I've heard that some whiskies are cold-filtered and then strained through asbestos to remove oils which can turn whisky cloudy if ice is added. The colour is then apparently restored via additives i.e. caramel.
How can I find out whether this is true and obtain information about which whiskies aren't being tampered with?
You confound me, sir! What can you mean? Is it a FAQ or something?
Having moved over to malt whiskies from real ales as age withers me, I am very keen to ensure that no one is tinkering with my 'water of life'. I don't drink that much, but I would like to think that my ten year old malt, filtered for two hundred years through ye olde Scottish peat etc etc (cut to bleak view of storm-lashed western isles, rousing bagpipe music), wasn't being tarnished by some spin-doctor desperate to appease Japanese and Yankee whisky-with-icers.
If you quoted the original post to which refer then your question "Is it a FAQ or something" could be answered, because we might then know what "it" is..
Chill-filtering has been the norm in 40% distillery bottled whiskies for years. It's the fairly recent upsurge in demand for CS (cask-strength) whiskies which has led to the reduction in chill-filtering. All Cadenhead CS bottles and SMWS bottles are AFAIK not chill-filtered. As posted on here by another, check the bottle. Or check the web site of the distillery/bottler
ALL SMWS whisky is not chill-filtered, and I have a lot of their bottles
But your correct about Highland Park... except for my SMWS bottle. I have a sneaking suspicion that Glenmorangie is chill-filtered, and that is never available in any independent bottlings, which is rather ironic as they now own the SMWS.
Here's a quote from a detailed article on chill filtering in Whisky Magazine no. 33:
Once chilled, the whisky continues to what is typically a "plate and frame" filter. This features a cellulose pad, resembling blotting paper, which may be impregnated with kieselguhr, essentially fossilized plankton (sea creatures) mined from seabeds.
The relevance to whisky is that the kieselguhr initially attracts fatty acid molecules, though it is essentially a case of mechanics as the fine lattice structure is an ideal filter... The choice of filter pads also affects the degree of filtration, with filters available in a range of thicknesses and densities. The amount of sheets placed in a filter also varies, and sheets with varying elvels of kieseguhr are available, enabling distillers to tailor the process to each product.
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