Post by sc on Dec 3, 2017 10:25:04 GMT
Dec 3, 2017 9:28:46 GMT mikey said:
Invested in a bottle of laphroaig yesterday. An early Christmas present for myself and worth it. The difference between a single malt which you appreciate and savour the flavour and taste and a blended whisky which so often is only good as a mixer (IMO).That is not to ignore whisky with an ‘e’. Irish whiskey is pretty good stuff and I do have a bit of a passion for Paddy whiskey. Unfortunately, Paddy is often hard to get find outside the Republic.
Also, a personal bug bear. Don't get hung up on whether a Whisky is Single Malt or Blended, it's the taste that counts, some blends are fantastic (Big Peat is a perfect example) some are dreadful (Teachers, Bells but they do have there uses). There is a lot of false snobbery within Whisky fans.
If you look at the regulations as to when a Scotch can be called "Single" "Malt" or "Blended" "10 year" "12 year" etc, I think it all becomes rather silly.
For a whisky to have the word "Malt" it must be 100% Malt Whisky - That's fine as 80% of Whisky distilled in Scotland is from cereal crops and so pure Malt Whisky is good to now.
For the word "Single" to be used, all of the whisky in that bottle must come from the same distillery (not necessarily the same cask though) if you mix whisky from different distilleries it is then blended. Now this gives the massive distilleries like Glenfiddich, a clear advantage, they have thousands of casks in store, all distilled at the same distillery. Most Whisky fans like consistency, you buy a Glenfiddich 10 and you expect it to taste like the last Glenfiddich 10 you bought, now that is pretty much impossible if you don't mix the casks of whisky. Each time the whisky is distilled and stored conditions will be slightly different, weather will be different, the water may be slightly different, the conditions that the grain was grown in may be different, all barrels the Whisky is matured in are all second hand and so there will be slight variations, the harvest of grain will be different, if Islay Whisky then the quality of Peat used will vary and so therefore will the smoke. So the distillers combine the whiskies from various casks to obtain a consistent taste for each Whisky they produce. Large distilleries have large stocks and so large resources to achieve consistency, whilst a small distillery does not. Therefore, for a small distillery that wants to achieve consistency it may need to mix it's whisky with that of another distillery, it gets the right taste, but it now has the stigma of being a blended. Simply not fair in my book.
Because of the mixing of whisky the age of the whisky must be the "youngest" whisky in there, so a 10 year old may well be mostly 15 or 18 year old whisky but because a small part of it was 10 year old they can only say it was 10 year old whisky.
At the Whisky tasting I attend, I have pushed to include "blended" along with "Blind tasting" (to show the Whisky snobs of their prejudice and try to start removing the stigma) but they just will not go there
I mentioned above that Teachers and Bells have there uses. I have not tried this myself but I read an article once on Whisky Tasting and it stated that you need a "Base Whisky" which is ideally Teachers or Bells. You first sip is from the Base Whisky, then a sip of water, then any lingering tastes are consistent, then try the Tasting Whisky, make your notes, then a sip of Base Whisky, sip of Water, then the next tasting. You are therefore tasting each tasting whisky on a fair and consistent way. It also has the advantage that after a evening of whisky tasting you are well and truly plastered
Enjoy the Laphroaig it's simply the best for the price
