Whisky Lingo

@MadSingleMalt Nothing stops them, in fact we don't know what happens between casking and bottling because it's not generally on the label.

@MadSingleMalt Integrity? LOL !!! Yeah right!!! They're saying things like

"There’s increasing demand for Scotch malt whisky, but it is a finite product, and in the face of increasing demand, it becomes increasingly difficult to guarantee a supply of aged stock. Sometimes people say “Oh, so you’re running out, then?” Actually, we just haven’t got enough, which is a very different situation."

Yeah. Ok there Dr Diageo. Give me some more of that brilliant pretzel logic. Oh wait, there's more!

When the rush towards single malts occurred in the late 1970s and early 1980s,’ he says, ‘the easiest thing to create a credential was putting numbers on bottles. It justified higher price points and it gave them integrity. The industry decided to teach people that age equated to value, so in some ways, it’s a situation of our own making.

So they lied about age statements being a good thing because, you know, integrity. Now they're "correcting" us by saying age doesn't matter, introducing wishy-washy buzzwords like "Cask-strength" or "Batch-strength" because, you know, integrity

Please. I'm not opposed to businesses making money, but these marketing types are a whole different class of pretentious assholes. /rant mode

@OdysseusUnbound

Jeff? from ATW?

@Nozinan LOL! I just had to look that up. I've only read a few entries, but I like the cut of his jib.

@OdysseusUnbound He certainly does add spice (not from rye) to that site. I wonder if he's on this site too.

I know at least 5 people over there who post here.

@Nozinan "Curtis" has some pretty interesting stuff over there too.

@OdysseusUnbound yeah it's a good site. Different focus from this site - I think they complement each other.

How did I miss this thread before? Brilliant I just absorbed all of it over a coffee. I love language and how it can be used to convey such specifics but can also be the source of such annoyance.

I am definitely an offender of the made up descriptor and malty category.

I try and keep my invented descriptors jokey and light but filled with sincerity, they're definitely not meant to be pretentious, It's about trying to pin down a feeling.

Exemple my recent review or Lag 12, I mentioned smoked fudge, I could have said, smoke and caramel, or sweet. Yet that doesn't mean much that's every bourbon cask peated whisky.

What I was trying to convey was this indelible impression of something creamy (butter, cream) densely sweet (fudge, caramel) being wrapped in the violent peatyness (smoke, tarmac), also because it sounds like a recipe I'd like to try. Smoke the cream used in a fudge/caramel, that could be pretty cool or horrid. This isn't justification, actually curious about people's process, I enjoy seeing how others minds work. I was long winded as always.

@BlueNote I could totally see Bourbon using the baby batch strength tag.

@OdysseusUnbound / Jeff , yep, that's some marketing garbage alright.

Once you've accepted that all marketing garbage is just garbage to begin with, it makes it a lot easier to ignore—and if you're inclined, skewer.

That said, I don't usually put CASK STRENGTH in the category of wishy-washy buzzwords, but I do wonder what keeps producers honest on that.

•Fear of being "outed"?

•Integrity? (And yes, I'm sure many producers do have integrity—even if some don't.)

•The pragmatic need for CS whiskies to fulfill drinkers' expectations for power?

•It just hasn't occurred to them (yet) that they could water down the young barrels instead of watering down the mature whisky?

DEADBEAT DAD

I'm coining this term, right here in front of your very eyes, to describe those distilleries who routinely get outclassed by the IBs in delivering the very same whisky that they somehow make mundane in their OB releases.

Textbook examples of deadbeat dads:

•Bowmore

•Mortlach

•Dalmore

Honorable mention to Caol Ila.

@MadSingleMalt I disagree with you about Caol Ila. nothing OB I have tasted has been bad. Even the standard 12 is good but can't hold a candle to the OB CS or the 17 YO "unpeated CS".

@Nozinan , yeah, well, I gave Caol Ila an "honorable mention" because every IB I've had trounces the OB 12, the rest of their range is too expensive, and their standard strength is an oh-so-watery 43%. It's not bad stuff, but the IBs outclass them for sure.

Nice topic!

Can someone explain to me what they mean with 'vintage 2009'? Is this marketing BS or something else? Why is it not just a 8 yo? I see these expressions on a lot of IB bottles.

@DutchGaelisch , that's the year it was distilled and put into the barrel.

@MadSingleMalt Only of any use if they also tell you the year of bottling, otherwise it's a useless age designator. Balblair does, not sure about others.

@BlueNote I think most Scotches with years do, somewhere on the packaging or labeling, tell you the year of bottling. Sometimes the dates are even more specific, like month or day.

Right.

The IBs are usually great about saying it matured from "1999-2015" or whatever.

The OBs who do vintage labeling are surprisingly opaque about it, as often as not. Balblair does the vintage thing, and you have to dig to find the bottling year, which of course hides the age. Knappogue Castle used to have the same problem, where their standard bottle was "1995" for a long time—and of increasing "barrel years," as I recall—until they finally switched to a 12-year age statement. And aren't the Lagavulin DEs the same way too—providing only the "1999" half of the equation?

Another DEADBEAT DAD: Ledaig.

There's nothing wrong with their OBs, but everyone is absolutely raving about all their recent IBs. It's hard to go on Reddit anymore without seeing a new sherry-cask IB Ledaig rocking someone's whisky world.

@MadSingleMalt I haven't had any of their IBs, but I quite like their OB 10. NCF, natural colour, 46% and good price.

SMOOTH

For some, this is the pinnacle of a whisky's quality. For others, it's meaningless at best and nails-on-a-chalkboard at worst.

Over the past couple weeks, the Scotch Noob blog has been running some interesting articles about the word and especially about how it's perceived in certain circles. Good reads here:

scotchnoob.com/2017/08/…

scotchnoob.com/2017/09/…

@MadSingleMalt Remember when they used to call Marlboros and Chesterfields smooth? Easy on the throat, doctor recommended.

@BlueNote I prefer my chesterfields soft., with nice arm rests. That's DOCTOR recommended.

And (not medically recommended), a place to put a Glencairn with a nice single malt.

@Nozinan I think I'll retire to the chesterfield now with a dram of the doctor recommended Kilkerran 12. It's had about a month of air and it's due for a check-up.

"Smooth" is for toilet paper.

@paddockjudge And creamy young...no, never mind. Smooth is for bad elevator jazz.

"Smoooooth" is what you say in that raspy voice after coughing after downing a shot of rot-gut.

But there might have been a time or two when there were "not enough O's in smooth" to describe a 12 year old scotch. Or perhaps, more accurately, a time/place/situation, that added context to the descriptor "smooth" (in a positive manner).