whisky into the USA for medicinal purposes only. Laphroaig was famously allowed in without any papers.The Irish on the other hand, refused to sell to the USA. I believe it was because of the integrity of their spirit, and the possibility of the mob cutting it and tarnishing their reputation. The Scots smelled blood.
With good ties to the importers, and of course the installations of Coffey stills in Scotland, we started to manufacture cheap, poor quality spirits and sent them over to the USA with Irish WHISKY labels on them, destroying their reputation whilst ensuring good quality Scotch Whisky was in good supply.The only thing that the Irish could do was export real Irish Whiskey, with their famous spelling, to the USA to try to save some face. Unfortunately the damage was already done.Since then the ‘e’ has been used in the spelling of Irish Whiskey to signify the quality of the product and it’s authentic origins compared to the cheap rubbish the Scots were manufacturing illicitly.So there you have it, more on this subject to follow in the coming months. I’d love to hear your thoughts and feedback. Comment below.Cheers,CraigIn my glass: Redbreast Pure Pot Still Irish Whiskey -
Definition: Dram
The word ‘dram’ has to be the most overused in our industry today, everyone talks about a dram of this, and a dram of that, yet very few people actually know what they are referring to. Therefore I’ve decided to try and shed some light on the situation using information I have gathered on my Whisky Adventures.Once again I would like to start by quoting dictionary.com. In reference to liquids they offered this up:
dram
noun
a : a fluid dram.
b : a small drink of liquor.
c : small quantity of anything.
where
fluid dram
noun
either of two units of liquid capacity:
d : a United States unit equal to ⅛ United States fluid ounce or 0.226 cubic inch or 3.697 milliliters e : a British unit equal to ⅛ British fluid ounce or 0.2167 cubic inch or 3.5516 millilitres
But yet again, none of these definitions offer up the entire story.
The way I see it, there are 3 definitions of the word ‘dram’ in circulation today. Two of which we would accept as whisky drinkers.
There is the unit of measurement or ‘fluid dram’. This is the one we would not accept. 3.6ml would not wet the glass. If a fly landed in your whisky, you would not have to worry about it’s safety or ability to swim as it’s feet would be firmly on the bottom. This is an imperial unit of measurement with roots in the word drachm.
There is the modern Scottish definition, which has a romantic side to it and can fall into line with b above. It is a measure of whisky, the size of which is agreed upon between the pourer and the drinker. There’s something lovely about this definition.
But what about drinking in a pub, or at a distillery? From my experiences talking to various distillery workers and industry professionals, a dram was not a small glass of whisky by any stretch of the imagination. It did not have it’s roots in the fluid dram definition above, but was measured using dram cups (pictured below). These cups were filled to the brim when served, and if consumed at a distillery, or publicly before 1915 (when ageing whisky became obligatory), they may have contained pure spirit or ‘clearic’ at close to 70%abv.
So when a Scotsman is talking about a dram, what he is historically referring to is an unofficial unit of measurement, from a dram cup which checks in at just under 1/3rd of a pint.
There’s some food for thought!
In my glass a dram (modern Scots) of Finlaggan Cask Strength
Cheers,
Craig -
Definition: Wort
Every now and again I come across a new snippet of information that gets me excited. It’s normally to do with whisky production and it’s normally at the extreme end of the geek spectrum. Occasionally it’s even worth sharing… I think. Here is your first insight into the info I think is worth sharing… (comments and suggestions, as always, are welcome.)On a recent visit to The Macallan Distillery, the brilliant tour guide shed some light on something most Whisky geeks have pondered about at one time or another: Where on earth does the word ‘wort’ come from?
Dictionary.com had offered this up:
wort
nounthe unfermented or fermenting infusion of malt that after fermentation becomes beer or mash.
origin:
before 1000; Middle English; Old English wyrt; cognate withGerman Würze spice;The definition definitely fits, and until my trip to Easter Elchies, I was in no place to question it. It was an unusual term passed down from generation to generation, the origins and meaning of which became more convoluted and irrelevant as techniques changed and brewing loaned itself and its techniques to distillation.However, as we reached the Mash House at The Macallan, our tour guide, Alistair sprung it on me. Completely out of the blue. No one saw it coming (or nobody else cared)…wort
nounthe unfermented or fermenting infusion of malt that after fermentation becomes beer or mash.
origin:
worts or wort is of course short for ‘worthy liquids’.
Only the first two waters are good enough (or worthy enough) to go on to ferment and eventually become our Scotch Whisky. It was a simplification or shortening of a term used by the craftsmen making Scotch Whisky! Why hadn’t anyone offered up this information before?
Genius.
(I must admit, that this is still the only place I have heard this definition, and dictionary.com may still be accurate, but I hope Alistair was correct, it just makes so much sense…)
If any lexicographers out there have insights to back up or dispel this theory, I’d love to hear them.
Cheers,
Craig
Here you will find all interesting things I come across in the world of Scotch Whisky as I travel and spread the wit and wisdom over a dram or two...
