Imagine you’re at home watching the Olympics, and you turn your television on just as the medal presentation ceremony is starting for the marathon. You immediately notice there are two runners standing on the podium for 1st Place. In an incredible outcome for the race, it turns out there was a dead heat for first, and the two front runners finished in a tie!
But here’s where things get weird: It turns out that only one of the gold medallists actually ran the full 42 kilometres! The other runner started at the 30km mark, and in fact only had to run the last 12km of the race. And, to top it all off, that runner also received extra assistance along the way.
Now that’s hardly a fair race, is it? Clearly, the work, effort, and energy put in by the two runners was vastly different – but by virtue of crossing the finish line at the same time, they each received the same reward and recognition.
The above parable would never happen in real life and, yet, a variation of this is precisely how the Australian whisky industry operates. Puzzled? Here’s how it pans out…..
(Verb) To undergo a reaction in which electrons are lost by a molecule, atom, or ion to another matter or species
(Whisky) A loose, general, catch-all term to describe the phenomenon of a whisky’s quality slowly deteriorating in the bottle over time, after you’ve opened it.
It’s one of the most common questions and concerns you see asked in whisky forums and discussion groups: “Once I open my bottle, how long have I got until it starts to go off or deteriorate?” Or it may take the form, “I have a bottle with just one third left in it, and I left it at the back of the cupboard for a year. Now it tastes different – what’s going on?” You don’t travel far along your whisky journey until the word “oxidation” enters your vocabulary.
Back for its fifth consecutive year, Whisky & Wisdom’s Whisky Quiz challenges those who think they know their whisky trivia. How good is your whisky wisdom? Take the Whisky Quiz to find out…
This fun little quiz will test the whisky facts and trivia you’ve picked up over your malt journey. There are 25 questions that are designed to sort out the newbies from the experts.
Yes, you could consult Google and find the answer to each question, but that would be cheating, right? So, be honest with yourself and others, and see how many questions you can answer correctly off the top of your head.
Are you wanting to know more about peat and smoky whiskies? Want to know what makes a whisky smoky in the first place? Peat is one of the least understood aspects of the whisky industry, but fear not: Our complete guide to peat will make you an instant expert on the topic.
Most whisky drinkers will remember and can pinpoint the first time they tasted a heavily peated whisky. Like a fork in the road, it was probably a “love it or hate it” moment….there is rarely middle ground or ambivalence when your tastebuds first encounter a truly peaty, medicinal, smoky whisky. But things change…
Would it be crude to suggest that Scotch whisky drinkers thus fall into three camps? There are those that hate peated whisky; those that love peated whisky; and those that are actively and earnestly transitioning at some point between those two extremes. No matter where you sit on that three-pointed scale, this guide will assist you in understanding all the ins and outs of peat and the role it plays in Scotch whisky. (And we’ll touch on Irish whiskey, too). So settle in with a dram of your favourite malt and let’s cover some facts and dispel a few myths…. Continue reading “The complete guide to peat and peated whisky”
What makes a whisky a Christmas whisky? Is it simply a whisky you receive as a gift for Christmas? Is it a whisky that comes packaged in traditional Christmas colours, e.g. red, green, and white? Or is it a whisky that smells and tastes like Christmas? (Which begs the question: What does Christmas actually taste like?)
Need a whisky for Christmas? Once upon a time, whisky was whisky, and Santa wasn’t too discerning when it came to what special dram you left out for him on Christmas Eve. But as for us consumers? Well, Christmas = Christmas pudding, and that means dried fruits, raisins, dates, boozy prunes, butterscotch sauce, toffee, cherries, currants, cloves, cinnamon, and spices. And THAT, my friends, means a Christmas dram has to be sherried!
Here are five sensational sherry-matured whiskies that will fit the bill this Christmas. Four are regularly and widely available; one is an Australia-only exclusive….
The 2021 Malt Whisky Yearbook was released this month, garnering due and appropriate attention around the world. It’s worth looking into this remarkable publication….
It’s a question often asked: Which is the most beautiful distillery in Scotland? But if beauty is in the eye of the beholder, how does one assemble a definitive list of Scotland’s most beautiful distilleries that adequately captures all the subjectivity from amongst the whisky community? And when it comes to distilleries – which are nothing more than factories to produce alcohol – what metrics do we use to define beauty? Is it architectural flair? Aesthetic lines and symmetry? And how do we compare architectural and construction fashions across timelines? Many would suggest that the classic, quaint, stone-built distilleries of the Victorian era have a romantic advantage, but purists are correct to assert there is beauty in the functional architecture of modern behemoths such as Roseisle or Dalmunach.
There are further complexities: How much does the surrounding environment impact our assessment of a distillery’s beauty? For example, Lagavulin is, in reality, just a clump of relatively plain, white-washed buildings nestled together. However, put them in a coastal location on the water, add some colour from the local vegetation, and throw in the ruins of a medieval castle nearby for good measure, and you have one extremely beautiful distillery.
A further difficulty arises when you look at the many distilleries that have been bastardised over the years with unsympathetic expansions, often resulting in clashing, jarring visuals. There are many such examples that mix their original old-world Victorian charm with 1960’s modernism or 1970’s brutalism.
Following a poll that Whisky & Wisdom ran on Twitter a few weeks ago to gauge public opinion, we offer you – in no particular order – the following list of Scotland’s most beautiful distilleries:
When new businesses are founded and launched, there are numerous financial and business models that help get the product to market. There might be schemes to raise capital; funds assigned to support marketing and promotion; and then comes the down-and-dirty process of actually selling the goods. It’s obviously a very diverse and varied minefield to tread. If you’re wondering how to start a new whisky brand, or even how to start a new whisky distillery, the minefield is particularly tricky to navigate…
The whisky industry is an example of a sector where that diversity and variation is most evident: There are brands and businesses that go large scale and are backed by investors who put up millions of pounds/dollars, and there are – quite genuinely – “mums and dads” businesses that are launched off little more than sweat and elbow grease in combination with passion to create a craft, artisan product. And, in more recent times, there are distilleries that get established off the back of crowdfunding or barrel investment schemes – with mixed degrees of success.
William Grant and his wife. Were the challenges of establishing a whisky distillery and brand much different in 1887 to today?
A question often pondered is whether or not the process of getting a whisky business off the ground is easier or harder than it was in the past? There’s a multitude of different factors and considerations. William Grant, together with his family, spent over a year physically building Glenfiddich with his bare hands and started distilling on Christmas Day in 1887 to establish his own brand. In contrast, if you’re armed with a website, a social media account, and access to some spirit distilled at Cooley, it seems you can quite easily launch an Irish whiskey brand overnight – complete with an impressive backstory!
In the harder basket, distilleries setting up today have planning and environmental controls that their predecessors didn’t have to worry about. Council and municipal applications and approvals can take years to get through, and the days of casually discharging distillery effluent and by-products back into the river downstream are long behind us.
In the easier basket, as we’ve seen already, the internet and social media marketing means you can broadcast and promote your brand to a wider audience than ever for relatively little money. Online sales via your own website mean you don’t even have to fight anymore with wholesalers or distributors to get your product on to the shelves of retail liquor outlets. The days of Tommy Dewar hopping on a ship and spending months sailing around the globe to get sales are also well and truly behind us.
Let’s look at a few distilleries and brands from around the world that have forged very different steps in very different landscapes to see how the process unfolded….
Since the Australian whisky industry’s re-birth 30-odd years ago, there have been a number of specific markers or events that have indicated the industry is taking steps forward and leaving its fledgling status behind. Like an adolescent transitioning to adulthood, not every step is glamorous; there will be a few missteps along the way; but you’ve got to take those steps to learn and develop.
