Close your eyes and name a Scotch with a stag’s head on the front label…..The Dalmore? Located on the other side of Loch Ness, far from Glenfiddich, these copper stills belong to The Dalmore’s Alness distillery. Founded in 1839 by an opium trader, the stag on the label came from a MacKenzie family legend after they bought the distillery in 1886. The legends says that a MacKenzie saved a Scottish King in battle and was granted the royal stag as his family crest.
Considered the most naturally beautiful and picturesque locale on Islay, Caol Ila is perched on Loch Nam Ban near the town of Port Askaig. The distillery in the picture here, built in 1974, may seem rather large given Caol Ila’s low profile on supermarket shelves but they are a large supplier for Johnny Walker blends.
Caol Ila’s single malts have an unmistakable profile, distinct from other more famous Islay’s like Lagavulin. Lighter in a low viscosity oil kind of way, seaweed and iodine are common elements with smoky phenolics taking a …
I wonder if our grandfathers and great-grandfathers are looking down at us, pipe or cigar in hand, wondering why we’re in such a rush. Why are we taking shots of Jack when we could be sipping and savoring a fine whisky? Why are we smoking 2 minute cigarettes instead of enjoying the complex and evolving flavor profile of a fine stogie? What is this thing, the “travel mug”? Can’t we just sit and enjoy a coffee without constantly speeding about?
I recently came across a post on Serious Eats discussing the presence (or lack thereof) of women in the whisky world. While men are still the dominant consumer of whisky, the Scotch Malt Whisky Society has almost doubled its female membership over the course of three years (to a total of around 15 percent of its membership). Also, an estimated 25 percent of all scotch drinkers in the UK are female, an increase from around 10 percent only a few years ago. My start to whisky drinking is perhaps atypical, …
Peat. Peat peat peat. I love it. There are bottles of Talisker and Ardbeg on my shelf that will attest to that. Peat is measured in phenol parts per million, where phenols are the organic compounds that the malted barley takes on from the burning peat. Some whiskies have very little peat, such as Glenmorangie’s 1.5ppm. The “peatiest” whiskies, such as Ardbeg, Laphroaig, and Lagavulin, come in at 56, 35, and 30ppm, respectively. I have Ardbeg somewhat regularly, and can attest to the dense oily peatiness in every dram. So …
The team over at Primer Magazine recently asked me to write a guest article, so I wrote a brief primer (excuse the pun) on scotch whisky. Check it out and let me know what you think.
“I was confident that beer was the Holy Grail for a man’s palate. Then I started drinking scotch.
It’s a scary step to take. The jump from 5 to 40+% alcohol, the distillation process, the regions and production methods. The more you learn, the more you start to see the similarities between beer and …
