Tag: Single Malt

Armorik single malt – the whisky of Brittany

Armorik whisky…oui, it’s a French whisky.  So what’s it all about? Let’s dive in…

With interest in “new world” whiskies exploding everywhere, not to mention a burgeoning craft whisky scene in almost every country around the world, it’s easy to look at a whisky brand you’ve not heard of before and think “Okay, that’s new”. You might also be forgiven for assuming the whisky is young.

This is the challenge for some of the non-Scottish whisky producers that have actually been around the traps for a while and are trying to cement a foothold in the international scene. Such is the challenge for Armorik – the first Breton single malt whisky.

Armorik single malt whisky is distilled at Distillerie Warenghem, an independent, family-owned distillery that was established in 1900.   After 83 years of making all manner of liqueurs, the distillery turned its hand to whisky in 1983.  Whilst their first bottled release in 1987 was a blended whisky, Armorik Single Malt was launched back 1998.  So Armorik is hardly the new kid on the block, despite what many assume.

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Is whisky better or worse today than it was 20 years ago?

If you listen to enough drinkers who’ve been around a while, or read the writings of many in the whisky community, you might be led to believe that Scotch whisky being produced and released today is not as good as it used to be.  Is whisky better or worse today than it was a decade or two ago?

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Teeling Single Malt and Silver Reserve 21yo

Fans of Irish Whiskey should by now be no stranger to the name Teeling, and the new Teeling Single Malt is turning heads in the Irish whiskey industry, as is the new Silver Reserve 21yo.  The Teeling name and family claims distilling heritage back to 1782 when Walter Teeling set up his distillery in Dublin.  However, things get more interesting if you fast forward two centuries to 1987, when John Teeling established Cooley Distillery and instantly changed the landscape of the Irish whiskey industry at that time.  The number of whiskey distilleries in Ireland had fallen from over 100 in 1886 to just two survivors by 1970.  Cooley was not just a breath of fresh air, but an injection of life, independence, new thinking, and new styles of whiskey into the Irish industry.  When Cooley eventually sold to Beam Inc. in 2011, the stage was set for John Teeling to start another chapter in his life, going on to form the Irish Whiskey Company with a group of investors, including his two sons, Jack & Stephen Teeling.  Whilst that company is currently focussing on converting an old brewery in Dundalk into a distillery, brothers Jack & Stephen have formed their own company, Teeling Whiskey Company, and set about bringing out new whiskies for the public to enjoy.

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Kininvie – The distillery emerges…

Like so many other aspects of the whiskysphere in recent years, there are entities or processes that have been around for a long time, but simply weren’t well known. The internet, combined with a booming market, have resulted in many industry secrets or hidden jewels coming to light.  Distilleries are one such example – if there wasn’t a commercial release available (or widely distributed) on the market, consumers simply didn’t know it existed.  Ailsa Bay, Inchgower, Allt-a-bhaine, etc, are all examples of distilleries that most whisky drinkers simply haven’t heard of, despite the fact they’ve been around for many years.   Kininvie is another example, although that’s now all changing, courtesy of its whiskies suddenly being thrust into the limelight.

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Mortlach distillery – the Beast beckons…

It was a long time ago now, but back in 1988, UDV (now Diageo) made the momentous and ground-breaking decision to launch the Classic Malts range. The launch of those six whiskies drew newfound attention to the world of single malts and helped propel the whisky boom we now find ourselves in.  Mortlach distillery was not one the original Classic Malts…

I often wonder about how the marketing team at the time set about choosing which distilleries would be featured in the Classic Malts range? Looking at the portfolio available to them, Glenkinchie for the Lowlands obviously chose itself, as did Talisker for the Islands.  But what about Speyside?  We know now that Cragganmore got the gig, which subsequently thrust that relatively small distillery into the limelight.  But how different might the whisky world be today, and the fortunes of one or two distilleries if they’d selected, for example, Dailuaine, Knockando, Mannochmore, or Glen Elgin?   Or Mortlach?

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What whisky bloggers are doing wrong…

(or why Whisky Bloggers are annoying a lot of people right now)

So who was the first whisky blogger?  Was it before or after WordPress made this caper so easy?  Well, it was before.  A long time before.  Back in 1887, in fact.  For that is when an ambitious chap by the name of Alfred Barnard first approached a distillery and cheekily asked for a free sample so he could write about it.  One hundred and thirty years later, and it turns out several thousand wannabes are following suit.

Yes, I’m aware of the irony.  But bear with me…

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The Glenlivet Founder’s Reserve

Before discussing what The Glenlivet Founder’s Reserve is all about, it’s important to understand some background:

In the good old days of looking at a whisky brand’s portfolio, it used to be an easy affair to identify and speak about the brand’s “flagship” expression. This was the main expression; its biggest seller; the one that was a constant in all markets and carried the brand. Each of the other expressions in the portfolio were usually older, rarer, and less-often seen.   If you can think back 15 years ago, it was an era where most brands had their ubiquitous 10yo or 12yo flagship expression, and then some brands had an 18yo or a 25yo to offer the connoisseurs some choice.

As the single malt market started to truly boom (and bloom) during 2000-2007, many brands’ portfolios started to widely diversify. Finishes or Extra Matured expressions became more prevalent; a wider and more populated range of age statements appeared; and in the last few years, many brands added one or more NAS expressions to the range. More recently, for some brands, the flagship expression you see may depend on what market you’re in.

Most of this activity is due to marketing and sales opportunities; and some of it is simply cask and stock management: Either dealing with what stocks are currently available, or taking steps to ensure that supply will meet demand in future years.

If you read enough whisky literature, opinions and noise, you’ll be aware that some brands are already having to make hard decisions to ensure supply keeps up with demand. Cutting various product lines or removing an expression from a particular market. Many whisky folks assume this is a new phenomenon, but no, it’s been happening for a while. For example, it was back in 2004/05 that Macallan discontinued its 15yo in order to keep stock back for its more lucrative (and popular) 18yo. More recently, we’re seeing an increasing number of NAS expressions being put forward and marketed, in an attempt to take pressure off the 10yo or 12yo aged statements.   Enter Glenlivet.

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Whisky Live, Sydney – 2015

As outlined in previous posts (e.g. here) the emerald city of Sydney is blessed  to have three major whisky expo shows pass through each year.  June 26/27 was time for Whisky Live to take centre stage and yours truly went along as a paying customer to the opening Friday night session.

Whisky Live has been running in Sydney since 2009 and it’s the same, original organisers still at the helm.  For reasons none other than inconvenient timing or simply being out of town when the show rolled around, it had been a number of years (four?) since I last attended Whisky Live, so I was keen to see how the current incarnation played out.

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Glenfiddich “The Original”

One of the ironies of having the world’s biggest selling single malt in your portfolio is that your flagship product is everywhere, and people sometimes don’t see the innovative things you do on the side.  Such is the burden of William Grant & Sons and their favourite child, Glenfiddich.  Whilst the ubiquitous 12yo sits proudly in nearly every bottle shop around the world, you sometimes overlook the numerous variations and other expressions of Glenfiddich that have been flying out of the warehouse at increasingly close intervals over the last few years.  For, if there is one word that you can associate with William Grant & Sons, the word is “pioneering”.  And, in a delicious twist of irony, they’ve turned that on its head with the release of a new expression that is, in fact, very much a look back to the past: Glenfiddich The Original.

The Glenfiddich portfolio

Glenfiddich did not invent single malt bottlings.  No, there were bottles of single malt being bought, sold, and traded on this planet long before 1963.  However, it was in 1963 that William Grant & Sons decided to do something radically different and market their single malt as a single malt.  They were the first distillery to stand up and say, “We think our whisky is pretty good and doesn’t need to be blended with other whiskies.  We think you’ll like it straight up, as is.”  Okay, we’re projecting and paraphrasing there, but the message is the same, because that’s more-or-less what happened in 1963 when WG&S launched their Glenfiddich Straight Malt.  The term straight was used because, in the context of a time when virtually all commercially-available whisky was blended, straight was an appropriate and understood term.  Later bottlings of Glenfiddich would use the term Pure Malt, pretty much right up until the term fell foul of the Scotch Whisky Association in 2009.

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The 1980’s heavy metal music guide to whisky

Whisky and heavy metal?  The late whisky writer, Michael Jackson, once compared a particular single malt to a car (e.g. “the Rolls-Royce of whisky”).  Others have since compared certain single malts to particular Grand Cru wines.   More recently, people have started writing tasting notes for whiskies and suggested various songs or bands to match and pair with the whisky.  So, whisky and music is now a thing, right?  Okay then, let’s take it one step further…

No one likes to admit it, but there was once a time when heavy metal music was actually commercially successful, and major record labels were falling over themselves trying to sign up hard rock acts.  The genre is lampooned today, and often labelled dismissively as hair metal or glam metal.  But, like me, you might be from that era when heavy metal artists were actually on top of all the charts and hair metal bands ruled the airwaves.  But has anyone ever compared whisky and heavy metal artists? Or matched the two together?  Perhaps now is the time.  Get out the hair gel, put on your spandex, and take yourself back to the 1980’s…  Continue reading “The 1980’s heavy metal music guide to whisky”