Greetings from the Highlander Inn in Craigellachie, Scotland. Add this place to your bucket list if you are a whisky lover. This wee town is in the heart of Speyside. The bar here at the Highlander has near 400 expressions of whisky, so needless to say, I have been doing ample research.

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First up….(and not shown here) is Glenfiddich 15 Year Old Solera Cask. Finally!!!!
I understand this process thanks to a chance encounter with a Glenfiddich Brand Ambassador in the bar a few moments ago. How it works is, Glenfiddich is aged in 3 different cask types for 15 years. This aged material is then dumped into an 11,000 gallon vat where “marrying” takes place. About 1/2 of the vat is emptied for bottling. The vat is then re-filled with more 15 year old product. Half is emptied off and bottled….and so on…repeat….repeat….

In my other research, I have found that I quite enjoy Tomintoul 16 year old. This distillery is Japanese owned and not open to the public.

I am starting to dip a wee toe into the Islay peated category. I quite enjoyed Ardbeg Uigedail. The peat is nicely balanced by the sweetness picked up from aging in ex-sherry casks.

The Bowmore 15 year old is also an Islay product but the peat is toned down a bit. A very nice dram to finish a meal with.

The Dalmore 12 year old is likewise a nice product that displays excellent balance on the palatte.

Lastly, in another chance encounter, I met the Brand Ambassador for Balvenie. Yes, we get Balvenie in Canada, but we do not get Peat Week. What happens at the distillery is there is an annual shutdown for maintenance. Prior to this event, the distillery runs batches of highly peated malt through the process. The result is Peat Week Whisky. I tried the 14 year old expression and 30 minutes later I am still savoring the profound balance of peat and sweet on my palate. A very nice pre-bedtime dram to be sure.

I will wrap up these thoughts by saying that if you are contemplating a craft distillery – you have got to make good whisky. Otherwise, don’t make it at all. As I stress in the Workshops, adding sticks and cubes and chips to make a distillate turn brown just ain’t gonna’ cut it. We live in a global society where goods and services flow back and forth. If the consumer does not like your product, it will not matter that it is local. That consumer will go back to his/her big name brand whisky in a big hurry.

Whisky is 500 years ols and Speyside is where it began. Treat yourself to a wee trip here and sample what real whisky is all about ( or as I am reminded….all abooot in my Canadian accent).

Until Next Time….

Cheers

The next time you taste a Japanese whisky – like Nikka Malt whisky – you will note the distinct fruity, estery flavors. As part of my studies at Heriot Watt University, I have come across some journal papers that point out the Japanese deliberately add Lactobacillus bacteria towards the end of the fermentation. These microbes feast on whatever may be left of the fermentable sugars in the fermenter plus they feast on the dead carcasses of yeast cells that have expired. What these microbes generate is lactic acid. According to the literature, this acid can alter the structure of fatty acids in the fermented wash to generate lactones plus they can combine with alcohol molecules to create esters. Net result – better mouthfeel and better flavor. I recently saw an add in a magazine for a Lallemand product called Sour Pitch which is Lactobacillus Plantarum microbes. This product is aimed at craft brewers seeking to make sour beers. I contacted Lallemand and they graciously provided me with some Sour Pitch. I have now completed 3 mashes using one of my Bourbon recipes. In one mash I added zero microbes. In the 2nd, I added a measured quantity after 84 hrs of fermentation and left the bacteria to grow in the fermenter for 24 more hours. In the 3rd, I let the same measured dose of bacteria grow for 48 more hours. I have now done A’Lembic pot distillation strip runs and spirit runs. I will be sending samples to Lallemend for GC analysis.We hope to be able to identify the presence of esters on the GC plots and we hope that the 48 hrs sample will have a greater ester profile. Stay tuned for the outcome….

Back in February when I was in Scotland I toured Glengoyne Distilling just outside the Glasgow suburb of Milngavie. I was seriously impressed with how open and welcoming the team was at Glengoyne – in particular my tour guide Jo-Anne.

I learned that many Scotch distillers use something called Distiller’s Malt – which is a malt barley more highly modified than the usual 2-row pale malt commonly available in North America. A higher degree of modification means that the sprouted grains have been dried “low and slow”. The naturally occurring enzymes in the grain thus are more apt to survive the drying process. In the typical Pale Malt, the drying process is quicker and many of the natural enzymes are killed off, save for Alpha amylase and Beta amylase.

Back in Canada, I recently approached my grain distributor ( Western Malt Distributors in Saskatoon) to inquire about Distiller’s Malt. I soon learned that it is available through Cargill (USA) – so I ordered 6 bags. More costly than the regular Pale Malt – but such is the tuition cost of learning. Upon opening the first bag – I was hit with beautiful malty, biscuit-like aromas. For sure – different than the standard Pale Malt.

As I sit here on this Saturday morning, I am doing that final 2 mashes from these 6 bags. My arms are sore and so they ought to be. Hand-cranking 300 pounds of grain through my little roller mill is a lot of work. No need to visit the gym this month!

Each mash was remarkably consistent giving me 21 Brix after a 63C rest and a 72C rest. What’s more the sweet goodness of this malt was beyond beautiful. To add to the flavor, I included in each mash some Simpson’s Smoked Malt (27 ppm phenol) and some Chocolate Malt.

I fermented all my mashes with Lallemand MW yeast for 5 days. I then did stripping runs on my 60 L A’lembic still and ran each run until my hydrometer read 10%. In other words, I stripped everything out.

The stripped distillate was then re-distilled in my 20L A’lembic. The majority of these spirits runs came off at 85% and towards the end of the run, tailed off. I stopped collecting when my hydrometer read 55-60%. each spirits run yielded on average a distillate that was about 72-75% alc. It was interesting to taste these late runnings when teh hydrometer was at or near 60%. The notes of chocolate (from the Chocolate Malt) were very evident.

I have now about filled a 56L barrel at 58% alc and that barrel shall rest for at least 3 years. I think this is going to be a fabulous product.

If you can get your hands on some Distiller’s Malt, give it a go. I think you will be impressed.

Oh…and by the way…if you are curious about the next 5 Day Distillery Workshop – it is set for the week of Sept 11th at Urban Distilleries in Kelowna, BC. See their website for registration details. There might be one more in late October – but my Heriot Watt M.Sc. school work is going to again take priority for me….. I have one more course to do this Fall and will be starting my thesis project as well.

Thanks to some British sensibility, my faith in Spirits Awards is now partly restored. The World Drinks Awards in my humble opinion appears to be on the track towards doing it right. Entries are slotted into their various categories and then each category judged once to weed out products that do not conform to expected characteristics. Surviving products are judged again to further whittle down the list. And then again to identify the category winner. There is none of the usual suspect nonsense of 19 people in a category all taking Gold, 23 people taking Silver and so on. In my travels, if I see a craft distiller ( or a distiller in general) who has won at this British event, I will definitely pay close attention to that product….

Next time you stop at your local Liquor store, ask the product advisor how many bottles of Vermouth they sell in a typical month. The number I assure you will be a small one. People simply don’t know what to do with a Vermouth, other than to spritz a wee bit into a Gin cocktail.

I just finished another of my wild experiments – this one to make Vermouth. I started with a quantity of Vodka. You can obviously buy your Vodka at the Liquor store. In my case, I take a slightly different approach which I shall not discuss here. I added a litany of herbs that I sourced at Herbie’s Herbs in Toronto, Canada. Look around your community and you will find a purveyor of herbs and spices. The list included the likes of Wormwood, Thistle, Mint, Angelica, Cinnamon, Nutmeg, and Gentian. I soaked the herbs in the alcohol for 20 days. I then strained the concoction through a coffee filter. The resulting dark liquid was then blended into some white Gewurtztraminer wine that I had sourced from my local U-Vin store. The ratio of herbal liquid to wine was 1 part herbal to 5 parts wine, but you can adjust that to your liking. I then added 0.8 parts simple sugar syrup for every part of the herbal liquid. Again, you can make minor adjustments to suit your taste buds. By my math, the resulting product measures about 15% alc/vol. On a nice Summer day, a generous dram of this Vermouth with an ice cube is just what the Doctor ordered as far as I am concerned.

In your travels to craft distilleries, start inquiring whether they have a Vermouth type product for sale. If not, share this post with them. Or…make your own Vermouth. Life is too short to not have a nice Vermouth on hand….for those relaxing occasions on the deck during the Summer. For recipe details, get in touch with me.

I say India……you say curry, Taj Mahal, Bombay, Bollywood….

You say India and I say wow!!! … Indian Whisky.

In our 5 day Distilling Workshops I delve deep into the chemistry that occurs in an oak barrel during ageing. I talk about the effects of temp and humidity on these chemistry processes. Now, I have tasted the science that I talk about. Amrut Indian Whisky is a blended malt (distillate made from smoked malt from UK plus distillate made from non-smoked malt from Himalayan foothills of India) aged in oak casks for a max of 4 years in the hot, humidity of India. You simply have got to try this stuff. I paid $92 in Kelowna, BC and have seen it for $150 in Calgary – so shop carefully. Add water to open up the flavors and prepare to be amazed. Enticing bits of smoke, sweetness, maltiness and even some fruitiness will tease your palate. Amrut is taking the world by storm…and now I know why. After trying this excellent creation, you may find yourself drinking it on a regular basis….

Recently when reading Dave Broom’s Rum-The Manual book, I noticed that he had a profile for Abuelo Rum from Panama. Funny how things happen – I am in Panama at the moment and I am seeing small bottles of Abuelo Rum (Anejo) in stores for $2.

How good can $2 Rum be? Well… surprise, surprise. This is some of the most wonderful Rum I have had in a good long time. It puts to shame the products from the big name, global purveyors of Rum. The brand is owned by a company called Varela Hermanos, S.A. Its history dates back to 1908, when Don José Varela Blanco, a young Spanish immigrant, established himself in the town of Pesé in the central part of Panama. He built a sugar mill, the first such mill in the recently formed Republic of Panamá.

The rest as they say, is history. Today, Abuelo has its cheaper $2 anejo version, plus a 7 year old expression plus a 12 year old expression and now a release that is blended with 30 year old rum.

If what I am tasting in the cheaper anejo stuff carries forward into the longer aged 7 and 12 year olds, I think it is time to go shopping for another suitcase. A goodly amount of Abuelo is coming back to Canada with me.

For those of you that now know me, you will appreciate that I tell it as it is. I do not tip-toe around big brand names showering them with fancy descriptive adjectives. This is why you will never see my comments in the big global spirits magazines. I am a non-conformist in the eyes of the big name spirits brands. However, I do believe in giving high praise when it is due. Give me an excellent spirit and I will write glowingly about it in no uncertain terms.

Now, to the point of this post. Yesterday I was in the grocery store here in Panama City. My wife wanted some Gin and the selections were sparse at best. Hard liquor is not a big seller here in this hot climate. As I was reaching for the Gordon’s Gin on the top shelf, I spied on the bottom shelf a bottle of Botanist Gin. Sampling this Gin has been on my list of to-do’s for a while now, so I thought – why not here, why not now?

We quickly rushed back to our rented apartment and poured ourselves each a wee dram, straight up at room temperature intent on savoring the bouquet of 22 botanicals that comprise this product. Shockingly…my senses were assaulted with the overwhelming aroma of solventy, feinty alcohol. No juniper-forward notes. No hints of citrus in the background. Just plain un-appealing to our palates.

I then tried adding some Tonic (Schwepp’s to be exact), thinking that maybe a G&T was the way to enjoy the Botanist. I thought maybe the Tonic would tease out the flavors of some of the 22 botanicals. No such luck. I now had a G&T with notes of feinty alcohol. My wife’s first reaction was to suggest that maybe this bottle had been distilled and prepared under licence by a distillery in Central America who had botched the recipe. I quick look at the bottle showed that no – this was a product of Scotland.

I am seriously under-whelmed with the Botanist. What’s more – I am perplexed because I have had people in the 5-day Distilling Workshops that have spoken of the Botanist Gin in hushed reverence like they were describing their admiration for the Queen of England.

In all fairness, I will again sample the Botanist somewhere in Canada. For here and now, I am going to hold to the idea that this was in some way a bad batch. I will keep you apprised…..

Cheers