The trend for sherry casks etc

Yes bourbon bothers me too, but not quite so much since that is a whisky. Are there any single malts made in virgin casks?

Then you arent getting my point! It's not a true scotch whisky imo if it has been affected by sherry. They're only supposed to use malted barley, yeast, water, and caramel to colour the whisky, aged in oak barrels for at least 3 years

I _think_ anything with 'New Wood' in the name.

Jim

You have a problem with minute amounts of sherry, but not with caramel?!

Weird.

Jim

Ah now, the rules on that are very simple - three years in oak on Scottish soil. Nothing about what the barrel previously contained.

Jim

Ok well I think I'll start using old rum barrels and brandy barrels. Where does it end? Sounds like you could get oak barrels, fill them with anything you like so that the wood absorbs the flavours, then use them for whisky. Makes a mockery of the rules of not allowing flavourings.

I do not think caramel should be used either but it is allowed and always has been. the point is sherry is going to introduce grape flavours into the whisky.

I believe some distilleries are stopping the use of caramel. Highland Park is one I believe.

You mistake the rules, I think. You also disagree with the hundreds of malt drinkers I have talked to and corresponded with, some of them knowledgeable to the point of being professional whisk(e)y writers. You are swimming upstream all by yourself and your argument is not persuading anyone.

Let's run a little test, though. List four or five malts that you enjoy that were aged in casks never used for anything else.

bill

Sorry bill I think you really are being a bit pretentious here. You have not answered my point about using casks which were previously used for whatever else. Sod the "experts", answer the point yourself.

You know, there's a right way to ask a question and a wrong way. Guess which you used?

And I'd be careful about throwing around claims of other people being pretentious.

Jim

Oh diddums.

You missed the point. If you're just going to be a trolling bampot then can I suggest you don't waste your time?

If, on the other hand, you want a reasonable discussion then I suggest you _try_ a reasonable discussion.

Can you tell me what percentage of impurities stops a liquid being 'whisky' and starts it being a cocktail?

Jim

Did I? And here was me thinking you had.

And your answer to the percentile question is..?

Jim

I'm off to have a curry...

I have answered it, as have others. None of us here have any objection to the long-standing practice of maturing malts in various types of casks that have previously been used for something else. It doesn't make the malts not whisky by any known definition. It does affect the nose and the flavour, and whether the malt is ultimately worth drinking depends on how well it is done and many other factors. Some of them work, some don't. Most of us drink the ones we like, and not the ones we don't like.

In my approximately 15 years of discussing malts with people who know something about them, you're the first to take this blanket anti-sherry position. You cite no authority, and you bring no apparent credentials of your own. Your attitude is rude and insulting.

I'd love to know whether you think the lightly sherried Lagavulin 16 is trash, which you skipped over when I asked it last time. I also await your answer to the question of what malts you respect that were aged in casks never used for anything else.

bill

: Then you arent getting my point! It's not a true scotch whisky imo if it : has been affected by sherry. They're only supposed to use malted barley, : yeast, water, and caramel to colour the whisky, aged in oak barrels for : at least 3 years

As has been pointed out and which you seem to miss the point of, it doesn't dictate how those barrels might've been previously used. Use any darned barrel you want, it's still scotch. Some of it might be really good and some of it might be atrocious. Sherry = good. Turpentine = bad.

Similarly it doesn't say what should be used to dry the barley in the kiln. Are you okay with peat? Of course it doesn't say how the barley should be dried, just like it doesn't say what the barrels might've had in them before.

How about the water? Are you okay with any kind of water? Because you know, it doesn't specify. I'm sure that the streams running through Scotland don't contain distilled and purified water which we can guarantee is uniform. But then the definition doesn't say what kind of water...

...and so on.

Justin

Be careful, I heard they're mixing stuff into that one, too.

sinc' christian

I think Bill Van has the best answer here. If we insist that scotch whisky must be aged in oak barrels, then there are several choices for the blender. New, freshly cut oak; new oak freshly charred (brings out the terpenes and causes chemical changes to complex organic wood constituents creating who-knows-what); used oak previously filled with you-name-it. The "rules" don't allow stainless steel kegs for ageing.

The question then becomes one of style. The master blenders choose bourbon casks in American Oak, or sherried (port, grape-related, etc.) French oak casks. As far as I know, there are no whiskies aged in virgin-anything casks. It might be possible, but the results would be undrinkable (unless you can name a top-rated malt with that pedigree that would alter my knowledge).

The top rated single malts (no flames here, please) like Abelour, Lagavulin, Macallan, Highland Park, Laphroig, Talisker, etc. all come from sherried casks, usually 2nd or 3rd refill casks. If that process makes the highest rated whisky based on world-class blender skills, then we must swallow the fact that scotch single malts obtain their complexity and character from other fermentations.

Most professional and serious SMS tasters refer to blended scotch as having a "grainy" character. This is not a complementary term, and is used because some very cheap blends are "cut" with cheaper, non-aged barley malt, which increases the amount of product and helps reduce the price.

I would suggest that perhaps the cheapest whisky you can buy will have the highest percentage of malt in it's "natural", non-altered form and would, hence, be closer to "real" scotch whisky as Marvin would like. I buy whisky because I LIKE it, not because it fits a theoretical model. What do we make of the Balvenie Doublewood -- double heresy, but a great dram!

(I'm open to correction here, guys.)