Innholdsfortegnelse for November 2021 i Whisky Magazine

The narrative surrounding Asia’s love affair with whisky – and by Asia I mean the entire continent, not just East Asia – is truly something to behold. Over subsequent decades and across generations, curiosity grew into enthusiasm, then reverence, and in turn deep understanding. This understanding has evolved into entrepreneurship and it seems a year doesn’t go by when a new whisky distillery isn’t opened somewhere in this vast continent. Of course, to speak of Asia as one homogenous block would be ignorant to the point of absurdity. Each nation has its own distinct take on whisky, which covers preferred flavour profiles, serves and production methods. A few distil spirits which, though sold as whisky either domestically or internationally, really are not – yes, I’m looking at you two, India…

I have a very low threshold for sentimentality. This has never made much sense to me, given my love for Shakespeare’s sonnets, Irish drama and Charlotte Brontë. Then again, I also love British drama, Russian literature and Chris Rock, all of which collectively cancel out any schmaltziness anywhere else. Why muddy up a fact with overblown emotion? Why bury the lede? All that has made me very uneasy as I look for ways to express my gratitude for new friends who became good friends so quickly that it immediately felt like we were old friends. There I go – that sounds downright misty-eyed and frilly, doesn’t it? As it turns out, sentimentality can be fitting. My reckoning with my resistance to sentimentality started on a visit to the Netherlands. I…

It’s understandable why some whisky lovers are beginning to feel a little cynical about the recent slew of old and rare releases from some of Scotch whisky’s most venerable distillers, boasting five- or even six-figure price tags. The industry’s current penchant for indulgent packaging and the tendency to see such releases as works of art has become a bone of contention for many, with calls from some quarters for a refocus on whisky as a drink, rather than an asset or investment. This contemporary context makes it especially pleasing to be presented with a release quite as unquestionably ‘liquid-first’ as Diageo’s Prima & Ultima Collection. Perhaps more so than any other similar Scotch whisky release in recent years, these whiskies have been chosen on the unique merits of the spirit…

Taster biographies Phoebe Calver After studying English and Journalism at university, Phoebe has turned her hand to writing for the drinks industry. She splits her time between the UK and US as editor of American Whisky Magazine and Whisky Magazine’s deputy editor. Christopher Coates A member of the team since 2013 and a keen whisky drinker long before that, Christopher was appointed as editor of Whisky Magazine in 2020. Beyond this, he is head of content for this title’s parent company, a keen photographer and chair of judges for the World Whiskies Awards and the Independent Bottlers Challenge. THE PROCESS All samples are blind tasted, with ABV, country/region and style the only information disclosed Samples are tasted individually over a two week period Tasters are provided tasting and scoring guidelines…

Glenmorangie Signet Ristretto ABV: 43% Style: Single Malt Region: Speyside Price per bottle: £385 Bottling type: Distillery Availability: Seoul Incheon Airport, Taiwan Country of origin: Scotland Glenmorangie’s director of whisky creation Dr Bill Lumsden’s reputation as a pioneer of cask-finished whiskies is assured, but the great man is not one to rest on his laurels. This latest release, which is limited to only 1,500 bottles and is available only at Incheon Airport’s Glenmorangie Signet Boutique, sees Dr Bill experiment with deeply roasted chocolate malt spirit – which happens to be made only once a year at the distillery. Full to the brim with espressorich aromas, this spirit is then aged in virgin toasted oak casks in order to create a spicy dram with coffee notes and hints of leather. If…

British whisky identifies with barley, American with corn, and Western European whisky, once rye. In Asia, rice is a primary cereal for local grain spirits and the manufacture of rice whisky. When whisky exports to Asia began, there arose local competition by domestic distillers making Eastern rice whisky. In the West, rice whisky was a foreign notion. In 1857, the British publication The Elements of Materia Medica and Therapeutics designated rice whisky or rice arrack from China and Japan as ‘Spiritus Oryzae’. Identifying rice, Oryza sativa and the ‘liquor fungus’ Aspergillus Oryzae, called Qu in China and koji in Japan. This fungus is the millennia-old Asian alternative method to malting. Microbes and enzymes break down rice starches into sugars, allowing the yeast to convert the sugars to alcohol in a…

Midleton, in County Cork, Ireland, looks as much like Minneapolis, Minnesota, as it does Barbados. Minneapolis does not have endless rolling hills in infinite shades of green. You won’t find the deer roaming freely or a nearly 200-year-old distillery making some of the world’s best-known, best-selling whiskeys. Temperatures in Minneapolis can fall below minus-40 in the winter. Yet Brian Nation, who spent 23 years at Midleton Distillery, home of Jameson, Red Breast, Powers and others, made a none-too-impulsive decision in early 2020 to hand in his resignation, pack up his family, and abscond to the American Midwest. His destination? O’Shaughnessy Distilling Company, which was still under construction in a circa-1945 building that once housed a potato-processing plant in Minneapolis’s Prospect Park. In the interest of diplomacy, we will call the…

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People ask me all the time if I think American whiskey producers are overproducing. What if the market gets flooded like it was in the 1970s and they start having to put really good whiskey into ceramic collectible decanters just to get it out of the warehouse again? American whiskey producers had a difficult time in the 20th century. The industry was just coming out of a largely unregulated cottage industry after the Bottled-in-Bond Act was passed in 1897, effectively putting farmer-producers out of business. This was closely followed by the passing of the Pure Food and Drug Act in 1906. Just a few years later The Great War necessitated wartime ethanol production, then came Prohibition, then another World War. The 1950s saw tremendous popularity of distilled spirits, particularly whiskey,…

Taiwan is a fascinating and extremely lucrative market for Scotch whisky, even spawning exclusive bottlings such as The Glenlivet 13 Years Old, matured in oloroso sherry casks, and The Macallan Boutique Collection 2017 Release, not to mention Wolfburn Single Cask 835 – Shin Group Limited Release. With a population of just 23.78 million people, the country is the fourth-largest global export destination for Scotch in terms of value, though only 20th in volume, implying that the Taiwanese whisky consumer is prepared to pay for quality. According to the Scotch Whisky Association, total Scotch exports to Taiwan have risen by 17 per cent in value since 2011, from £155m to £181m in 2020, and single malt exports have grown by a remarkable 42 per cent in value, from £84m to £120m…

A marriage should benefit both partners, or multiple partners in the case of a blended Scotch. The ceremony, administered by a master blender, culminates in the blend being filled into 'marrying casks' for what is effectively a whisky honeymoon. Marrying regimes vary significantly, even among blends within the same company, but the objective is the same. “Marrying unifies the flavour rather than changing it by creating harmony, balance, roundness and, most importantly, consistency,” says Brian Kinsman, master blender at William Grant & Sons. Malts are initially blended separately from grain whiskies in vats (large vessels) before all are vatted together. When whisky is added to a vat, it settles on the surface rather than integrating with the whisky already present, a process known as layering. To counter this, vats are…