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Two Interesting Blends

Hi everybody!,

I'm back online after a move which was followed by a power supply failure on my trusty old computer. Luckily I found a suitable substitute PS and didn't have to 1) replace my machine or 2) transfer my files!

Haven't had a lot of time for dramming in the last month but I have had a few interesting whiskies nevertheless. I really enjoyed the Jameson 18 I had for St. Patrick's day; also a nice old Glen Garioch and a pedestrian Clynelish. But it seemed like a good time to save a few bucks and try a couple of blends that had previously caught my eye - I don't recall either of them being mentioned here much.

I'm not a big fan of blended scotch; I have occasionally regarded them as either harsh (the inexpensive ones) or bland (the other ones).

But in the last year-and-a-half or so I have begun to reconsider. I have tasted a few blends that I would prefer over many "bargain" single malts.

I've also noticed that an age statement means more to the consumer on a bottle of blended whisky than it does on a single malt. Lots of decent single malts have no age statement, like the Glenfarclas 105, but on a blend no age statement usually means there are some very young (36 month old) whiskies in the bottle - young grains if not young malts. That is where I imagine much of their harshness comes from.

So recently I noticed a couple of slightly obscure 12yo blends collecting dust and just wondered, "What would that bottle taste like?".

Duggans 12 Years Old 40% ABV I recently had an old Glen Garioch and noticed on the back a label from Duggans Distillery Products Corporation, which used to be the importer for Glen Garioch - currently it's imported by White Rock. I remembered a "Duggans 12yo" I had seen at one particular store, quite dusty and looking like it had been sitting there for years, and wondered if there was a connection. There was. It was bottled in Scotland for... Duggans Distillery Products Corporation!

(Duggans also has a 36 month blend, the whisky equivalent of jug wine, called "Duggans Dew", which I haven't tried and can't comment on. However, the Duggans Dew is blended and bottled in the USA , while the 12yo was blended and bottled in Scotland for Duggans.)

I bought it hoping that Glen Garioch might be a constituent malt since the company already had a relationship with Morrison Bowmore; and I was hoping I could pick out the GG flavor if it was.

It seemed to me GG was most certainly at the heart of this blend - it was full of characteristic Glen Garioch markers like the violet-lavender of modern production. Some very mild and neutral grains played very well with the dominant Glen Garioch base - if there was any Auchentoshan involved (which Duggans used to be the importer for as well) I wouldn't be able to tell, but I certainly found no Islay qualities so I would doubt there was much Bowmore involved (and I don't have an old Bowmore bottle to see if Duggans was ever the importer for this distillery, which seems likely). MB is also a blender, so they would surely have stocks of non-MB malts as well, but GG did seem to dominate, and I had two GG's open for comparison at the time.

Probably bottled in the mid-nineties and priced about 20 USD. (Locally most 12yo blends - JWB, Dewars, Famous Grouse etc. - go for 30 to 35.) Its metal screw top has a stylized logo of a distillery and six barrels in two 3-barrel pyramids. I know I've seen that logo on a cork or screw top somewhere... Bowmore maybe?

Whyte and MacKay 12 Years Old 43% ABV

Another dust collector, this one intrigued me. After my good experience with Duggans 12, I wondered if this Whyte & MacKay might contain a recognizable amount of Dalmore, which is owned by Whyte and MacKay.

The store in which I purchased this bottle has long used a computer program to track inventory. One of its features is to list the last date a particular sort of bottle was sold to a customer (so the restocking retailer can seperate slow-movers from no-movers). There was no listing, so the last time one of these was sold was before the system was installed. It's an oblong octoganal shaped bottle with a black label, the name in red letters, and a curious flared black plastic screw top. W&M 12 is still produced I believe, but it is no longer distributed locally. I've never seen it in any other store. I have no idea how old this particular bottle is.

While the Duggans seemed a simple GG blend (though nice), this is no simple Dalmore blend. This is a very complex whisky, quite robust for a blend. My first impression - and it was a bit of a surprise - was strong sherry, both in the nose and on the palate. I thought of the Dalmore Cigar Malt, looking for something to peg this flavor on, but I couldn't honestly say I found any Dalmore marker. And surprise again, the finish was rather peaty - much peatier than the typical blend - more like a mild Islay. The grains only announce themselves deep in the mid-palate as a curious sort of spicy sweetness unlike a typical single malt, and echo in what is an unusually long finish for a blend. This is a very nice bottle. For ordinary drinking, I would choose this over alot of bargain malts.

And it was even more of a bargain at 16 USD. Amazing. The same store had a W&M 21 year old, though it cost considerably more. Hhmmm...

Can anyone confirm / refute the Glen Garioch in Duggans 12yo?

Has anyone tasted either of these?

Good to be back online, Bart

Reply to
Bart
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I would be lucky to pick out any malt from a blend, unless it was pretty obvious, as the Glen Garioch in the Duggans 12 seemed to be.

And there I had several hints. The stylized distillery logo on the cap that I mentioned I've since found on the tops of some of the M-B products - just one more confirmation of the relationship of this blend bottled for Duggans and M-B.

(Of course if I'm wrong and there's no GG there at all that would be interesting too - and I'd learn something from it.)

(Duggans doesn't have any web prescence. I found a phone number for a corporate office but I can't imagine that whoever answers the phones would have any info on the constituents of a particular blend they sold the better part of a decade ago.)

All that time in wood after intial aging in the original casks seems to make this product less of an ordinary blend and more of a creation in its own right. It's certainly a very full-tasting blend, and pleasing to someone like myself who finds many blends to be mild and thin - essentially "blanded" whiskies.

I'll stand by the sherry, but partially recant on the peat. I posted "Two Interesting Blends" the night I opened the W&M as I was nearly finished with the Duggans. So my remarks on the Duggans was sort of a "considered opinion" while those on the W&M were more of a "first impression". I do get little whiffs of peat, especially in the finish, but "mild Islay" overstates the case. I'm just so pleased to find *any* peatiness in a blend that I wandered into a little unwitting exaggeration.

It was a glass bottle - sort of tear-drop flask shape like the old Balvenie bottles and has a heavy metal plate at the shoulder ("suitable for engraving"). Looked pretty fancy. Price was about 70 USD I believe. They had a bottle of the 30yo too, in a glass display case with some expensive cognacs. It wasn't priced - one of those "If you have to ask you can't afford it" sort of things. I had to ask. At a good bit over $300 I couldn't afford it, either. I've never seen any Whyte and MacKay blends in any other store in town and don't know how long they've sat there.

As ever, thanks for the info!

Bart

Reply to
Bart

regarding the Whyte & MacKay 21yo...

Actually price is closer to $80

and...

What I remembered as the W&M 30yo was actually the Ballantines 30yo.

The only W&M's I've seen are the 12yo and the 21yo.

Bart

Reply to
Bart

Why is Scotch whiskey made in USED barrels imported from the United States? It seems like barrels would mold and sour while in transport. Would this effect the taste quality of the Scotch whiskey? Why not just drink American made Kentucky Bourbon whiskey. It is made in NEW barrel, never in USED barrels.

Reply to
kyrustic

Hi Kyrustic

Scotch WHISKY is matured in used cask (not always x-bourbon!, but most frequently) because a fresh barrel would "destroy" a scotch, bourbon is apparently a "tougher" liquid and can stand it. So the reason is just that it's the way to get the best product. Used Sherry Casks are also very popular and Port, Madeira and Wine Casks are also used, often as finishes, that's a short final storage to give taste from the wines casks to the whisky. Bourbon Casks doesn't give any bourbon taste to a scotch, but sherry casks gives it a sherry taste A lot of Scotch single malts are actually a blend (When blending Malts the term is actually a vatting) of different cask, ie Glenfiddich 12y Special Old Reserve is a vat of bourbon cask (80%) and Sherry Casks (20%) if my memory is correct The cask are resused 2 or 3 times, but some destilleries will only use casks once

Casks are often separated before transported to Scotland and collected again. They are burned (charred) inside before reuse

MacDeffe

Reply to
Steffen Bräuner

On Mon, 31 May 2004 10:33:22 -0400, the alleged kyrustic, may have top-posted the following, to alt.drinks.scotch-whisky:

^ Ahemm... Some Scotch whisky is aged in Bourbon barrels. More is aged in other types of casks. As to why, to impart a flavo[u]r that the master- distiller has found to enhance the whisky.

Why would the barrels mold and sour in transport? Especially if they were full of Bourbon while being transported? Did you think that the Bourbon casks were shipped across the Atlantic Ocean empty?

^a

Bourbon whiskey and Scotch whisky are very different beasts.

Bourbon is made from more than a 50% corn (maize) mash and Scotch is made from

Reply to
Robert Crowe

TROLL

Reply to
Dreck Gilchrest

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