Category: whisky

An Auchentoshan Distillery Visit

On the last day of my trip to Scotland with Bowmore, we went to another distillery, Auchentoshan. This distillery is located just outside of Glasgow, on a former estate.

Auchentoshan is in the Lowland region of Scotland, one of just five single-malt-producing distilleries there. It’s also unique as the only scotch distillery that triple distills all of its whisky. This gives it a lighter flavor profile than most single malts, and a thinner body/mouthfeel. This makes it both an entry-level whisky for drinkers new to the category, and one that can be easily mixed into cocktails.

Scotch whisky distilleries usually (always?) have stills in pairs for two distillations; a smaller one for the second. Rather than adding a third still at the end of the process, Auchentoshan has an ‘intermediate still’ between the other two.

(I couldn't fit all three stills in the picture. They do exist, though.)

The spirit is distilled to a high alcohol percentage before the final distillation that will make the cut of the heads and tails. (Previous to that, they're mostly concentrating alcohol. The final distillation/cut will pick out the desired flavor elements for the whisky by discarding portions of the distillate.) According to Auchentoshan's distiller Jeremy Stephens, the higher level of alcohol sitting in the still forces the volatile aromatics in the alcohol to rise to the top first, rather than the heavier, oilier compounds that they want to avoid in this whisky.

After a trip through the distillery, we took a spin through the one of the aging warehouses then went for a tasting.

The Auchentoshan line includes the Classic, which bears no age statement but holds scotch most between five and eight years old, all aged in ex-bourbon casks. The twelve year old contains about 25% whisky aged in ex-sherry casks. We sampled the 18 and 21-year-old expressions as well, along with a 1988 Bordeaux finished bottle that I really liked. The Three Wood is matured in ex-bourbon, ex-oloroso sherry, and ex-Pedro Ximenez casks.

And then it was on to the blending room… see the next post.

May 3, 2010
Aging and Terroir on Islay

When we last spoke, I was talking about the distillation process of Bowmore, the Islay single malt scotch whisky that I visited a few days ago. The malting and distillation are only the first two weeks in the life of a scotch whisky: the aging time in barrels is where the liquid spends the vast majority of its existence- and where it gains much of its flavor.

At Bowmore, they use ex-bourbon barrels primarily from Heaven Hill, ex-sherry barrels, and miscellaneous ex-wine barrels for special blends.

Different ratios and preparations of bourbon and sherry barrels are used for the various bottlings. The 12-year-old and 18-year-old expressions are a blend of scotch from ex-sherry and ex-bourbon barrels. The 15-year-old “Darkest” bottling is a 12-year-old finished for three more years in ex-sherry casks.

Bowmore aging warehouses on Islay are located right next to the sea. The partially-below-sea-level No.1 Vaults are the most famous, as that's where Black, White, and Gold Bowmore are from.

The Terroir Question

Bowmore distills with a percentage of barley malted on site, along with a majority of commercially malted barley from the mainland. Distillery Manager Eddie MacAffer said that though there are differences in the flavor profile of the peat from Islay versus the mainland, he didn’t feel they were significant.

The aging barrels are also mixed: some Bowmore casks age on Islay and others on the mainland, but according to Eddie MacAffer this has more influence on the flavor of the final blend.

Camper English: At Bowmore you have the combination of the local peat, local malting with the stuff from the mainland and you have aging in both locations as well. Can you taste the place in Bowmore, do you think?

Eddie MacAffer: The fact that we do mature our whiskies in the old warehouses right beside the seaside, the sea air definitely has an influence on the maturation, with the slow, steady, and the cool situation that it's in, in my opinion definitely has an influence on the final product; the flavors and the tastes that come off from it.

Camper English: Do you think that's where you see the most influence of the location is there, as opposed to the peat or the local malting?

Eddie MacAffer: Obviously we put the peatiness in , but definitely the location that it matures in is definitely gives it the biggest influence on the taste; right beside the sea.

(Distillery Manager Eddie MacAffer shows where sea level is in the Bowmore No. 1 Vaults.)

May 1, 2010
A Visit to Bowmore on Islay in Scotland

Hello from Islay! I'm in Scotland on a trip with Bowmore.

After a first night of bar exploration and jetlag adaptation in Glasgow, I was ready for the press trip to begin. I spent the morning blogging about the previous night, then had a day to explore Glasgow. I can't say I learned a ton about the city, except that I love the look of Glasgow University and had a great time exploring the Kelvingrove museum.

By the next morning I'd met up with the rest of the group and we flew together to Islay. To get there by car/bus and ferry apparently takes almost nine hours, but the flight was just 45 minutes from the Glasgow airport.

Over the course of the day, the weather changed from the Islay/Scotland weather you see all the time- mildly raining with low visibility- to sunny and bright in the later afternoon/early evening. Islay always looked to me like it is built for dreary weather, with all white buildings as the one color that looks good in the fog, but when it's sunny it takes on a happy little seaside town feel.

I should mention that we're in the town of Bowmore, the capital city of Islay, but are driving to various spots on the island to sample other restaurants and attractions.

But first, the distillery tour. As you probably know, Islay single malt scotch whiskies are known for a smoky/peaty flavor profile, often with seaside flavors like seaweed and salt. Bowmore has less of the seaweed/iodine flavors so present in Laphroaig, but to my palate is still dominated by a smoky charred flavor with a lurking sherry cask flavor present in different amounts depending on the bottling's expression. I didn't realize that there is actually a lot less phenol content- the amount of smokiness/peatedness in scotch- than other brands. Bowmore comes in at about 25 parts per million, whereas I believe Laphroaig comes in at 40 and Ardbeg at 60.

At Bowmore, like at Laphroaig and The Balvenie, they malt some of their own barley. This involves purchasing barley, soaking it in three cycles over a 24 hour period, spreading it out on a malting floor, and turning the malt over again and again until the grain germinates and sends out a little shoot about one-quarter the length of the grain.

Germination is then stopped by drying the barley with a combination of hot air and peat smoke to the desired level of smokiness. I actually got to harvest peat from a bog, turn and rake some barley, and even step into the kiln after it had recently stopped blowing the peated air through it.

At this point the malted barley is ready to be fermented and distilled. Allowing the grain to germinate starts an enzymatic process that will convert starches in the grain to sugars when hot water is added again. The malted barley is ground to separate the floury innards from the husk, then this is washed with hot water in three cycles to release the sugar.

The grain is then discarded (sold to farmers as cattle feed) and the sugar water is fermented and then distilled. The new make spirit is then aged in ex-bourbon and/or ex-sherry casks for the different expressions. We took a look into Vault No. 1, where the barrels of Bowmore Gold were housed, some beneath sea level adjacent to the salt-crusted warehouse sea wall.

More posts from Bowmore to follow!

April 27, 2010
Home Bar Recommendations: One of Each

When Jonny Raglin and Jeff Hollinger were looking to open Comstock Saloon (hopefully this month), they had a big limitation to work with: the size of the back bar. It only has room for one or two types of each base spirit. This is a challenge for Raglin in particular as between his former post as Bar Manager at Absinthe and his consultant gig at Dosa on Fillmore he was working with probably 30 different types of gin alone.

This inspired a story I wrote for the April edition of 7×7 magazine. I also spoke with Martin Cate of Forbidden Island who had the luxury of choosing over 200 rums for the bar, but that didn't leave room for much else. Before opening he sent out an email requesting advice on one of each tequila (blanco, reposado, anejo) for the bar. I also spoke with Marcovaldo Dionysos, who was very selective when choosing the bottles for Clock Bar. He said he had to balance familiar brands that consumers know with less-recognized spirits he'd prefer to work with.

In the story I asked each of Raglin, Cate, and Dionysos to pick one of
each- vodka, tequila, rum, whisky, and gin- that would work the best in
the most cocktails, while also being good enough for sipping. The
results should point home mixologists who may also not have room for 30 brands of gin toward the one bottle to buy.

The Ultimate Five-Bottle Bar, Perfect for Apartment Dwelling

by Camper English

What happens when the city’s top bartenders are forced to choose? Introducing the ultimate five-bottle bar, perfectly sized for apartment dwelling.

Click the link above to read the story. In the print edition there are also recommendations for one each of sweet and dry vermouth and an orange liqueur/triple sec.

April 1, 2010
Up in your Internet

Oh hai. I've been writing a lot of stuff lately on this new fangled thing called the internet.

I did a few things for Tasting Table, like this piece on bartenders swapping out whisky in drinks for mezcal and this other one on where to get a good cocktail during the day in San Francisco.

For the national edition of Tasting Table I wrote about where you can buy a whole barrel of booze. There are a whole lot more places to buy a whole barrel listed at this Liquor.com article that came out a few days earlier. I didn't write that one (great minds drink alike), but I did write this other one on bitters for the same site a while back.

For CitySearch I wrote about single-spirit specialty bars, which is supposed to also include this review of Smuggler's Cove but doesn't, because the internet is full of bugs.

January 14, 2010
The Ultimate Test of your Liquor Cabinet
Not only is the Laphroaig Project delicious and surprisingly tropical for its ingredients, it's a test of your liquor
cabinet. If you have all of these ingredients at home you are a huuuuge cocktail geek.

The Laphroaig Project was created by Owen Westman at Bourbon & Branch and it's
also available at Rickhouse, both in San Francisco. It contains:
- Green
  Chartreuse
- Yellow Chartreuse
- Laphroaig Islay Single Malt Whisky
- Luxardo Maraschino liqueur
- Peach bitters
- Lemon juice
What? Yes. The recipe is here.

And if you can make it without shopping, I think you are cool.
August 12, 2009
Cover Girl

Did you get your copy of Imbibe Magazine in the mail today? I did. Oh neat, look at that 12-page cover story on scotch whisky. I wonder who wrote it…

Wait a minute, I did! That's my story. Hooray!

December 24, 2008
Whisky + Shipwreck = Awesome

I have a fondness for booze, as you may have realized, but also for shipwrecks and pirates. (Old pirates, not Somali pirates.)

So I am particularly thrilled by the story of the SS Politician, a ship carrying 260,000 bottles of whisky that sank off the Outer Hebrides (islands off Scotland) in 1941. The local islanders rowed out to the partially-submerged wreck at night and stole all the whisky they could get their hands on. But the government was not happy about that so they searched peoples' homes and jailed some of them, even though they were just going to let the whisky sink with the ship. For years, hidden bottles from the wreck would turn up when someone cleaned out their attic or dug up a shed.

The tale was made into the book Whisky Galore
by Compton Mackenzie, then a later books Scotch on the Rocks: The True Story Behind Whisky Galore and Polly: The True Story Behind Whisky Galore, retracing the story of that book. It was also made into the movie Whisky Galore, sometimes known as Tight Little Island.

In 1970, the newspaper The Mirror led a diving expedition to the ship to find any bottles that were still on it. They did find them, and rewarded a diver Bob Pert with a few bottles for his efforts. He's auctioning off one of those (unopened but evaporating through the cork) bottles December 3rd. [Props to Lyke 2 Drink for finding news of the auction.]

This bottle would make an excellent holiday gift for someone obsessed with booze. Or shipwrecks. Or both.

November 26, 2008
A day with Charbay

The other week I sat down on the patio behind Swirl on Castro with Marko Karakasevic and Jenni soon-to-be Karakasevic of Charbay and tasted through their line of products.

Charbay is a family-run winery and distillery in Napa Valley. And boy do these people like to play with the still- in addition to wine, they make flavored vodka, rum, whiskey, walnut liqueur, grappa, pastis, port, and now some aperitifs. It's hard to keep up with them.

The aperitifs are neither eau de vie nor typical liqueurs, but flavored fortified wines. Currently they produce a pomegranate and a green tea flavor, which they like to think of as cocktails-in-a-glass. Importantly for retailers, these can be served at beer and wine-only venues.

We then tasted through the vodka line. When they make vodka at Charbay, really they're making extractions that are added to plain vodka to flavor it. (Most flavored vodkas are vodka plus flavors purchased from flavor companies.) Not only is this unique, they make their extractions using whole fruit- not just the peel or juice. They throw the entire fruit (okay, not the pomegranate, but the citrus) into a leaf shredder and into the tanks, then distill the mixture to extract the flavor components they're looking for. Marko told me he was able to get the Meyer lemon flavor less bitter than before (emphasizing the pith less and peel more). The grapefruit flavor is as bitter as it should be.

The Tahitian vanilla rum is triple pot distilled and made from concentrated sugar cane juice (not molasses) from Hawaii. All rums are made from sugar cane products. Rhum agricole and cachaca are made from sugar cane juice. Most rums are made from molasses (the leftovers after sugar is extracted from sugar cane juice). Ron Zacapa is made from a form of concentrated sugar cane juice without the sugar taken out. The sugar cane juice used by Charbay is flash dehydrated under a vaccuum to remove the water and concentrate the liquid. I want to research how this is different from what Zacapa uses. Project!

I think they should just call their whiskey "weed-lovers-whiskey", because it really tastes like marijuana. This is the second release of the product that was pot distilled from pilsner beer with three kinds of hops (this is probably where the weed aromas come in) and aged six years in new barrels. The first release was after three years in barrels.

Finally, they're going to release a pomegranate dessert wine (they really like the pomegranate over there) that smells like it's going to be ultra-syrupy, but is just pleasantly sweet. A nice way to end a meal, or a tasting session.

To sample the products in person, check out the early happy hour at Tra Vigna in Napa Valley, during the weekly Charbay tasting. Hopefully Jenni and Marko will be there, because they're really fun people with whom to share a drink. Or ten.

October 24, 2008
Look at me, err, at what I wrote

I have a story in the latest issue of Malt Advocate– my first one for them. Hooray!

It's a round-up of whisky events at Tales of the Cocktail and the increased presence of whisky at the event in general. Run screaming to your local newsstand and read it.

You'll find my story right beneath the picture of Lew Bryson.

October 14, 2008