Part 6 : Trial by jury

Tastings have been vital to Whisky Magazine since the very first issue. Here consultant editor Michael Jackson explains the criteria he uses when assessing a whisky, and what he considers whenmarking out of ten

How does one unravel the flavours of whisky? How does one pin down in mere words (and worse, marks out of ten) the flavours and aromas, from ginger to cedar to hay; lavender to juniper; marzipan to pepper, that make up this most deliciously complex, teasing and satisfying of drinks?
Of course, it can’t really be done; and yet I have to try. When I appraise a whisky in print, my first concern is to build up a description. You may not wholly agree with what I find, but it will have been the result of thorough nosing and tasting on my part, and a careful effort to find the right words. What follows is an account of my tasting criteria for the notes on New Releases that follow; my fellow-taster Jim Murray may well disagree with me on some points, but at least then you will know that we each have our own prejudices.
I use a tall, clear glass, shaped like a tulip or a sherry copita, to highlight colour and retain aroma. I pour the whisky at room temperature and initially sample the whiskies neat, because I wish to describe the body, texture and mouthfeel of each. I will then dilute each slightly, nosing and tasting for a second time. The purpose of this is to note the effects of the water as it opens up the whiskies. Sometimes I will make several degrees of dilution as I seek the most individual aromas and flavours of a particular malt. In all whiskies, I am looking for aroma, flavour, complexity and harmony, but never, ever blandness.
The finest whiskies have an interesting colour (the more subtle it is the harder it is to describe); a tempting aroma; teasing flavours, developing with each mouthful; an enjoyable texture (whether delicate or rich) and a long finish (I want to savour the pleasure, not forget what I have just sampled). If the colour is dark, I expect that to be echoed in some sherry-wood flavours (or, these days, perhaps the flavours of wood from port or Madeira casks), not in burnt-sugar caramel notes. I also expect the aroma to be echoed on the palate but, again, in a complex of flavours. I prefer outlining merits to pondering flaws, but would certainly not favour a whisky that was raw and aggressive, that collapsed in the middle or fell away in the finish. These are faults of structure.
In analyzing the aromas and flavours of whiskies, people who work in the industry often seem preoccupied with defects. They sometimes use very negative descriptors: ‘rubbery’, ‘cooked vegetables’ and ‘fecal’, for example. Whiskies can also manifest biscuity flavours (from the malt), clover notes (picked up by the water), smoky fragrances (imparted during the kilning of the malt), fruity characteristics (perhaps coming from the yeast during fermentation), hints of vanilla (from the wood), apricot (from sherry casks) and mint (arising from reactions during maturation).
If it is a blended Scotch it should have enough complexity to suggest that someone took trouble over assembling the component whiskies. What about single malt Scotches? If there were a perfect malt (or beer, or wine, or cheese), we would need only the one. I do not want them all to taste the same. Food and drink should know its own mind, and reflect its own origins. If it is a Lowlander, I am looking for a clean, grassy, barley-malt character; a Highlander might be expected to be more flowery; a coastal malt more salty; an islander seaweedy. An Irish whiskey should have some of the leathery suggestions of unmalted barley; a Canadian the spiciness of rye; a Bourbon the sweetness of corn and new oak; a Tennessee whiskey a hint of charcoal. It is when these elements sing through, without the whisky being one-dimensional, that my interest becomes more deeply engaged.
These are some of my benchmarks: The Famous Grouse is a beautifully-balanced blend but with notably enjoyable wood character. Johnnie Walker Black Label is hugely complex and with a distinct hint of peppery Talisker. As a Lowlander, Auchentoshan has a lemon-grass barley note, while Glenkinchie’s is drier and spicier. The Glenlivet has, to my nose and palate, a peachy floweriness, Glen Grant more hazelnut; Clynelish a mustard-cress suggestion of seaweed, Laphroaig more iodine. Wild Turkey has a robust Bourbon character, Maker’s Mark a smoother interpretation.All of these factors contribute to the final score. For Whisky Magazine I mark out of ten, with a mark of five indicating that yes, this is a whisky. I rarely score below six. A score of seven indicates a pleasant whisky; one of eight something exceptional, one of nine a great whisky. As for a ten.

Part 5 : Whisky classification by flavour

In the final part of his nosing course, Charles MacLean suggests thatclassifying malts by region has little meaning. Classification by flavour is more useful: but how on earth do you do it?

Traditionally, malt whiskies have been classified by region: first Highland / Lowland, then Highland / Lowland / Islay / Campbeltown / Speyside, then a proliferation ofsub-divisions of Highland and Speyside. The original division – and to an extent the later sub-divisions – discerned differences in the flavour, style and character to be found in the various regions. Such a break-down was seized upon by writers in the 1980s, when malt whisky began to be more widely appreciated, since it was a convenient way of communicating the virtues of single malt, distinguishing it from blended whisky and begging comparison (for the consumer) with fine wine.
With greater understanding of the influence of production and maturation upon flavour – to some extent inspired by the demand forsingle malts – it has become possible to produce malts with similar characteristics almost anywhere in Scotland.
But not quite anywhere. The essential distillery character is unchangeable. But you can easily alter the degree of peating of the malt. You can extend your fermentation times; alter your distilling programme. Vary the wood in which you mature your whisky: has it not been said that this can contribute up to 80 per cent of the mature product?
So where are your regional differences now, when Islay-style whiskies can –theoretically, at least – be produced on Speyside? And with the increasing interest in individual cask bottlings (which emphasise the difference between one cask and the next), the stress on region becomes secondary to that on wood. There might be other systems of classification more helpful to the consumer who asks, ‘if I like this malt, which others will appeal to me?’
‘I classify the malts I use in terms of their style and opulence,’ says Richard Paterson, Master Blender for JBB ( Greater Europe) whose best-selling blend is Whyte & Mackay. ‘I use the traditional four-way regional division [Highland, Lowland, Islay, Campbeltown] and I split my Highlands into heavy, medium, light and floral. The division of Highland malts into First, Second and Third class, is poppycock. It’s a beginners guide, and I doubt whether any blenders follow it today. Dalmore, one of my malts, is every bit as good as a Top Class Speyside for blending purposes.
‘The individual casks in which the whiskies have matured – especially ex-sherry casks – will influence where I marshall the malts; the classification is not rigorous or necessarily consistent. For me, the important things are how the constituents work together, and how they combine after a period of time, the marrying period.
‘Selection and classification all depend upon what style of blend you want to create. It is a very personal overview, based on an understanding of the contribution likely to be made by individual whiskies to the overall effect.’
John Ramsay, who is responsible for The Famous Grouse, Cutty Sark and Lang’s Supreme, agrees. ‘I am not influenced by the traditional geographical classifications. I go on weight and flavour; the character of the new make and the kind of wood it has been matured in – Spanish or American oak; sherry or bourbon or refill casks. I will group the product of a single distillery differently, according to how it has been matured.
‘For example, I use Glengoyne in all my blends, but will specify all Spanish oak for Lang’s, three parts Spanish to two parts American for Grouse and one part Spanish to four parts American oak for Cutty Sark।In my view, regional styles are not helpful: Glengarioch can work like an Islay in a blend; Bunnahabhain like a Speyside, and so on. If I want to create a new blend with a certain character, I know which malts, in which woods, are most likely to deliver that character – and they might come from all over Scotland.’
Some blenders use a simple ‘phenol and ester’ rating for their filling malts, not unlike that produced by John Lamond and Robin Tucek in The Malt Whisky File (1995), where they gave a ‘sweetness’ and ‘peatiness’ score out of ten for all the malts considered. ‘The ratings are a statement of fact,’ they say in their introduction, ‘a guide to help you find those malt whiskies which are most akin to your own taste. If, for example, you like a malt with a sweetness factor of seven and a peatiness factor of four, then those other malts which have a similar rating should be of interest to your palate.’
There have been other attempts by the Scotch whisky industry and by liquor retailers to provide simple flavour guides for perplexed consumers. None of them have worked, and many consumers remain confused. For example, four years ago United Distillers embarked upon a complex research programme, codenamed Project Huxley, with the laudible task of coming up with a simple way of classifying both malt and blended whiskies. If memory serves they measured what they termed ‘intensity’ on an A-J scale, categorising whiskies as ‘light’, ‘medium’ and ‘full’. ‘Intensity’ was defined as the ‘overall drinking experience, from the enjoyment of the colour of the whisky to its aftertaste’, in spite of the fact that it has a somewhat different meaning to sensory scientists. This did not solve the problem.
Clearly, classification by character, style or flavour is more useful to the consumer than mere geographical grouping. The most exhaustive attempt to do this was made last year by Dr David Wishart, a designer of statistical software, using a statistical method known as ‘cluster analysis’ to classify malt whiskies.
Although originally developed for studies in biological taxonomy, cluster analysis can also be used for market analysis. Dr Wishart’s classification is provisional and on-going. He is keen to have your comments on his findings to date, so please let us know your views and we will pass them on to him.
How it works is this. Dr Wishart analysed the descriptive terms used in eight current books to describe 85 readily available single malts in proprietory bottlings at around ten years old.
A vocabulary of some 800 aromatic and taste descriptors was compiled. These words were then bundled into a number of flavour/aroma groups: sweet, peaty, smoky, medicinal, honeyed, spicy, sherried, nutty, cereally, fruity and floral. Each of the 85 malts was ‘consensus coded’ (2 where a majority of authors agreed, 1 where a minority agreed, 0 otherwise) according to the number of times a descriptor was applied to it.
Using his Clustan software, Dr Wishart then classified the 85 malts into ‘clusters’, each having broadly similar taste characteristics.
The result is what’s called a ‘hierarchical classification tree’ in which the 85 malts have been ordered and classed into a kind of taxonomy of malt whisky based on their flavours and aromas. Dr Wishart then examined – somewhat arbitrarily – the division of this tree into ten groups of whiskies plus one singleton.
Although you may be surprised to find, for example, Knockando and Glen Grant clustered with The Macallan and Springbank, or Glenkinchie lumped with Highland Park, the methodology is interesting and the findings potentially of great value to the consumer.
But to obtain more meaningful clusters, the language of whisky tasting must be more rigorous, the descriptors more narrowly defined, more analytical. The ideal body to do this would be the Scotch Whisky Research Institute. But since most of us, including this magazine’s distinguished Noses, do not suppress personal preferences and subjective assessment, the most meaningful clusters are personal, based upon our own experience. So why not set about producing your own clusters, based upon your own tasting notes?

Part 4 : Whisky classification by region

In part four of his nosing course, Charles MacLean looks at how malts came to be classified by region

Traditionally, malt whiskies were classified geographically by their region of origin – the region itself lending style and character to the whisky made there. With the rediscovery of malt whiskies in recent years, this classification has been eagerly adopted, and indeed expanded, by writers and marketing people addressing consumers who are familiar with the idea of regional classifications for wine.

But such a parallel is tenuous. As the chemistry of production and maturation becomes better understood, making it possible to produce, for example, Islay-style malt on Speyside, the usefulness of classifying malt whiskies by region has come to be doubted in certain quarters.

In this article, I will look at how regional classification came about, and explore its usefulness as a guide to the malt whisky drinker; in the next issue I will examine other ways of grouping and classifying whiskies, in relation to their flavour characteristics.

The original regional division was simply between whiskies made in the Highlands and those made in the Lowlands. The Wash Act of 1784 defined 17 counties as ‘Highland’; this was tightened up by an amending Act the following year which narrowed the region somewhat by redrawing the Highland Line from approximately Dumbarton to Dundee. Whiskies made above the Line were subject to different legal provisions from those below (in other words, those in the Lowlands) and the nature of some of the provisions, especially in relation to the permitted size of stills, strength of wash and speed of distillation, meant that whisky of very different character was produced in the two regions. Highland whisky was universally considered better than Lowland whisky.

By the mid-19th century three further whisky regions were being recognised – Campbeltown, Islay and Glenlivet. In the case of Islay and Campbeltown, this came about simply because of the number of licensed distilleries which opened there. In the case of Glenlivet, it was because of the historical reputation of the whiskies from this remote hot-bed of smuggling and the fame of what might be described as the first whisky brand, Old Vatted Glenlivet. By the 1860s, distilleries over 30 miles from Glenlivet Parish itself were adopting the name, giving rise to its being called ‘the longest glen in Scotland’. In truth, it had come to describe a style of whisky, approximating to our ‘Speyside’.

Not surprisingly George Smith, the owner of the first and most famous licensed distilleries in Glenlivet itself at Minmore and Drummin, and the supplier of the fillings for Old Vatted, was not happy about this state of affairs. In 1858 he enlarged and consolidated his operation and renamed it ‘Glenlivet Distillery’, a name he registered at Stationer’s Hall in London 12 years later, obliging other distilleries to use it as a prefix or suffix only. By the 1890s – the heyday of distillery building on Speyside – 25 distilleries were using the name Glenlivet in this way: there was Aberlour-Glenlivet, Macallan- Glenlivet, and so on.

From a blender’s perspective, Glenlivet continued to be lumped in with the designation ‘Highland’, and Highland malts themselves were divided into ‘Top’, ‘First’, ‘Second’ and ‘Third Class’ for blending purposes. This classification varied somewhat from blender to blender, but generally the dozen or so ‘Top Class’ malts were all Speysides (or Glenlivets – see box), were slightly more expensive and were used as ‘top dressings’ in a blend. The ‘Third Class’ malts were considered as useful ‘fillers’, balancing the flavours of the other whiskies. Over half of the 34 distilleries classified as ‘Third Class’ in the 1974 list have since closed.

With the rise in interest in single malts during the 1980s, distillery owners, consumers and writers began to look more closely at regional classifications, in order to explain to consumers the difference between one malt and another. Especially, we were interested in the ways in which individual regions might be considered to bestow regional styles or characters to the malts made there, although, in truth, it was also an accessible way of laying out the contents of a book on malts.

Professor R.J.S. McDowell [in The Whiskies of Scotland] had divided the Highlands into ‘The Glenlivets and their Like’, ‘Dufftown’, ‘Northern’ and ‘Island’ as early as 1967, but it was not until Wallace Milroy’s Malt Whisky Almanac of 1986 that sub-division really got underway, quickly brought to geographical sophistication by Michael Jackson in The World Guide to Malt Whisky (1987). Milroy divided the Highland Region into Northern, Southern, Eastern, Western, Speyside, Islands and Orkney. Jackson followed this, but renamed the Southern Highlands The Midlands, and sub-classified Speyside (where over one third of malt whisky is made) according to its main rivers, the Findhorn, the Lossie, the Upper Spey, the Lower Spey, the Livet, the Fiddich and the Dullan, Strathisla, the Bogie and the Deveron. A simplified version of this classification of Speyside by rivers was adopted at the same time by the Scotch Malt Whisky Society: Spey, Lossie, Deveron and Findhorn.

Some blenders still think geographically, although they tend not to follow the old ranking system. Colin Scott, Chivas Brothers’ master blender, is one. Last summer he gave a demonstration of how he puts together Chivas Century of Malts which, as the name implies, is a vatting of 100 malt whiskies. He arranged his malts geographically as follows: North Speyside (28 malts, including those from Elgin, Keith, Rothes and ‘The Coast’), South Speyside (25 malts, including the products of Dufftown), North Highlands (14 malts), South Highlands (15 malts) and ‘The Rest’ (18 malts from Campbeltown, Lowlands, Islands and Islay. These were each vatted separately for Century).

Having nosed the whiskies individually, Colin then vatted them by regional group and a tasting panel (that included myself ) nosed them again, before finally nosing and tasting the end product.

Although this arrangement was purely geographical, it was possible to detect family resemblances, even in broad districts such as the North and South Highlands and North and South Speyside. For example, the Southern Highlanders were marginally heavier, fruitier and more intense than their heathery Northern cousins, while the Northern Speysides were firmer, sweeter and more aromatic than those in the south of the region. Most of the whiskies seemed to have come from refill casks, and there was little evidence of sherry-wood, so the character of the malt, as bestowed by the distillery, was relatively unveiled by the effects of maturation.

But is classification by region really much help to us in guessing the likely character and taste of a malt? Even within regions there are marked differences – consider the powerful smokiness of the whiskies of southern Islay (Laphroaig, Lagavulin and Ardbeg) and contrast with those of the north and west of the island (Bruichladdich and Bunnahabhain). Look at the fruity richness of The Glenlivet and compare it with the cut-grass freshness of Tamnavulin, just up the road. Glen Grant and Caperdonich share the same source of water, but are quite different in flavour. Glen Mhor and Glen Albyn, the lost and lamented Inverness distilleries, were separated merely by a railway track, but could not be substituted in a blend, since each bestowed a different effect.

Recently the Nosing Panel of the Scotch Malt Whisky Society was presented with a 10-Year-Old Tomatin (Speyside), distilled from highly peated malt and matured on site in a refill sherry cask. It was superb – rich and gamey; very sweet and very smoky. But we all agreed we would have named it an Islay in a blind tasting. This is where regional classification breaks down.

Someone once tried to persuade Hugh Macdiarmid, whom many believe to be Scotland’s greatest poet of the 20th century, to think of the various whiskies as being like an orchestra. ‘The Islay malts are heavy and sombre as cellos. Highland malts are violas. Lowland the discursive violin, and grains are like pianos – sometimes fortissimo, sometimes pianissimo.’ With a snort, Macdairmid dismissed such ‘pseudo-poetical attempts’ as futile. ‘You can only know any or all of them by actually drinking them’.

品味麥芽Whisky

品味麥芽威士忌 ：
如何讓你的威士忌發出她最大的風味多方嚐試不同的飲用方法，更能品嘗到威士忌的完整風味，並提高品味麥芽威士忌的樂趣。
杯子 :
傳統的威士忌酒杯(平底大玻璃杯)並不適合用於品味麥芽威士忌。這種酒杯的設計適合大 口咕嘟地喝威士忌加汽水，但是並不易使香氣導入。杯型有如鬱金香狀的高角杯子，一般公認為最能導入威士忌的香氣和特色。
水:
如何享用威士忌其實是應人而異的，但就以鑑賞和分析的角度而言，加水這個動作是必要的。特別是麥芽威士忌，因酒精濃度較高，為避免舌頭因此而麻木或是鼻子受到酒精的過度刺激，加水稀釋是必然的。到底要加多少水則是因酒精濃度以及個人的喜好而不同。大部分的專家和調酒師傾向把麥芽威士忌的濃度降至20%。訣竅是一次加一點水，直到酒精對鼻子的刺激減少，而酒的芳香被完全釋放出來。以常溫偏冷的純水最佳，溫度太低的水反而會鎖住威士忌的香氣。
品酒的步驟:
第一步驟： 觀察
外觀欣賞威士忌的顏色(顏色反應出威士忌是在哪種橡木桶熟成)；明亮度(未經冷過濾的威士忌經加水後會有些許朦朧)；黏性(當輕搖酒杯時，觀察威士忌由杯身滑落的情形)。
第二步驟 ：未稀釋的香氣
小心謹慎的聞(否則可能會不小心讓酒精攻擊到您的嗅覺器官)，注意鼻子的感覺；是刺鼻的、或是清涼的、還是溫暖的等。接著注意主要的香氣，第一印象在這裡是很重要的。繼續吸取麥芽威士忌散出的香氣，並注意香氣的改變和整體的複雜感。越複雜的威士忌，它的香氣越廣，也更需要多點時間讓它完全展現。
現在，您可以試喝一小口。
第三步驟： 稀釋後的香氣
這是個最重要的步驟。就我們所知，基本味覺可分為4種類(酸、甜、苦、辣)，而基色則有3種(即紅、黃、藍)。但是基本氣味卻多達32種，更不用提我們鼻子所能辨別出的百萬種氣味。只需要在威士忌中加入些許的水，您將能發現威士忌的多種風味漸漸開放出來。
這些氣味通常可分為8大類：
1、酯類 – 水果類(包括新鮮的、烹煮的、乾燥的)、花卉、洋梨、柑橘等
2、石碳酸類 – 煙、泥煤、煤炭的、藥物等
3、乙醛類 – 青草、飼料用乾草、皮革等
4、甜類 – 香草、太妃糖、蜂蜜等
5、 榖類 – 小麥、麵包、麥芽等
6、油脂類 – 奶油、亞麻籽油、堅果類等
7、木頭類 - 西洋杉木、松木、樹脂等
8、萄酒類 – 白蘭地、馬得拉白葡萄酒、雪利酒、甜紅葡萄酒等
第四步驟 ：味道
現在您可以開始品嘗手中的威士忌。先注意威士忌的質地和黏性，接著識別基本味道在口中的平衡感(舌尖感到的甜味，舌頭兩旁感受到的酸味，舌頭中間的鹹味，舌頭後段的乾苦味)。稍停一下來感受威士忌總體的風味，並注意酒在口中的所留下的餘味。
第五步驟： 發展
您會發現威士忌的芳香和味道會因與空氣的接觸而改變。品嘗威士忌是純粹為個人樂趣，沒有兩個人的感官可以從同一瓶酒感受到相同的香氣和滋味。建議您用自己的辨別力，並自由的使用您自己的文字來形容某種香氣。當您完成所有的步驟後；請放鬆，輕鬆的享受您手中的威士忌。