THE REAL McCOY
The Cutty Sark is the world’s last remaining clipper ship. It was built on the Clyde, in Glasgow, in 1869 for the China tea trade, and was one of the fastest clippers ever built.
Ordered by Scottish tea magnate John Willis, designed by Scotsman Hercules Linton, built in Dumbarton near Glasgow, Scotland, named after a Scottish piece of apparel worn by a Scottish poet Robert Burns character and manned by a crew predominantly Scottish, she symbolised everything Scottish and was an eminently suitable title for a delectable Scotch whisky.
I’ve been onboard; it is narrow and, except for the top deck and the Captain’s cabin, there is no headroom. The average height of ceilings reduce progressively as you descend through her three decks, from 5'6" to 3’9”.
Edrington PLC, a company whose head office was located ten miles from where the famous ship was built, used the name for a whisky it launched on March 23, 1923. Cutty Sark was the first light coloured, blended whisky. Launched at the height of the “cocktail culture”, it was designed to be mixed and was aimed squarely at the American market. It started as a 3 Year Old whisky during Prohibition in the US (1920-33); immediately after Prohibition was repealed in 1933, the 5 YO hit the market. Current blends are 8 YO.
During Prohibition, Cutty Sark gave rise to the term “the real McCoy.” The whisky was bootlegged by the legendary Bill McCoy, an American smuggler based in the Bahamas. McCoy, a nondrinker, guaranteed his contraband was uncut and unadulterated. The quality of his whisky gave rise to the expression, “the real McCoy”, an expression that remains a synonym for integrity and authenticity. During Prohibition, “ordering a real McCoy” became slang for ordering a Cutty Sark.
Following the repeal of Prohibition in 1933, the impeccable reputation of the whisky led to a surge in sales and Cutty Sark became one of the best-selling Scotch whisky brands in the United States. It remains one of that country’s most popular blends. Bill McCoy died a multi-millionaire in 1948.
In 2013, Edrington released Cutty Sark, Prohibition Edition, a 50% ABV blended Scotch, to commemorate Bill McCoy and the 90th anniversary of the repeal of Prohibition. A 12 Years Old version is also on the market, priced higher than JW Black Label.
CUTTY SARK Prohibition Edition 70/75/100 cl | 50 % ABV
Cutty Sark Prohibition Edition is at least three years old, but as it has no age statement we don’t know if it’s any older. It is a blended Scotch whisky bottled at 50% ABV. The recipe is mostly a mystery but the whisky is said to contain a portion matured in American oak sherry casks.
TASTING NOTES
Nose: Opens on malt and a dessert tray of buttercream, toffee, and vanilla wafers. Behind the tray is some salted white bread dough being kneaded on slate. Fruit is here too: green apple and orange rind. Water amplifies the malt and vanilla wafers.
Palate: A sweet entry on sherried raisins and oranges. The mouthfeel is medium with some slight woody astringency. The mid-palate brings toffee and caramel, which are the dominant flavours here. The back palate gets just a touch of cinnamon and clove spicing. Throughout there is a pinch of salt. Water erases the dried fruits and adds some cream.
Finish: Medium to long on toffee and caramel with hints of cinnamon, salt and smoke. Water lengthens the finish, making it woodier and more drying.
Overall: Cutty Sark Prohibition Edition is one of the best value Scotch whisky blends available. It’s the sort of bottle that a drinker in the know adds to their basket to reach the magical threshold for free shipping. They might later find they reach for it more readily than the other, more expensive bottle they bought with it.
The malt, the casks, and the alcohol strength make this an enjoyable sipper from start to finish, avoiding the common pitfalls of widely available blends. There are no cardboardy offnotes and the finish stays around for a fair while. If there are any offnotes here they are from the young malts in the recipe – reminiscent of some immature indie Glenrotheses – but what you think of those is a matter of preference. Buy this whisky and you too can celebrate 100 years since prohibitionist referendums and reforms and alcohol-linked taxes.
CUTTY SARK 33 YO 70 cl | 41.7 % ABV
The oldest Blend ever released by CUTTY SARK, this bottling of 2014 celebrates this particular time when the brand found its way into America, flourished within the emerging cocktail culture and changed the face of Scotch Whisky forever. Exquisite and seductive, this highly collectable pack for connoisseurs and Whisky enthusiasts with only 3,456 bottles produced at an RRP of £650. Bohemian and symbolic, this limited edition bottling has been released to continue to explore the rich history, heritage and origins of CUTTY SARK blended Scotch Whisky, with a specific focus on the Art Deco period of the 1920s and early 1930s.
The bespoke bottle is decorated with sunburst and geometric designs in the style symbolic of the era. Presented in a piano black wooden box inlaid with mother of pearl, it also contains two decorated glasses and a 32-page book, which provides a brief insight into the Art Deco period.
An Edrington release says that following on from their multi-award winning Tam O’Shanter limited edition released in 2011, this is the oldest blended Scotch ever released by Cutty Sark, selected and crafted by Kirsteen Campbell, their master blender. The stylish liquid created by Kirsteen pushes the brand into exciting flavour developments, with the set the bar very high with the Tam O’Shanter 25 year old and has raised even further this time.
First Posted on 23 Feb 2017
ADDENDUM
HISTORY OF CLIPPER CUTTY SARK
The Cutty Sark, a clipper renowned for her speed and elegant design, symbolises the golden age of sail. She was designed to be one of the fastest ships of her time, primarily for the China tea trade. Her name, ‘Cutty Sark’, comes from the short shirt worn by the witch Nannie in Robert Burns' poem ‘Tam o' Shanter’. Commissioned in 1869 by shipping magnate John "White Hat" Willis, she had a distinguished career, excelling in the task she was built for. The opening of the Suez Canal and the rise of steamships forced her out of her dedicated task after just eight trips and she was redeployed to carrying wool from Australia to the UK, where she held the record for the fastest passage for ten years. Steamships came into the wool route by 1890, inexorably reducing her utility and cost-effectiveness in a world where speed was of the essence.
In 1895, she was sold to a Portuguese company and renamed Ferreira to be used as a cargo ship. Although officially registered as Ferreira, the Portuguese crew often referred to it as 'Pequina Camisola', which translates as 'short nightie' - thereby keeping the original meaning of ‘Cutty Sark’ alive. When Portugal declared war on Germany, the ship had to contend with unrestricted submarine warfare. Despite surviving this unscathed, by the 1920s the ship was in poor condition and unlikely to survive much longer. The ship was sold in 1922 to another Portuguese company and renamed Maria do Amparo. However, it did not retain this name for long, as it was soon purchased by retired British sea captain Wilfred Dowman of Falmouth, who restored her original name while planning to use her as a training ship. When Dowman died, his wife gifted the ship to the Incorporated Thames Nautical College at Greenhithe, where it continued to be used as a cadet training ship until the end of the Second World War. In the post-war period, she was no longer needed as a training ship and fell into disrepair. In 1954, the Cutty Sark was moved to a permanent dry dock in Greenwich, London, where she now serves as a museum ship.
After retiring from commercial life, the Cutty Sark served as a cadet and officer training vessel for the Royal and Merchant Navies for three decades through World War II. She made her last move in 1954 to stand tall in dry dock in Greenwich, London, and has remained a museum ship open to the public since 1957, surviving a devastating fire in 2007.
TIDBITS
- Cutty Sark cost £16,150 when first built.
- If all the sails were out, they would measure 32,000 square feet in total.
- There are 11 miles of rigging altogether.
- The main mast is 153 feet high.
- The hull was sheathed in a copper and zinc alloy. This was to prevent things like barnacles and molluscs from burrowing into the ship.
- Mrs Moodie – the wife of the first master of the ship, Scotsman George Moodie – officially named the ship when it was launched in Dumbarton on 22 November 1869.
- The ship's first load of tea in Shanghai, China in 1870 was 1,305,812 lbs gross.
- Cutty Sark was opened twice by Queen Elizabeth II: once in 1957, and again for its reopening after comprehensive overhaul in 2012.
- The ship’s motto was ‘When there’s a Willis a way’.
- She usually flies signal flags from her ensign halyard reading "JKWS", which is the code representing Cutty Sark in the International Code of Signals, introduced in 1857.
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