Innholdsfortegnelse for Aug/Sep 2021 i Whisky Magazine

The trading of whisky has become such big business that long-established UK auctioneering names such as Bonhams, Christie’s and Sotheby’s now host dedicated whisky sales in a variety of locations around the world, including the USA, Hong Kong and Dubai, while the number of dedicated online whisky auction houses has proliferated to a remarkable degree during the past decade. By nature of their specialisation, these houses have largely succeeded in concentrating vintage whisky knowledge within their teams, while also tapping into whisky communities to highlight upcoming sales and achieve higher hammer prices. What’s more, high-profile and widely marketed auctions of large private collections, such as Richard Gooding’s ‘Perfect Collection’, Pat’s Whisk(e)y Collection and Emmanuel Dron’s collection of rare Samaroli and Corti Brothers whiskies (all brought to auction by Perthshire-based Whisky…

In our last issue we explored the ‘new wave’ of distillers (see: Whisky Magazine issue 176) and discussed how many of these whisky makers are taking innovative approaches, often embracing heritage grains and the concept of terroir, while others are keeping things strictly traditional. Of course, one can tour a new distillery as many times as one likes, appreciate its bottlings’ trendy branding, like the distillery manager and respect the values upon which the business is founded, but, ultimately, the criteria upon which every single distillery will be judged by history is the quality of its spirit. With many of these new distilleries now in a position to release products with some degree of regularity, any avid collector and taster of ‘new Scotch’ may soon have to decide which distilleries…

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Joe Bates (JB): This interview is all about travel and I understand there is a fantastic maritime travel story behind the Talisker 43 Years Old. Ewan Gunn (EG): Renowned adventurer James Aiken sailed singlehandedly across the Atlantic Ocean, following the 3,264-mile journey undertaken every year by the few brave rowers who participate in the annual Talisker Whisky Atlantic Challenge. The 10 casks used to mature this whisky each included 10 staves which travelled with James on his epic voyage. Just as the waves of the Atlantic crash on the warehouse walls of the distillery, these staves experienced the full force and power of the ocean for 24 days. JB: What has been the impact of so many years in the cask on the Talisker 43 Years Old? EG: The classic…

Extensive, painstaking research into newspaper archives and historical records, forensic studies, chemical analysis, and good old-fashioned detective work has revealed that the brown-glass bottle embossed with ‘Evans & Ragland LaGrange, GA,’ a grocer and bottler, contains the oldest American whiskey in the world. Distilled sometime between 1763 and 1803, it’s going up for sale at Skinner Auctioneers in late June and the hammer price is expected to be around US$40,000 (GBP£28,745). [This issue printed before the auction took place.] That’s a veritable bargain compared to the $1.04 million (£751,703) realised by The Macallan Peter Blake 1926 60 Years Old at Bonhams in Hong Kong in 2018. Or the Yamazaki 55 Years Old that sold for a cool $645,125 (£466,989) at Bonhams last August, setting a record for Japanese whiskies at…

Not too many years ago, ‘Lowland’ was very much the poor relation of Scotch malt whisky production regions, with only Glenkinchie and Auchentoshan flying the flag for malt whiskies made below the ‘Highland line.’ Now, however, the situation is very different, thanks to the fact that the promoters of many recent start-up distilleries have seen the attractions of making whisky closer to centres of population. There are advantages in terms of transport links, access to specialist services, and the fact that there is a likelihood of increased visitor numbers across a broader spread of the year than in more remote areas with relatively short tourist seasons. Going from being the ‘Cinderella’ of whisky regions, the Lowlands has become home to no fewer than 17 malt whisky distilleries in recent years,…

Bob Dalgarno spent as many years at Speyside’s Macallan as I’ve been alive. Thirty years (give or take a year on my side, if you’re counting) – not a bad innings in anyone’s book. Come 2019, the master distiller joined the team at The Glenturret as head blender, when the distillery was acquired by luxury goods company Lalique. First records of the distillery date back to 1763 when it was bought by the Murray family and was called the Thurot Distillery. In 1814, it was taken over by Thomas MacInnesa and renamed The Hosh Distillery. In 1890, it fell into the hands of whisky merchant brothers David and William Mitchell, who in turn passed it on to their sons. Alas, come 1923 production at The Glenturret stopped – although rumour…

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Kentucky bourbon is best thought of in a historical context as an agricultural product. Unlike many of the other popular collector items of today, bourbon wasn’t created around a boardroom table with the express intent of going viral. Rather, it was a slow process of improvement on natural preservation techniques, until the spirit we know today emerged around 200 years ago. As settlers worked their way through the United States, having a still was almost as important as settling somewhere that had salt and an abundance of fresh water. The still enabled settlers to create something of value in a place without industry, which could be used for medicine, calories, sanitation and trade. In Kentucky Bourbon Whiskey: An American Heritage, bourbon historian Michael Veach addresses not only the historical evidence…

When asked if it was an interest in whisky or auctions that came first for her, Isabel Graham-Yooll is quite clear: “It’s always been whisky; even before it was whisky, it was whisky.” Her more than 20-year career in the drinks world began with a part-time job at Oddbins, where she was able to sample every wine and spirit on the shelves, before she became a spirits buyer for Milroy’s of Soho. Later, working for Bordeaux Index, Isabel gained an insight into the importance of spirits to their clients, and how seriously the company took this; she was still working there when a spirits specialist was recruited and the department was launched properly. She began dealing increasingly with old and rare bottles, and, four years ago, was asked to join…

Investment in whisky is nothing new, but history has shown that there is good reason to exercise caution if one is looking to take up a financial interest – though the nature and extent of the risk involved varies depending on the type of investment. The most traditional and secure way to invest is by doing so directly in whisky or spirits companies via the stock market. Several of the larger distillers are seen as prime stock options and are often recommend as a way to diversify a growing portfolio – Diageo, Pernod Ricard, AB InBev and Brown-Forman are all publicly traded, for instance. Rare and limited bottles have certainly turned the heads of whisky speculators in recent years, but getting the right bottles can be tricky due to the…

When Scotch Whisky International acquired Valentino Zagatti’s world-famous collection of whisky bottles in 2015 (see: Magazine issue 175), the new owner purpose built a museum to display the Italian collector’s life’s work, roughly at the same time as commissioning Hans and Becky Offringa to create a new set of books about the collection. The undertaking took the couple two-and-a-half years to complete and, in addition to cataloguing each bottle, the research inevitably involved getting under the skin of both the core themes of and motivations behind collecting whisky. According to established psychologists, neurologists and other expert authors on the subject, there appears to be a number of different motivations for collecting. People may collect items for ‘bragging rights’ on a subject they assume to know all about; thus, a particular…

One knows for certain that changes are afoot when a visit to a Diageo-owned distillery is accompanied by the clear message to take as many indoor photos as desired. Gone is the company’s previous ban on the use of cameras, as an era of more sensory-led (not to mention more social media-conscious) distillery tours begins. The new regime commences with the Lowland distillery Glenkinchie, located 17 miles south-east of Edinburgh, which kicks off the new look and feel for Diageo’s new visitor experiences after a multi-million pound makeover by BRC Imagination Arts – an agency with a resume that includes the Guinness Storehouse in Dublin, another Diageo-owned drinks visitor attraction. The refurbishment of Glenkinchie is the first part of a GBP£185 million investment in Diageo’s Scotch whisky visitor centres, which…

On the 11-mile drive from the New Jersey Transit train station, in Trenton, to the Dad’s Hat Rye distillery, in Bristol, Pennsylvania, you cross state lines on the bridge over the Delaware River and drive through the town’s quaint centre, a portrait of vintage Americana. You pass the King George Inn, a bustling command centre during the Revolutionary War when soldiers were stationed there to guard the river against British attacks. That history reverberates for miles and miles. If you’re lucky enough to be riding to the distillery with Herman Mihalich, the distiller and co-owner, you’ll learn all sorts of other Revolutionary War trivia. And he’ll also point out the corner location along a main street in town where the Dad’s Hat tasting room is set to open. I was…