Weekly Whisky Auction Watch

Andy Simpson

12.02.2013

Another McTears passed us by last week in a blur of flying gavels and a little controversy.

It always fascinates me to see bottles from iconic distilleries claiming to be from either the late 1800’s or early 1900’s. These old relics of yesteryear occasionally appear at auction and undoubtedly attract a huge amount of attention. A bottle of Macallan, reported to have been distilled in 1900 and bottled in 1911 was withdrawn from sale following reports claiming it was a fake.

McTears did the right thing by removing it from the auction (pending provenance being proved) but it does make me wonder if any of these old bottles are genuine? I’m sure there are bottles somewhere that are the real deal; however, the vast majority I’ve seen, I just personally wouldn’t touch. It’ll certainly be interesting to see if the bottle is ever re-auctioned as having provenance being proved (as best as can be for these antiquities).

Of the bottles which did go under the hammer, there were some interesting results –

Macallan had two of their Anniversary Malt 25 year olds hit new records. The 1972 vintage sold for £750 and the non-vintage (still in the splintery wood box) sold for £600. Some years ago, I remember seeing the non-vintage bottle for sale in the Whisky Shop (Inverness) for £280 and walking away thinking it was too much. Not one of my better judgement calls!

A wonderful old 1964 Cadenheads bottling of 23 year old Bowmore sold for £750. The old dumpy Cadenheads bottles are achieving good results across the board, especially when they contain whisky from an iconic distillery.

Staying with Bowmore we also saw the joint lowest recorded sale value for one of the official 1955 vintage bottles. £3,200 looked to be a good deal for the buyer.

Another high value bottle to see a significant fall in value was the Glenfiddich 50 year old. Previous sale values have been in the £9,000 – £10,000 price band. It was indeed surprising to witness one sell for £6,000.

This weeks final mention goes to one of our many closed distilleries. A bottle of Signatory’s 1965 vintage ‘Silent Stills’ from Glen Albyn sold for a massive £550. In June 2008 a bottle sold for £150. Further evidence that silence is indeed golden!

Until next week.

Slainte,

Andy.

Exploring whisky with Dominic Roskrow

Welcome to our new W Club feature. The idea is to go on a long journey in to the very heart of whisky and what it is.

Each week Dominic will pick explore whisky in depth and explain why it’s the way it is. There’s going to be no roadmap, so we could be heading off anywhere in any given week. A particular whisky style might be analysed this week, a particular Scottish region the next. Dominic might look closely at rye at one point, and look at the importance of fermentation to the whisky making process at another. If a particular subject dominates the whisky news, we’ll head right over to it and dissect it.

AndDominic’s more than happy to answer questions and deal with issues of specific interest to W Club visitors and members.

We’ll also start a week by week glossary of terms, and A-Z of all things whisky, and if we needs to spend six weeks on one particular letter, so be it.

To get the ball rolling, Dominic looks at why Scotch whisky is doing so well worldwide at the moment.

(intro) Scotch whisky is booming and at the forefront of the surge in demand from a number of emerging markets. But what trends are driving this success?

If you want a snapshot of what’s going on in Scotch whisky right now , then stake a look at the steady flow of premium drinks releases over the last few months

Here, among the glitzy rums, fancy vodkas and imperious Cognacs are a growing number of Scotch whiskies  – and they represent an increasingly confident, stylish and impressive range of traditional Scotch given a makeover and all dressed up for a sparkling future.

Let’s start with blends. Yes, blends.  Whatever you might think or have been told, blended whisky is Scotch’s future. More than 90 per cent of Scotch whisky sales are in the blended category and that isn’t going to change any time soon.

In fact blends are the driving force behind the considerable expansion plans of our leading drinks companies and the the reason’s simple – if you want to grow the whisky category you can’t do it with a single malts. No distillery makes enough malt to meet a world demand. Blends on the other hand, are another matter.

The significant sector here is at the premium end of the blended market. Often seen as single malt whisky’s poor relation, particularly in traditional market places such as the United Kingdom, blended whisky is thriving in emerging markets that have no preconceptions. In countries such as Brazil, Venezuela, Colombia and Brazil are not moving from Scotch blends to single malts but to better blends and blends with an age statement.

Closer to home, The Whisky Shop is now at the forefront of a move to offer its customers something genuinely different. In the last year whisky releases exclusive to the group have given customers the chance to try something new and exciting.  Nor do you have to take out a mortgage to afford special whisky.

There are signs, too,  that another distinctive trend in Scotch is towards unaged whiskies where the emphasis is on taste. Part of this is driven by economic necessity, because the demand worldwide means whisky shortages, so the younger a distillery can sell its whisky, the quicker it can respond to demand pressures.

And while some would argue that we’re seeing a ‘dumbing down’ of standards, the biggest and best suppliers argue that they wouldn’t risk their reputation by selling inferior whisky, and point to advancements in cask standards and a greater understanding of the whisky making process to support the view that great whisky doesn’t necessarily mean old whisky.

The evidence is already there to back this view up. Laphroaig Quarter Cask is a peaty treat and more fiery than Laphroaig 10 Year Old, but significantly younger. Compass Box has consistently released whiskies over the last decade that are outstanding but without an age on them.

Whisky in general is in a good place at the moment. Scotch particularly so. Expect some excitement, some surprises and an awful lot of great whisky in the future.

Ones to watch

Grain whisky

Grain whisky is normally dismissed as malt whisky’s bigger but vastly inferior brother but this is a tad unfair. Grain whisky is the component of a blend which makes the drink smooth, sweet and soft, and it can’t boast the complexity or intensity of flavour of whisky made with malted barley.

Put it in a very good quality cask, however, and the results can be outstanding. The grain picks up all the flavours of the wood, making for some vibrant and colourful aged blends.

“It’s like painting with a blank canvas,” says Euan Shand of Duncan Taylor, which regularly markets award-winning aged grain whiskies.

“You can start with little and create works of art.”

Irish company Cooley has successfully launched a range of grains, and now it may well happen in Scotland. Not just at entry level either. Mahesh Patel, who stages the world’s richest whisky show, includes two grain in his range of four premium single cask whiskies. Whyte & Mackay is also thought to be planning a grain launch.

The other big advantage of grain is that it has the potential to attract 20 something year old drinkers because of its sweetness, and it has the potential to kickstart a wicked cocktail.

Blended malts

There’s nothing new about blended malt whisky. The old timers among us used to call the category ‘vatted malt whisky’ and it’s almost as old as Scotch itself, examples going back to the very earliest days of blending.

Blended malt whiskies are whiskies made using the spirit from various different distilleries. The category is different to blended whisky because there is no grain in the mix.

The category is important because it gives the whisky maker the chance to pursue unusual and exciting flavours and to present them to the customer in a modern, baggage-free way. Monkey Shoulder, for instance, is a mix of the malts from three different distilleries but its stylish packaging, unusual name and irreverent approach to marketing is miles away from the traditional image of malt whisky.

There have been several attempts in recent years to bring Scotch whisky to a new audience through the blended malt route, and Compass Box in particular has taken malt whisky in to new and exciting areas within the category. With more whiskies being released without an age statement and with a greater emphasis on flavor, many expect the blended malt whisky category to get a new lease of life.

What I liked last week

Peat for peat’s sake

At the risk of sounding spoilt, there are times in the life of a whisky writer when the samples start to build up and just about everything you taste is chosen for you and is ‘work.’

There are only so many samples you can taste and analyse properly on any given day, so when there are 30 or even 40 samples to work through, a great deal of focus and effort is required.

There are tougher ways to make a living, I know, but even so, there’s something really special about finishing the work and picking a whisky because you want to drink it. And it’s those moments when you realise which whiskies are your best friends.

After an intense four or five weeks of work, these last few days I’ve had just that pleasure. Among the work that is in the bag is the new issue of Whiskeria, out March 1. It’s not quite ready for the printers just yet, but make sure you get a copy when it’s out because it is quite possibly the best issue we’ve ever done. And in it, among a range of very special features, you’ll find my 35 tasting notes.

I’ve been tasting a lot of world whiskies recently, so it  was a joy to relax with some of my favourite malts. I’ve run out of BenRiach 17 year old Whisky Shop exclusive (note to self: sort it!) so this weekend my line up of whiskies included Glen Garioch Founder’s Reserve, Ardmore Traditional, Laphroaig Quarter Cask and Jura Prophecy. Peat for peat’s sake – and then some.

Opportunity Cnocs

It is great news that there is to be a new expression of Highland whisky an Cnoc. It’s a delightful malt at any age but  few whiskies wear their distillery DNA on their sleeve quite like this one,  with older expressions like brighter and richer versions of the 12 year old.

The new exp[ression is 22 years old – more of that in a moment – but the news was accompanied by the announcement that a limited amount of 16 year old anCnoc is also going to be back on the shelves. Now we’re talking! This is an absolute beauty of a whisky and I can’t wait to reacquaint myself with a much missed favourite.

I was sent a sample of the new 22 year old – though for some reason the public relations company sent it not to me but to Archant, the publishers of Whiskeria. So I wasn’t best pleased by the fact that I had to go and pick it up on a freezing, snowy day in Norfolk. And to make matters worse, the trains were late on the way back.

So I thought I’d take a quick taste of my new whisky sample. It was gorgeous. So I had another swig. And another. By the time the train had arrived and I’d travelled  the 15 minutes it takes to reach my local station, my whisky had all gone. So I had to get my tasting book out of my bag and  sit on the empty platform in the freezing cold and write my tasting notes.

Surprise, surprise – I used the word ‘more-ish’ in my review.

King Richard

Richards played a big part of my week last week.

The discovery of Richard III’s remains in a car park of my home city of Leicester means that if you  add in Engelbert Humperdinck that makes me only the third least liked person from the city.

But the Richard that impacted on me most last week was Richard Paterson, whisky maker and master blender at Whyte & Mackay. It started with a somewhat bizarre telephone call from the industry’s most entertaining whisky presenter and ended with an hour long private tasting with him on the telephone on Sunday morning.

Richard had heard that I was to be given three very old samples of his whisky by a company wanting an opinion as to whether it should buy all three casks. As we’re talking whisky between 46 and 50 years old, that’s hundreds of thousands of pounds of business and a lot of responsibility on me. Richard wanted to make sure I was approaching them from the right angle.

Trouble was, I knew nothing about the plan – or where my name came in to it. So Richard went away more than a little bewildered.

Ten minutes later an email arrived  offering me the work and stating that the samples would be delivered Saturday or Monday. Then the phone rang again and it was Richard announcing he was about to fly to Siberia and could I get the samples through by Saturdasy so he could go through them with me.

They were couriered over to me on Saturday, Richard called Sunday morning, and so it was that I spent a delightful hour listening to the great man talk of scary plane journeys, the occasional drunken heckler at tasting events and lots of other things. And he told me the stories of the three remarkable whiskies I had sample of.

Were they any good? They were excellent. But I didn’t need Richard to tell me that. After all, he had selected the casks in the first place and released them for bottling because he considered them ready. That’s good enough for me.

One final comment. Before you get the view that the life of a whisky ambassador is all glamour, consider this. Richard was up this morning before dawn in snowy Glasgow to start a three plane, 24 hour journey to Siberia where it is  -32c. What a nightmare.

The Dalmore is a sleeping giant but it’s starting to stir. Dominic Roskrow visited one of Scotland’s strangest distilleries

Early summer in the Highlands, and the scene outside the distillery is one of utter tranquillity.

The tide’s out so Cromarty Firth is a mass of sand dune and rivulets. A watery sun casts shadows across the estuary where sea birds are feeding at what turns out to be the end of one of the distillery’s waste water pipes, where fish are attracted by the protein and warmer water. Two boys nonchalantly throw stones in to the water. All, it seems, is well with the world. But not for long.

“We’re all doomed,” someone bellows from the still room in their best Fraser-like manner. There’s a cackle of laughter,  a flurry of activity and a couple of shouts, and then silence falls once more like the whole incident never happened. Welcome to the eccentric world that is the Dalmore Distillery.

It might look like a beacon or serenity with its battered Highland stone walls and imposing coastal facade, but you don’t have to go very beneath the surface to discover that working at the distillery is akin to steering a speedboat through a gale. There are distilleries where the stillman turns up, presses some buttons and sits back with one eye on the computer screen and the other on the day’s sport pages, but Dalmore isn’t one of them.

Making spirit here is an edge of the seat experience, a daily challenge to tame the distillery’s production quirks and to sidestep the restraints nature imposes on it because of its location. Optimists would say there’s never a dull moment;  pessimists, that making malt is a pain in the proverbial butt.  No-one questions whether it’s worth it, though. It’s what makes The Dalmore what it is.

We don’t hear nearly enough about The Dalmore. It is arguably Scotland’s biggest sleeping giant, a spirit that ages better than almost any other malt and has commanded some of the highest prices ever paid for a bottle of whisky. It is characterised by its luxury and quality.

It is the best whisky in the Whyte & Mackay stable, but a succession of management changes and conflicting business strategies have done it few favours. The whisky exudes style and panache but it is rarely mentioned in conversations about iconic malts. And it should be.

Now, it seems, it might be set for a place in the sun. When Indian businessman Vijay Mallya purchased Whyte & Mackay he could afford to be sentimental about acquiring Isle of Jura – it was his father’s favourite malt – but his business head will have been focused on The Dalmore.  The Dalmore range has been crying out for a reappraisal, and now it’s getting it.

And so it is that I’m at the distillery with David Robertson, the former distiller at The Macallan and the man now charged with putting The Dalmore to the fore in the premium whisky sector and with re-introducing it to serious malt drinkers across the world. And he’s about to try and explain exactly why distillation  here is such a challenging and complex experience.

First, though, there’s the small matter of the sudden rush of panic that greeted us as we arrived. There is concern over the distillery’s water supply, but at Dalmore there’s always concern over the water supply. It is one of the first distilleries to be forced to close in times of drought. Last year it shut in early spring because of the lack of snow in the Highlands, though a wet summer saved it.

And it lives on a constant knife edge. Indeed as we stand outside the distillery buildings where the spring water enters the distillery  we can see the water levels fall in the concrete waterways that guide the valuable resource through the plant. A wet water mark of about 15 centimetres shows how rapidly the levels have fallen. It’s like watching a canal lock empty.

The reason is a simple one. All the distillery’s water comes from a reservoir above the distillery and must travel over the top of a wall before descending down the hill and in to the distillery. When the water levels up there fall below the height of the wall the water just stops.

But that’s just the start of the problems because even with plentiful water this is no easy ride, and the reason is contained in the still room. Nothing can quite prepare you for it. It comprises two groups  four stills are separated by a walkway and it’s clear at once that there can be no neat pairing of wash and spirit stills, or a uniform approach to distillation.

The four wash stills are a mix of shapes and sizes but you can see they are related because they have curious flat tops rather than swan necks. In stark contrast the spirits stills are more ordered but stand out as unique because they are coated in copper water jackets.

“This allows cold water to be passed over the outside of the copper,” David Robertson explains. “This helps reflux take place, increasing the amount of vapour that is turned back to liquid rather than pass through the system. The system ensures that the heavier and less positively aromatic spirits are returned to the bottom of the still.”

The mix of wash stills and the unusual cooling system are crucial to the development of the new spirit, which is complex and multi-layered with flavour. But the array of wash still sizes create a challenge to the still man here, and it’s compounded by the way the spirits stills are charged.

“After the first distillation the low wines from all four wash stills goes in to one receiver,” explains David. “The recycled portions from the spirits stills are also stored here. Whenever a spirit still needs filling for the next distillation it will take its charge from this holding tank, no matter what’s in there. But this makes it very complex.”

In practice the contents of the receiver will vary widely in alcoholic strength and it’s a hit and miss affair.  What if, for instance, all four spirit stills are recycling foreshots at the same time? If low wines from the wash still with an ABV of 21% are mixed with the strong foreshots from the previous distillations, the mix will enter the spirits still at a relatively high strength. If, on the other hand,  they are mixed with a high proportion of the relatively weak feints, the strength will be much lower.

It’s like throwing four dice: the scores will tend to even themselves out and fall between 12 and 20, but it is possible for a 24 to come up, or a four.

The end result of all this is that the spirit coming off the still does so at a range of different strengths, making the still man’s job a little like trying to fly a kite in a gale. And it’s possible to have a blank run – when the spirits charge has metaphorically thrown a four and even the very earliest foreshots barely reach the cutting strength, making the middle cut too weak to make collecting it worthwhile.

It’s a strange, archaic and demanding system but it not only works but it produces an oral rainbow of a spirit, one that is complex and aromatic but which can withstand long periods of maturation.

No less care is taken with cask selection, either, and a mix of first fill bourbon casks and aged sherry casks from the bodegas of Gonzalez Byass ensure that the quality of The Dalmore is never compromised.

And it’s just got better. As part of the repositioning exercise master blender Richard Paterson was given free rein to reinvent the Dalmore range and he has so with some aplomb. There are six bottling in the new range, from 12 years old to 40, and only one of them is anything less than truly exceptional.  What started life as a feisty stallion of a malt has been groomed to perfection, and through stylish and luxurious packaging it has been dressed up as a thoroughbred.

The famous Royal stag emblem, bequeathed to the distillery’s owners by Alexander III after one of their clan saved him from a stag during a hunting incident some 750 years ago,  is now highlighted but the bell-shaped bottles give the range a sense of style and gravitas.

Now  David Robertson and his team are targeting the luxury market to put The Dalmore firmly back on the map. in the luxury market. He makes no bones about it occupying the very top end of the premium whisky market, with the 12 Year Old retailing at about £35, and the new 40 year climbing above the £1350 mark.

Anyone who has met David Robertson or Richard Paterson will know they’re not above gimmicks and having fun with their stock, either. In one of the warehouses there is a small sealed off area where some 60 year old plus whisky is being held. Expect to hear more about it later this year as Whyte & Mackay sets about breaking price records. Quite what they’ll do with it remains a mystery but no hair-brained scheme has been counted out yet, so undoubtedly it’ll be spectacular.

“If you look at the way all luxury goods are promoted then it’s normal to focus on the very exclusive top of the range items,” Robertson says. “You highlight the most expensive and luxurious BMWs in the hope that people will aspire to that but buy a car from a lower series because they want to be associated with the brand. So it should be with luxury whisky.”

These are exciting times for The Dalmore, and the deep-set company cynicism seems to have thawed as quickly as this year’s winter snow did. As we wander back through the distillery towards  the offices to taste the new range the silence has returned. There is no further  shouting from the still room. No more panic. The water levels seem to have steadied.

They’re all doomed? The Dalmore? Who do you think you are kidding…

TASTING NOTES

The Dalmore 12   40%

Nose: Fresh oranges, some berry fruits, cake mix.

Palate:  Very clean, with blood oranges red fruits and spices

Finish: Medium and warming

Gran Reserva   40%

Nose: Lemon and orange peel, tangy and more spice, dry fruits

Palate: Fuller on the mouth than the 12 year old, with orange marmalade, wood and spices

Finish: Rich and lingering

The Dalmore 15 year old 40%

Nose: Sherry, juicy raisins, church polish like a church on Easter Sunday morning

Palate: Bucket-loads of citrus and rich fruit, vanilla, cinnamon and sweet spices

Finish: A heady three way battle between fruit, tannins and spices

The 1263 King Alexander 111 40%

Nose: This is made with whisky from oloroso sherry casks, Madeira buts, vintage bourbon barrels and Cabernet Sauvignon barriques. It smells like it. Loads going on with lots of red fruit, vanilla, plum, red liquorice. Amazing.

Palate; definite orange but lots of stewed fruits too, with the red liquorice showing up and some maraschino cherry notes

Finish: Superbly put together. There’s a lovely rounded quality to itand a nice hint of wood. It isn’t in any hurry to leave, either

The 1973 Cabernet Sauvignon  45%

Nose: Oddly restrained with an almost musty note. Quite floral

Palate: Again, not as assertive as you might expect. Grapes, prunes, vanilla and liquorice all popping up in the mix

Finish: Medium, fairly fruity and a touch of wine and wood

The 40    40%

Nose: Rich orange and currants, pruney, venerable

Palate: Remarkably light-footed for its age, but with plum, oranges, nutmeg and dark chocolate. Wonderful

Finish Long, warming and stunning

Two unique and amazing W Club whisky tastings have gone down a treat with locals of the Guildford and London Whisky Shops.

Guildford broke the record for most amount of people crammed into their shop at the same time. A total of 53 people took part in a tasting hosted by Ben Matthews.

Ben was on our “W” Club tasting panel last year and writes “littletipple.com” blog.He is also a dentist, photographer and musician. The whiskies tasted can be seen below with some top tasting notes included…

London Paternoster also showed why it is regarded as one of the finest tasting venues in the UK with a spectacular tasting featuring Colin Dunn of Diageo! a full house of 24 customers and tasted five from the Distiller’s Edition range – Clynelish, Oban, Cragganmore, Talisker & Lagavulin.  In a refreshing way, Colin got everyone to nose each whisky before asking them to vote for which one to start with – the winner was Clynelish.  He told customers about the philosophy behind the DE brand and told many stories and anecdotes!

Matt the store manager in London added;

‘I have to say that it was the most captivated that I have seen a crowd at the shop and four or five regulars commented that it was the best tasting they had ever attended at the store.  Colin brought the whiskies to life – this included pairing the Talisker with dark 70% chocolate and an impromptu sampling of the Lagavulin outside in the cold February evening air (a first I think?).  Both worked a treat.’

Picture of the day has to go to Matt in London also with this stunning effort…

Many thanks to Lynn and Matt our store managers for the reports on two great W Club tastings. If you would like to come along to one of our tastings please contact our store managers directly you can see the contact details listed below.

http://www.whiskyshop.com/Contacts/StoreLocations.aspx

Dominic Roskrow travelled to Speyside to speak to the Balvenie Distillery about their whisky.

Weekly Whisky Auction Watch

Andy Simpson

05.02.2013

I mentioned the recent Macallan Easter Elchies (distillery exclusive) cask recently, in that it sold out before it hit the shelves. No surprise then to see an early bird hitting the auction market. Scotch Whisky Auctions sold the first one on the open market in the UK for £860. A simply staggering amount and some £700 more than its retail price.

I appreciate demand is high for these bottles; however, I can see prices coming down once supply increases.

Other highlights under the hammer at SWA were –

An Ardbeg “Lord Robertson” bottle sold for £780. I remember getting one of these on release day. I called the distillery at 10:00 and managed to secure a bottle. By around 11:00, I started to hear it had sold out. When demand is so high, it’s not difficult to see why values have increased so much.

Staying on Islay, Bowmore saw a 2012 1985 vintage Feis Ile bottle sell for £700 and a Bunnahabhain 1966 vintage 35 year old hit the hammer for £440. The Bunnahabhain was selling for exactly half that amount in 2009.

Anything that had “Lagavulin” and “Distillers Edition” on it seemed to fly, with virtually all bottles sold seeing new records.

Moving away from Islay, Balvenie’s TUN1401 series continued to perform well with three bottles of ‘batch 3’ all selling for over £500. A little conversely, ‘batch 2’ bottles settled back down to around £200.

Silent distilleries bore witness to further significant growth –

-          The official bottling of Brora 25 year old sold for £350. It’s first time over £300.

-          A brace of rare Douglas Laing bottles hit new highs when a Glenlochy 1952 vintage 49 year old sold for £700 and a Lochside 1966 vintage 35 year old sold for £310. Both these bottles have shown impressive growth over recent years.

-          Interest in Convalmore seems to have just started to increase as an official bottling 1977 vintage sold for £210, it’s first time over £200. Possibly one to watch?

Not everything sold for record prices and where supply was exceptionally high there were still some good deals. Certain bottles finished far lower than recent endeavours. Many of the Ardbeg special releases (Galileo, Alligator etc) saw a relatively large dip in recent values, as did many Bruichladdich bottles. Most of the Valinches (the 50cl distillery only bottles) sold for record lows.

Broadly speaking, values are still buoyant although cracks are appearing in certain areas of the market. With McTears and Whisky-Online Auctions drawing to a close this week, I suspect there’ll be plenty to keep bidders happy.

Until next week.

Slainte,

I introduced Golden Shots a while ago when i thought I’d exhausted the list of whiskies suitable for the ‘Old Flames’ series, which featured the malts responsible for introducing people to the delights of whisky.

But I somehow seem to have overlooked this week’s choice, which will have been the first love of many a malt drinker, and has probably stayed close to the top of their lists ever since. Thankfully it sits as easily in the Golden Shots category, too.

Golden Shots is all about the great whiskies which don’t cost a fortune. If you’re a fan of whisky you’ll know that there are all sorts of writers and bloggers getting excited about new, rare and incredibly expensive releases, most of which we can’t afford and will never taste. It’s one of whiskies greatest ironies that a product which takes so long to make and which should be savoured slowly has become such a  disposable commodity for whisky writers and bloggers.

So Golden Shots is all about going back to some of the whiskies which first got us excited about whisky, and which we may have forgotten about. Whiskies which warrant rediscovery and don’t require a mortgage to buy.

This week’s choice is as good an example as you will find in this category: Highland Park 12 Years Old

It’s pretty wild on the Orkney Isles. The winds gust almost constantly, the weather is mild but oppressive, and it rains a lot. You have to be a bit mad to live and survive there,  and indeed, even the seagulls are a bit crazy, spending hours battling  against the wind and then letting themselves go so that they zoom hundreds of metres on the currents.

There are few trees on the islands and the landscape is open and other-worldly. It is never less than dramatic, it is littered with historical signposts, and it has the ability to overwhelm, its air seemly drenched in spirituality and laden with spirits of dead warriors of by-gone centuries.

It is no place for the faint-hearted and yet great beauty is concealed among its rugged facade. And the two distilleries here reflect the mix of beauty and ruggedness so typical in these collection of islands.

Highland Park in particular is a surprisingly diverse distillery, with an impressive range of tastes and styles. But they are linked together by some  distinctive distillery characteristics, and although different expressions are matured in totally different ways, each Highland Park has a distinctive DNA that is as Orcadian as any of the standing stones or Pictish sites littered across the islands.

Highland Park 12 is the entry level malt and if you’re not sure what to buy someone it’s as good a choice as any because it’s a complete all rounder, offering the drinker a  balanced mix of fruit, spice, peat, oak and honey. If it has a weakness it’s that is a little bit polite, but there’s a ruggedness to it which gives it personality, and there’s a warming, pleasing element to it that suits the place it comes from. It’s a great starting point whisky: a good malt both to begin any exploration of malts of the islands, and to introduce the drinker to the Highland Park style. Identify which part of the taste you particularly like and chances are there’s another Highland Park expression which highlights that taste. It’s a gem. And rich in colour and flavour it really is a a shot of golden. The ultimate golden shot. Now why on earth didn’t we think of it earlier?

29/01/13

Andy Simpson

Crystal Whisky Balls.

It’s great to look back with absolute clarity and 20:20 vision. 2012 was indeed a year worth looking back upon; in whisky terms anyway. Continued growth in values saw whisky continue to outperform many other asset classes as an investment. But what of the future? What does 2013 look like for collectable and investment grade whisky?

Here’s my somewhat tongue in cheek view.

Firstly, the big one!

We’ve seen bottles of whisky sell for in excess of £100,000 in increasing numbers over the past couple of years, so when’s someone going to go large? I mean proper all out, guns a’blazin’ and hit the million? Surely, someone somewhere in the deepest darkest depths of the brightest ‘blue sky’ marketing departments has already crafted a plan more cunning than a Highland plumber in a bonded warehouse with a pipe and an empty lemonade bottle (it happened!).

“£100,000’s so passé now, we need big, we need bold, we need MORE!”….. I can just hear it now.

Who would release such a bottle?

If it were to happen, I could speculate it may be from a distillery starting with ‘M’…. no, not Miltonduff! Or possibly ‘D’ …. Not Dailuaine either! In light of recent releases maybe even a ‘B’? What about something from a ‘Glen’, there are plenty of those.

Would it even be a bottle of single malt as I’m hypothesising above?

Blended Scotch has seen bottles released recently which have broken the £100k mark from a retail perspective. A blend of the very oldest whisky in existence could be presented in a hand blown Bugatti Veyron, ladled with pink, white, yellow, amber, black, and green diamonds, personally delivered by the Queen. Could it be housed in a villa in Spain? Not very easy to transport then!

I think it falls under the label of ‘improbable possibilities’; unlikely but not to be ruled out. I laughed a few years ago when someone said there would be a bottle for sale for just £100,000, what did I know.

Onto (slightly) more sensible musings.

There will inevitably be a number of releases which have great potential to see future increases in value. Here’s my view on a few to look out for –

Ardbeg – Have seen great success and a significant increase in values with their special releases. Their recent releases of Alligator, Ardbeg Day, Galileo and Rollercoaster have all experienced good growth from relatively modest retail prices. There should be something else this year. The 2013 Feis Ile will undoubtedly see a myriad of limited releases, of which Ardbeg should be right up there.

Other festival bottles which are usually strong performers are Bowmore and Lagavulin.

Lagavulin – The 2011 and 2012 Islay Jazz festival bottles have rocketed in price recently. If you can find one, the 2011 bottle (£80 original retail price) now sells for £400 – £500. I’d strongly suspect there will be another for this years event (unconfirmed dates are the 14^th to the 16^th of September). You have to go to the festival to get a bottle, but if you like Jazz then I’m sure that’ll be no hardship.

Balvenie – The continuing success of the ‘Tun1401’ releases look set to continue as we see a travel retail exclusive 7^th release. The follow up to the wildly successful Craftsman’s ‘The Cooper’ is also due this year. The Cooper originally retailed for £65 and now sells for around £300.

Glenfiddich – The now familiar tin presentation boxes (Snow Phoenix and 125^th Anniversary) seem to show a continuing trend from a packaging perspective. Will we see another special release in a similar sort of packaging to continue the collection? These well priced bottles always seem to perform admirably on the secondary market in spite of their relatively large release numbers.

Macallan – The 5^th Easter Elchies cask release sold out before it could even sniff the distillery, let alone see a stock cupboard. The previous ‘distillery exclusive’ releases, the seasonal casks, saw 5 releases before being discontinued and replaced by the current multi coloured limited editions. Noting we’ve now seen the 5^th Easter Elchies release, will Macallan replace and renew or are they going for a ‘full rainbow’ with the colourful Easter Elchies releases?

Dalmore – All’s been quiet on the high end Dalmore front since Constellations was unveiled last year. Not a company for sitting still, I suspect much scheming and plotting is going on behind closed doors at Whyte & MacKay for their next uber premium release. Trinitas saw just three bottles released. Will we get two bottles with ‘Duotas’ and one with ‘Unotas’? There you go, if you’re reading this and you’re in the brand team from Whyte and MacKay, this one’s on me…. No charge for these ideas!

Port Ellen – Ahhhh, Port Ellen. The rumour mill has started in earnest about this years release and I’m not going to add fuel to those fires here. I do think there will be an annual release, I do think it will be more expensive than the 2012 release and I do think it’ll still sell out in the blink of an eye too. Indie bottles of Port Ellen are also drying up. Very few releases and ever decreasing stocks should see continued upwards pressure on values for virtually any bottle you can find.

In terms of other rarities to look out for, I still maintain Rosebank and St. Magdalene look like good opportunities in the current market as they haven’t seen such dramatic increases in value. Anything at all from Brora should represent an opportunity, especially noting the official bottles of 30 year old can still occasionally be picked up for around £300.

There are undoubtedly too many other bottles to pick out and mention in this one article and I’ll keep reporting any interesting emerging trends.

So, if you’ve got a spare million pounds burning a hole in your pocket, sit tight, you just may be able to spend it on 70 cl of something rather special…. The question is will it be worth it? As usual, only time will tell!

Until next time,

Slainte.

Andy

Haggis, nips and tatties!

Inverness W Club nights are normally held on the last Friday of the month.  When we realised this would fall on Burns night in January, we knew we had to make an effort to mark the occasion in style!

The club night was well attended, with around 35 members braving the elements on a driech January night – thanks to all who came and a special hello to new members Ian, Coinneach and Heather.  As usual club members old and new soon got acquainted and a lovely relaxed jovial atmosphere prevailed.  We decided to go with a West Coast theme, and the welcome dram was the Tobermory 10 yr old – at 46.3% a higher strength single malt with a rich island character.  Tobermory is the only distillery on the island of Mull, and legend has it the islanders created the pale gold ‘water of life’ to bring good luck to all whose lips it passed!

Our members were then treated to a tasting of both the Burns malt and blend from the Isle of Arran distillery.  The Burns single malt is bottled at 43%, and was made to be something of a recreation of the lowland malts that Scotland’s favourite son would have sampled himself in his day – smooth, malty and sweet, with a delicious spicy twist on the finish.

The blend, also bottled under the Burns label from Arran, is a breath of fresh air; light and subtle with hints of vanilla and sweet fruits, and is a superb example of the master blenders’ art.

Club members then travelled back up to the top end of the shop on our wee path of whisky discovery to sample the delights of Kilchoman single malt – from the newest distillery on Islay!  The farm distillery was founded in 2005 and the single malt produced is uniquely Islay.  A good proportion of the barley used in production is grown and malted at this, one of the smallest distilleries in Scotland.  The 2012 release is 3 years old, matured in first fill bourbon barrels and finished in Olorosso sherry butts.  This is a classic Islay malt – fresh and peaty with a long lingering finish.

At this point the Inverness pipe band marched past the shop in full swing – concidence?!  There was however an alterior motive for our winding path of discovery through the shop – we had a surprise for our members!While our members were otherwise pleasantly distracted (!), this allowed our own Anna to prepare and produce a surprise veritable feast of haggis, neeps and tatties in a whisky shop pop-up bistro at the far end of the shop!  The food was splendid and club members showed their appreciation of Anna’s hard work and excellent cooking skills with a well deserved round of applause.  Many went back for seconds including club member Noel, from Cuba.  We were glad his first experience of ‘the haggie’ as he called it, was such a delight.  To accompany the traditional Burns night food, our last dram of the night was the Ledaig 9 yr old, straight from the shop cask.

Ledaig is also produced by Tobermory distillery, and is a wonderfully peated single malt matured in superior oak wood casks.  On the nose its’ sweet smokiness is reminiscent of a bonfire on a beach  Mull’s only distillery has changed its’ name from Tobermory to Ledaig and back over the centuries, but by sampling both, one at the beginning and one at the end of the evening, our journey of discovery had come full circle.

No official poetry reading was needed as the shop was full of banter the bard himself would have been proud of in an Inverness ‘come dram with me’ special.  Many thanks again to all those who attended and made the evening such a pleasure.  Slainte!