Nomad - A New Whisky Category?

This should be an excellent idea whether it is used for blended Scotch or for Scottish, or other, malt whisky.

Maturing Scottish malt in Spain in sherry casks is obviously a very good idea, if quality of the whisky is your first priority. It should completely remove the sulphur problem plaguing Scottish sherried malts by transferring the distillate to fresh clean Sherry casks. It will also simultaneously greatly increase the speed of maturation by aging in a much hotter and drier climate. Amrut and Kavalan have already proven that hot climate maturation works well for malt whisky.

I hope that in the future Scottish malt distillers will do some (or all) of the aging of their sherried malts in Spain...or follow the technique used by Amrut in filling fresh sherry casks with their distillate and shipping them back to Scotland to age.

Not sure about this, I fear whisky companies might outsource the maturation of their product to low cost countries. Though it might just give a boost to the sherry industry, they could use the extra income now that their sales are on the decline

It has been done before, though unintentionally it seems - check out the story behind the Spencerfield Spirits Company's Sheep Dip Amoroso Oloroso 1999.

It's quite an enjoyable dram too.

@sengjc re: Sheep Dip Amoroso Oloroso 1999. What happened?

@Pandemonium I'm with you. I can see blended whisky being outsourced to China in no time...

The folk who got this absolutely right are G&M who traditionally sold cart loads of Oloroso (and other) Sherries under their own label: They imported full casks from Spain, Casks of the highest quality I might add and filled them with 'new make' spirit immediately they were emptied of Sherry. I was told at G&M that they could make the best Whisky in the World if the spirit from the stills was excellent: Their favoured make was Glenfarclas which they considered the 'best of the best' and were extremely 'pissed' when in 1980 they were denied access to G/F. They were also forthcoming with the view that fine new-make in a perfect Sherry cask needs 12yrs. of maturation, not more; and that in a perfect butt nothing is achieved after 12yrs. and that additional time produces a 'slimy' character that G&M avoid at all cost. The old G&M and Samaroli bottlings bear witness to this Sherry management and to taste one of their Whiskies from the 60's is to be transported to Nirvana! - From the horses mouth and as accurately as I can recall a 30yo. conversation.

Cheers!

@MaltActivist Great discussion, I believe that maturing spirits in many different ways may no longer be avoidable as just about ever marketing ploy to get hype for new releases and styles maybe at its end. Maturing whisky, to me in my humble non expert opinion, has always been an art form. I'm not sure that one doesn't lose something in translation when it comes to distilling in location A and maturing in location B, then bottling in location C. That said I will certainly keep an open mind when trying Nomad and seeing how things shake out. (: