Aberfeldy is the “heart” of Dewar’s White Label, the
number one blended Scotch whisky in the US.
Cadenhead’s Whisky Shop on Canongate, when owned by the
Cadenhead family, was Scotland’s oldest independent bottler. It was taken over
by J & A Mitchell & Co. Ltd., in 1972. The name remains unchanged, even
though Mitchell & Co. bottle and sell Springbank, Longrow, and Hazelburn
single malt whiskies, along with Campbeltown Loch and Mitchell’s 12 YO. Its
unique selling point is that customers can have a custom bottle poured straight
from a cask and labelled with their name. When sealed it has a label with the
“born on date.” Since whisky stops ageing as soon as it leaves the wooden barrel
each bottle is a unique expression, www.wmcadenhead.com or in London
www.whiskytastingroom.com.
The source of the name Auchentoshan is Gaelic —it means
“corner of the field.”
Irish settlers probably started the distillery and they
may also be responsible for Auchentoshan’s use of triple distillation.
Antique records from the year 1800 mention an illegal
Duntocher distillery, which may have been a predecessor to the legal
Auchentoshan distillery. A license for distillation was obtained in 1823.
The matter of the “e” in whisky. Scotch whisky is
always spelled without an “e.” Most other nations, such as the United States and
Ireland, call their similar spirits whiskey. Be sure you never add the “e” when
writing to a Scotsman. It used to be that there was a very simple way to
remember the spelling: if the spirit comes from a country without an “e” in the
spelling of its name, (e.g., Scotland, Japan, India, Canada, etc.), then its
spelt whisky, otherwise it is spelt whiskey with an “e.” With the
proliferation of whisky production around the world, however, this rule does not apply any more. 88 of the 92 countries dealing with/ making this spirit spell it whisky.
Bruichladdich’s Octomore 8.3 of 2018-19 is the heaviest
peated whisky in the world at 309 ppm phenol.
The Macallan claims that it has achieved success and
fame through its “six pillars”: spiritual home, curiously small stills, finest
cut, exceptional oak casks, natural color, and The Macallan itself. It has released five expressions in
honor of its pillars so far, starting in 2005 —the 50, 55, 57, 60, and 62 YO
malts in a custom Lalique crystal decanter. The 62 YO was released on December
17, 2013, at a price of 26,000 US dollars.
James Bond has a well-earned reputation as a drinker,
with the vodka martini, “shaken not stirred” as his signature drink. In the
collected novels of James Bond by Ian Fleming, Bond is depicted with a drink a
total of 317 times. In 101 of those times, his drink is straight whisky. He
drinks a total of 35 glasses of saki in You Only Live Twice, and 30 glasses of
champagne in all of the other novels combined. He only calls for a vodka
martini on 19 occasions. In his most recent movie, Sky Fall, Bond drank
Macallan. He was known to have drunk Talisker in the movie Diamonds are
Forever. In the novels he usually drank Haig and Haig’s Dimple or Black and
White.
Dean Martin’s favourite Scotch was J&B
Winston Churchill was partial to Johnny Walker Red; not
surprisingly, he was a good friend of Sir Alexander Walker II. He liked Black Label too!
Franklin Roosevelt was also a Scotch drinker. Would you
expect anything less from the man who oversaw the repeal of prohibition? His
son, James Roosevelt, teamed up with Joseph Kennedy to obtain the US
distribution rights for Dewar’s Scotch & Cutty Sark shortly before the
repeal of Prohibition — a lucky break no doubt.
Richard Burton and Humphrey Bogart were both Scotch
drinkers. So was Lee Marvin.
Sean Connery is a devotee of Macallan, although that
didn’t stop him from doing commercials for Jim Beam.
A bottle of Glenfiddich always seems to turn up in
movies starring George Clooney.
Cary Grant was obsessed with Black and White, at least
in the movie Father Goose.
For Harrison Ford it's Bruichladdich. For Peter Falk, it
was Chivas Regal. He even starred in commercials for them.
Michael Buble’s contracts require that a bottle of
Macallan or Oban be provided at each of his concerts.
Truman Capote also ordered J&B. For fellow author
Stephen King and Hunter S. Thompson it is/was Chivas Regal. George Bernard Shaw
described whisky as “liquid sunshine.”
In Uruguay, people don’t say ‘cheese’ to force a smile
for the camera – they say ‘whisky’.
World War II reshaped the industry. Could whisky be
made when rationing? The government argued that as the country was bankrupt and
needed to earn more currency overseas, cereals would only be released if
companies agreed to export more. Whisky rationing only came to an end in 1959.
Since 1956, whisky has been the W word of choice for
the NATO phonetic alphabet. It replaced William.
There are only 12 working distilleries in Ireland,
compared to ~117 in Scotland.
John ‘Johnnie’ Walker was a grocer in Kilmarnock in the
mid-1800s who specialised in blending tea, and switched over to
blending whisky.
Saturday, May 18, 2019, was World Whisky Day. It takes
place on the third Saturday of May each year (launched in 2012).
Throughout the years, whisky has been thought to have
magic powers and hugely restorative qualities, including being splashed on to
men’s heads in an attempt to cure baldness, feet being soaked in it to prevent
blisters, given in milk to cats to help them catch more mice and even poured
around the base of trees to give them a boost.
1994 saw the 500th anniversary of Scotch Whisky
production in Scotland.
An 1896 Scotch from Ernest Shackleton’s Antartic
expedition found in 2006 is being preserved in a museum in Christchurch, NZ. It
didn’t freeze, even at -30 temperatures, and 11 full bottles were found in
crates. It will never be poured for drinking but samples have been taken and
used to recreate the taste.
The ‘cup of kindness’ mentioned in Auld Lang Syne,
written by Robert Burns, refers to whisky.
There are over 300,000 varieties of barley but only a
few are suitable for malt whisky production.
Depending on the strain of barley that is used, one
metric ton of barley can be converted into ~ 400 litres of pure alcohol (at +
95.6%).
Many Scottish distilleries now give the grain waste
produced by distilling to farmers as a nutrient-rich food supplement for
livestock.
The first Scottish distillery to install a Coffey Still
was the Grange Distillery, Alloa.
In Victorian times at some Scottish distilleries, a
curious – and somewhat benevolent – rule allowed workers to stop for a dram
each time a bell rang. It rang 4 times a day!
Distillery workers have been known to take used barley
home to be packed into a drawer and stored overnight to set, then cut and taken
the next day for snack/lunch. A predecessor of the flapjack!
Coopers use more than 20 different tools to build a
whisky barrel.
The liquid maturing inside a barrel cannot be called
whisky till that barrel is opened for bottling.
It cannot be called Scotch if the barrel is opened
before 3 years have elapsed from the date of casking, as printed on the barrel.
No whisky may be made in Scotland other than Scotch.
Master Blenders may extract a 1.0 L syringe of maturing
new make for close examination. Barrels that fail-about 2.0 to 2.5%-are
withdrawn after paying holding and other taxes and most often sold as Scottish Whisky
to distillers from other countries like India.
‘Flogging a bung’ means using a mallet to pry open the
bung of the cask – bashing the barrel on either side of the bung hole to loosen it
up and allow sampling.
Recently, whisky barrels have found an unusual use once
they are no longer required for maturing whisky – there is a company which now
transforms them into flooring for your home or workplace, as well as for bars
and restaurants.
There are over 25 descriptive terms for the colour of
whisky.
Whisky does not mature once it has been bottled.
Most new make spirit is diluted to around 62.5% ABV
before being placed in casks to mature.
Blending was pioneered by Andrew Usher in Edinburgh in
1856.
Whisky gains as much as 60% of its flavour from the
type of cask used in the ageing process.
As of November 23, 2012, Single Malt Scotch Whisky must
be bottled in Scotland.
On Sunday, Aug 12, 2012, the Guinness Book of World
Records recorded the largest bottle of whisky in the world at 228 litres. The
earliest known ‘whisky bottles’, in 1841, were reused wine bottles, often used
by local grocers.
There are currently 117 operational distilleries across
Scotland, 7 grain and 110 malt.
There are 9 distilleries (soon to be 10) on the island
of Islay.
In 1941, German U-boats sank the SS Eriskay Politician
with 28,000 bottles of whisky on board.
Scotch Whisky can not only be enjoyed as a drink or
paired with food, but also in recipes including cakes, preserves and sauces –
often in place of more traditional brandy or wine.
The first distillery came into ‘official’ existence in
1824 following the Excise Act of 1823.
Scotch Whisky was so popular that people began to make
their own to avoid the tax man.
John F Kennedy’s father, Joseph Kennedy was an agent
for the first legal Scotch Whisky brand to be delivered into the US after
Prohibition. The whisky was landed in New York and Chicago the moment the law
was repealed on Dec 5, 1933.
The Ardbeg Distillery on Islay sent compounds of
unmatured malt – new make spirit – to the International Space Station (ISS) in
an unmanned cargo spacecraft on 30 October 2011. It also sent up particles of
charred oak and, once the spacecraft docked at the ISS, the two sets of
molecules were mixed.
Glenmorangie has the tallest stills in Scotland. Their
long copper necks stand at 5.14 metres, the same height as a fully grown adult
giraffe! They are not small and squat like traditional stills as the company’s
founder was a ‘canny’ Scot who bought second-hand gin stills rather than
purchase new, more expensive stills. The ones used today are exact replicas of
this original design.
The oldest recorded visitor to a Scottish distillery
was 103.
KT Tunstall was given a handmade guitar built from oak
cask staves by her favourite distillery (Talisker).
Degrees of peating are measured in ‘parts per million
phenols’, or ppm. Well-known distilleries generally range from 1-55 but, experimentally,
a ppm of 320 has been achieved on Islay.
The Quaich, a uniquely Scottish invention designed
specifically for whisky, is used to offer a guest a cup of welcome and also as
a farewell drink.
Scotch Whiskies contain more than double the number of flavour
components (congeners) of its nearest competitors, cognac and rum – with more
than 100 complex flavours versus 5 to 10 in vodka.
While a dram is a standard pub measure, ‘A Wee Dram’
has an altogether different definition. The term can only be applied to a
measure poured by a host, and its size is dependent not on HM weights and
measures, but on the generosity of the host.
Standard measures of Scotch Whisky (25ml) contain 55
calories and no fat.
Diageo invested £10 million in its state-of-the-art Cambus
Cooperage to make it a completely up-to-date operation combining innovation
with traditional skills.
There are more than 500 species of oak growing
throughout the world but only a few are suitable for coopering.
The art of making barrels is one of the world’s oldest
crafts.
The Scotch Whisky production process has changed little
in the last two hundred years.
The Wine and Spirit Brand Association was formed in
1912, becoming the Whisky Association in 1917 and the Scotch Whisky Association
in 1942.
The Coffey or Patent Still has been in use since 1831.
Until 1821, glass bottles for Scotch Whisky were
free-blown.
In 1887 Josiah Arnell and Howard Ashley patented the
first bottle-blowing machine.
Scotch Whisky only began to be sold in bottles after
1860 when blending became widespread.
Glenturret’s record-breaking distillery cat Towser,
caught 30,000 mice in his 24-year lifetime (1963-1987).
Scotch Whisky water sources on Islay flows through rocks
thought to be 800 million years old.
The description ‘Single Malt Scotch Whisky’ must appear
exactly in that form.
In 1827, Cameronbridge became the first distillery to
produce grain whisky.
The 1915 Immature Spirits Act brought in the three-year
rule for ageing whisky.
There are more than 1.5 million visits to Scotch Whisky
distilleries annually. This means they rank among many well-known UK
attractions, including Edinburgh Castle, the Scottish National Gallery, Tate
Britain, Stonehenge and London Zoo.
Elgin architect Charles Doig invented the iconic
‘pagoda’ roof which is still used in many Scotch Whisky distilleries.
Agents who bought whisky from smugglers were called
‘Blethermen’.
Cooper’s apprentices must work accompanied for 4 years
before being allowed to tackle their own barrel.
There were 400 illicit stills in Edinburgh alone in
1777.
Campbeltown could at one point boast more than 30
distilleries and proclaimed itself ‘the whisky capital of the world’; it was
nicknamed ‘Spiritville’ or ‘Whiskyopolis’.
Robert Burns was once employed in the Scotch Whisky
industry as an exciseman or ‘gauger’.
Islay peat is made up of moss, heather and seaweed
while mainland peat contains wood, bark and needles from the Caledonian pine
forests, giving two very distinct flavours.
Visitors to Scotch Whisky distilleries spend £ 50 million per year, an average of £32.50 per head.
The largest proportion of visitors came from Scotland
and other parts of the UK, Germany, the USA and France. The source of visitors
reflects some of the largest markets for Scotch.
A crystal decanter of Macallan Imperiale ‘M’ whisky
scooped the prestigious title of the world’s most expensive whisky when it sold at
auction in Hong Kong for $628,205 in 2015. The luxury decanter contains 6
litres of whisky and stands 28 inches tall.
Scotch whisky is now being sold in a can in the United
States, putting liquor prized for its pedigree into a humble container known
for its affordability and portability. Johnnie Walker has released Red Label
Blended Scotch Whisky with Soda, which will be available in both 345ml bottle
and 375ml can formats. Cola mixes are at or below 5% ABV.
Approximately 15% of blended Scotch whisky is bottled
overseas.
Glenfiddich buys German Oak casks and sends them to
Jerez, Spain. A sherry-maker is paid rent to make a 'fino' sherry in this cask
and bottle it in 2 yrs. The cask is brought back to Scotland and filled with a
brand new make of raw malted whisky and matured for 10-15 years. The end result
is an expensive Scotch whisky. Macallan does the same, except that at 10-12
years, the whisky is shifted for another 2-5 years into once-used American
bourbon casks that last held Oloroso sherry.
The end result is a bloody expensive Scotch whisky, most popular in
China for corporate gifts.
Glenmorangie is more exclusive. LMVH has its own Oak
plantation in the US, makes its own bourbon barrels and pays Bourbon
manufacturers to use these casks for one-four years. Thereafter, the casks are
split open into staves and exported to Scotland to mature Glenmorangie raw
make.
Some 20 million casks, over
500 million cases, are maturing in warehouses in Scotland. This represents the
equivalent of approximately 10 billion bottles of Scotch after bottling.
Scotch is sold in more than
200 markets globally.
The total amount of Scotch
released for sale to the UK market was 90m bottles of 70 cl. each.
Scotch sells three times
its nearest foreign whisky rival.
The industry generated
about £3 billion in tax revenue for the UK government. 
