Mackillop's Choice, consistent quality?

In my experience MacKillop's Choices are always consistently horrible. Either violent on the nose, palate, or both. Occasionally just one-dimensional. As a home-distiller of 'scotch' I have always found very obvious faults with them. Usually too much tails.

Think about it. If you were a whisky distillery, which barrels would you give away? You best ones? Not a sausage. You'd specifically give away the ones you don't want; your worst!

I really doubt that any distillery looks through thousands of casks to find the worst to send to IBs,. Also average or not so great whisky can be enhanced in a number of ways so it isn't as simple as get it and bottle it whatever.

As for Mackillops I find them a bit mixed and don't usually buy before trying.

@peanutaxis There are tons of great IB which are highly praised here, on other discussion platforms and by the experts. You think they all got fooled or brainwashed? You can think about this now ;)

@Wills This is my experience with MacKillop's choice, and only MacKillops choice. I have tried perhaps a dozen, and for all of those I would much rather have bought a standard 10YO straight from the distillery. They are certainly from barrels that the distillery opts not to use, for obvious reasons.

@Onlyhalfmad Distilleries most certainly DO taste each and every barrel ( It can take a ton - literally - of barley to fill a barrel. That's a huge investment.) if for no other reason than, like champagne or almost any other aged spirit, they aim to make their base/house malt the same each year, and this involves blending different barrels so that the 'house' malt remains the same year to year. I guess it's possible that distilleries might sell extra-good barrels for a premium price, but in my experience MacKillop's choice doesn't come into this category. Instead, distilleries seek to off-load their no-so-good- barrels rather than let them taint their base malt. Take, for instance, the following video of a 30 YEAR OLD MALT, no less, selling for a mere 90 pounds sterling. What has almost certainly happened in this case - and all others I would suggest with Mackillop's choice - is that MacKillop bought these sub-standard barrels a long time ago with the intent to age them for a long time to improve them. An exercise that a distiller neither has the patience nor aging space for. These old whisky's will almost always be substandard to buying a similar aged malt direct from the distiller. But of course doing that is more expensive...

www.youtube.com/watch

@peanutaxis So if Glenffiddich produced up to capacity of 12000000 litres you are telling me they would taste every barrel? I am not saying they don't have a certain % that they don't keep an eye on they definitely do.

A ton of barley cost about £220 last year somebody will can probably give me the right number but from memory that's 400 to 500 cask strength 70cl bottles. cost of production is to be added but things like draff and dark grain were at highs last year. So the cost of a bottle is initially most definitely not a huge investment.

Also Angus Dundee (owner of Mackillop`s) is a distiller twice over.

I am also guessing that your theory about the Caol Ila is wrong as well mainly due to the high number of aged Caol Ila that were available over the past five years (although not now), but I am willing to be corrected.

Also as a side point private owners of casks (investors) also sell to independent bottlers, but that opens another can of worms.

@peanutaxis In your first post (which I gave a thumbsdown) you said that all IBs are getting only the inferior casks from the distillers. Even if the distilleries would know the exact quality of every single cask in the warehouse (like @Onlyhalfmad said, this is unlikely) they won't take all the good casks and mix them together for their standards. As you said, the main goal is to achieve a consistent quality. The dram optimally shoudn't change over decades. So there has to be an amount of inferior quality casks (lets say a cask which is quite neutral) in the final batch/release. The power of IBs is that you get a high variety for literally the same release of an OB (additionally you get lots of uncoloured, unfiltered cask strength releases so the IBs are mainly directed to the more advanced whisky afficionados).

So there are some IB bottles which aren't as great as the OB release but others are way better. If your experience told you that Mackillop's always produces inferior releases than this might be true. At least for your palate. I can't give a statement on the quality of different IBs but I guess others who had lots of different drams of different IBs will do this. And then it's very questionable if the general opinion is that Mackillops is a "bad" IB. And to repeat this, even then, not all IBs would be inferior to the OBs!

I was searching an older topic, because I think we already had this discussion about the quality of IBs. Wasn't able to get the topic but I found another thread where Mackillops gets a supporting vote:

connosr.com/wall/discussion/…

@Wills well said.

It is worth noting Independents can often be challenging and difficult but also rewarding, they are not for everyone. I would suggest anyone that has tried a lot and thinks it is the worst that the distillery has to offer stick to OBs which are often easier.

Sounds a bit snobbish sorry for that, I often drink an OB ten and am happy. Whisky really is about what you enjoy and if it is a 10 or 15 OB stick to it your wallet will ultimately be happier.

@Onlyhalfmad I'm not sure why it would be incredulous that a large distiller tastes so much volume but not incredulous that they actually distill so much volume. It's not rocket science, a larger distillery just has more manpower, and tasting a barrel doesn't take very long. But maybe you're right that a huge distillery like Glenfiddich doesn't bother. Come to think of it all of the MacKillop's that I have had come from smaller distilleries.

I take your point about the costs. I wish I could get malted barley that cheap!

Not sure what you mean about Caol Ila. I don't think I mentioned it!?

@peanutaxis for the very simple reason they don't need to.

As for the Caol Ila you put it in bold and posted a link

@Wills "Even if the distilleries would know the exact quality of every single cask in the warehouse (like @Onlyhalfmad said, this is unlikely)....The dram optimally shouldn't change over decades. So there has to be an amount of inferior quality casks "
The problem is, if they don't taste each cask how do they know which ones don't fit with their house style? I am now even more sure that they taste each barrel/cask! This guy also agrees with me: elixirwineandbeverage.wordpress.com/2012/… "The master distiller constantly monitors the stocks of whisky aging in barrel, tasting the contents of each barrel periodically"
IB's certainly market their product to enthusiasts, of that there is no doubt. It makes people think they have something special, and we all know how that affects judgement. And if it's cask strength people go absolutely bananas. At this moment I am tasting my two existing MacKillop's. 1990 Macallan 16YO and a 1989 Macallan 17YO, both cask strength. The '89 is better but both have too much heads I think. At cask strength both are okay - strong, of course. But if I dilute them to sensible strength they both smell like white dog. In fact, that's probably why they were bottled at cask strength. To mask the poor quality.

@peanutaxis BTW I haven't voted any comments up or down.

Ooh, here we go. Tell me Highland Park doesn't taste every barrel!

www.youtube.com/watch

@peanutaxis He is talking about the sherry casks for Highland Park single malt not the bourbon barrels for Famous Grouse or Cutty Sark.

But from that video look at what he is putting in the grouse blend, could it be the worst out of what they have? Not going to an IB?

Highland Park in all honesty have supply problems so they may admittedly check more than others, but if that is what they are putting in Grouse then up to a point they don't need to check everything.

I gave your first post a thumbs down because in my opinion it was wrong on a lot of points and gave a general description of where IBs get whisky from that I felt was poor to those working in the industry both distilling and bottling. I did not give it the thumbs down because of your experience of MacKillop`s or your thoughts on how many casks get tasted. If I could undo the thumbs down I would.

To be honest the fact that this thread has started another thread is probably means it is time it died.

Acouple final thoughs the Malt Maniacs posted an e-pistle about where IBs source whisky which if you can find it is well worth a read, any one that hasn't tried an IB give it a go and if every cask is tasted I feel sorry for that person at Loch Lomond, Glen Scotia and what ever Malt goes into my discount supermarket blend. (A joke! in case someone tries to take this further from the original posters question.)

@Onlyhalfmad "Because they don't need to" Again, how do they know which barrels to omit from their house blend if they don't taste them? So they do need to taste them all. "I feel sorry.." Seriously? Come on, it's not going to be a one person job. About Highland Park Video: Sure we're not talking about blended scotch. So Highland Park offs their worst casks to Blends but can other distilleries do that? Even if they can it is still my contention that IB casks are worse than what goes into their single malt. "Supply problems" How do you know that? I think I might email a distillery and ask them. Which one(s) should i ask?

@peanutaxis aagh! trying so hard not to reply to your nonsense.

Your questions in order

Its the Bourbon barrels that they don`t taste all of, these are nearly exclusive to Grouse and Cutty Sark

It was a Joke, hence why i put joke in brackets

Most for example Benriach will have anywhere between 30 - 40% in really good casks with the rest for blends. Macallan etc are the exception but they dont really put much out to IB`s either.

Please, please do email them or you could try looking up a blog or even you tube.

@Onlyhalfmad Hahaha. As is common we're probably talking past each other mostly. Not sure how to make paragraphs here:( Firstly I think they taste them all, even those that go to blended whisky, but even if they don't it is irrelevant to our discussion which is about single malt whisky, and how tasting every barrel (or not) is relevant to IB casks. As an aside btw in case you are interested, check out SingleMaltTv on youtube, particularly the "Bowmore wood" series (if you're not already aware). Very interesting.

@peanutaxis Was looking to email Highland Park, was at their site and thought I'd check out their videos. In this one the guy states that the [single malt] casks sit in the warehouses and are "sampled on a regular basis, and then they're picked at their best".

highlandpark.co.uk/video/intro-production/…

@peanutaxis agreed we are talking past each other and could make this thread go on and on. A lot of videos and blogs are although informative to a point are mostly for PR and should be taken with a pinch of salt.

I am not going to read or reply to this thread again for the sake of my sanity if nothing else. But I may give it a fleeting though when I next have a dram from my whisky shop Ledaig and think if this is the worst the rest must be damn good.

Am sure the original poster would still like his question answered though.

@Onlyhalfmad "A lot of videos and blogs are although informative to a point are mostly for PR and should be taken with a pinch of salt. "

Oh for goodness sake. This is how people believe all manner of hocus pocus. Because they want to, and so they willfully ignore the perfectly reasonable evidence.

I have a Mackillop's Choice Rosebank and Clynelish and I find them both very good.

@peanutaxis How do you make punctuation... and paragpraphs

here?

just a test

@Onlyhalfmad Hey man, here is their reply. Unedited exactly as they wrote it. I simply asked (1) whether they taste every single malt cask and (2) whether casks that go to IB's are the poorer quality ones:

" We nose every cask, very seldom will we taste. We will sample between 500, 800 casks per day.

The colour will be achieved using our first fill casks. The character will then be achieved by choosing first fill and refill casks.

We only use the casks twice, they will then be sent to the mainland. If then profile is outside of the characteristics we are looking for then we could use it for blending, independent bottling or if it is very interesting we can use this in special editions. We are working with nature so we will get surprises from time to time.

Very rarely will we get poor casks. If this does occur it is not likely to be used. "