Innholdsfortegnelse for Aug/Sep 2022 i Whisky Magazine

A strange kind of doublethink has a grip on much of the whisky world. We celebrate single malt as the quintessential flavour of a single place and accept that distilleries have quirks of personality which make them, broadly speaking, unique. This is almost completely without controversy. And yet, the open-armed acceptance of the importance of location to distilling does not extend to the growing of whisky’s raw materials. This is something of a uniquely whisky-flavoured paradox. In the world of Cognac, it is so accepted that the location in which grapes are grown will influence the flavour of the spirit that the concept is enshrined in the category’s governing regulations. The soils in which grapes that are allowed to become Cognac can be cultivated are so strictly controlled that the…

The headline in Bloomberg on 8 June might have had the vague sound of a street-fight challenge: ‘Americans Will Spend More on Mezcal and Tequila This Year Than Whiskey.’ To a whisky insider, it reads like the financial media equivalent of, ‘Come at me, bro.’ The piece was a report on the new data released by IWSR Drinks Market Analysis, the leading authority on data and analysis on the global alcohol market. ‘This year, Americans for the first time will spend more money on mezcal and Tequila, both alcohols made from agave plants, than they will on US-made whiskeys,’ it reads, going on to note that, by next year, the category will surpass vodka to become the most-purchased spirit by value, clocking in at around US$13.3 billion, versus $12.5 billion…

Taster biographies Phoebe Calver As editor of American Whiskey Magazine and deputy editor of Whisky Magazine, Phoebe splits her focus between the US and ‘global’ whisky scenes. She is also co-host of Whisky Live TV and a global whisky taster for this title. 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 a keen photographer and chair of judges for the World Whiskies Awards and Icons of Whisky. 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 work to tasting and scoring guidelines in order to assess samples consistently• The top-scoring…

Dewar’s Double Agent 16 Years Old JOHN DEWAR & SONS ABV: 40% ABV Style: Blended Price per 50cl bottle: US$70 Bottling type: Distillery Availability: Global travel retail Country of origin: Scotland This new release from Dewar’s first made its appearance at Singapore Changi airport in May, but it is destined for a global rollout from July. Sweet and smoky is definitely the flavour profile here. It is a product of a complex maturation process which sees malt and grain whiskies blended and aged again in oak casks before being separated into two batches, one of which is aged in ex-oloroso sherry casks and the other in peaty ex-Islay whisky casks. The two batches are then married to create a rich, powerful spirit with notes of dried fruits, citrus, smoke and…

So far, 2022 has been an incredibly busy and fulfilling year for events in the whisky world, thanks to the return of in-person tastings and festivals around the globe. As we enter the second half of the calendar year, the events are showing no signs of slowing down and Whisky Live has two exciting shows coming to Europe this September. Whisky Live Nordics will take place 2–3 September, running alongside the Nordic Rum Fest in Forum Copenhagen. The event will feature more than 1,000 bottles of spirits, 80 exhibitors, distillation experts and masterclasses. Unlimited pourings will be available, as well as ‘practical glass exchange’ stations, ensuring guests always have a clean tasting glass to enjoy as much as possible. Following on from the success of last year’s event, Whisky Live…

The organic acids and bacteria that sour or acidify the mash have become synonymous with Tennessee and Kentucky whisky, where distillers use a portion of spent distiller’s wash to lower the pH for fermentation. However, the fog of time makes it difficult to identify the origin of this now well-known practice. Anecdotal evidence indicates German aqua vitae distillers of the 13th century applied the principle of rye sourdough inoculation, and Dutch distillers adapted this method to manufacture their grain spirits in the 1500s. At their Brazilian sugar colony at Permbucco, the Dutch modified it for rum production, later taking it to Barbados and ‘sugar islands’. Called dunder in Jamaica, the spent distiller’s wash obstructs bacterial infections, stabilises flavour, and adds nutrients and microflora. West Indies sugarcane plantation landholders owned property…

Future generations will surely look back on the present day as one of the major boom times for Scotch whisky – but amongst all the public fanfare of what is surely a golden era, there’s one story that quietly yet singularly attests to the industry’s sense of confidence: the founding of Morrison Scotch Whisky Distillers (MSWD). The Morrison family has been a recognised force in the world of Scotch whisky for five generations and is able to trace its involvement in just about every aspect of production. Notably, the opening of Aberargie Distillery near Perth in 2017 marked the family’s first return to distilling since the sale of Morrison Bowmore Distillers – a company dating from the 1950s that was established by patriarch Stanley P. Morrison and at its height…

Having studied theatre at the University of Texas in Austin and trained at the Atlantic Film Company in New York, Jennifer Blair began her early adulthood as an actor. Landing roles in a handful of films and television shows (including an episode of the award-winning Friday Night Lights), Blair decided against making the move to Los Angeles, citing a liking for the New York City lifestyle as a reason to move to the East Coast instead. Around that time, she started working as a journalist, including writing about dive bars in Austin and the nightlife scene. Blair’s love affair with whisky began at Drammers Club in New York, which she was introduced to through mutual friends. Blair soon found herself working at Kings County Distillery, running tastings and the bottling…

When I teach the agricultural history of bourbon, I start off by explaining that frontier whiskey was nothing more than a way to preserve crops. The agricultural part is something most people don’t think about. In different parts of the country the story was the same, even if the grains were different. Wild Turkey’s Jimmy Russell is famous for saying the reason bourbon isn’t made out of rice is because rice doesn’t grow in Kentucky, corn does. Cover crops like rye, winter wheat, and barley are harder to grow and harvest in Commonwealth, so they would have been more scarce or expensive during the frontier days. The general mash bill for bourbon was more of a foregone conclusion than a deliberate decision. Meanwhile, rye grew amazingly well in the northeastern…

Throughout his decades-long career, Mark Reynier has become something akin to a religious figurehead in the world of whisky. The son of a wine merchant – who would ask his children to identify the wine in their glasses at dinner time – Reynier’s first job was cleaning bottles before they were filled and labelled. This was long before he got into the business of selling wine himself, after which he discovered whisky by accident and was blown away by the flavours he encountered in bottles of single malt Scotch distilled in the 1950s, ‘60s and early ‘70s. He recalls being overcome by the profound realisation that something truly world-beating, gastronomically speaking, was made right here in the UK. “And nobody knew!” he exclaims, admitting that the thought of that lightbulb…

GENERAL INFORMATION Distillery name: Bainbridge Organic Distillers Parent company: Free Range Distilling Company Address: 9727 Coppertop Loop NE, Bainbridge Island, WA 98110 Years of operation: 2009–present Open to the public: Yes TEAM & OUTPUT Distillery manager name: Keith Barnes Production team size: 3 people, full time Annual capacity: 40,000 proof litres (at 100 proof) Operation time: 8–10 hours per day, 5 days per week Automation: No, fully manual WATER Water source: Municipal, aquifer-fed CEREALS & MASHING Cereal varieties: Nick soft white wheat, Louise soft white wheat, Full Pint unmalted barley, Alba unmalted barley, Whitman triticale, winter rye, corn. All cereals are organic. Mill type: Hammer Mash tun type: Mash cooker, closed (American type) Batch size: 1/2 ton Wort clarity: Grain in, fully occluded Mashes per week: 4 FERMENTATION Fermenters: 4…