hello malty mummified machiavellian marxists and that's from i'm not mentioned from schmuck
van fuzel and it's introducing laughter view 879 extras in which i'm going to introduce a single
malt with non-age statement just to remind you that i do buy them i don't review them because
it's it's like there's missing information you you just i've got to ask yourself what am i actually
paying for here because i'm not paying for the age of them all because there's no age statement
but some of them are pretty damn good laphroaig lower society laphroaig get no age statements
a good whiskey but you feel as if that denial of information lets the producers
add quite a few extra pounds on top of what they're asking because they're basically
you're relying on their integrity and i'm not comfortable with that i'm far happier
to have that you see with the disclosure of an age statement
you're getting respect from distillers but i do understand
why they bring out the non-age statement because the majority of blends are known each statement
but this one is glen scotia victoriana
it's got a lot going for it
although it doesn't have an age statement
but i tell you what i will tell you about it is that um it's 51.5 percent
and until filtered and that's basically it it says it states it's a classic
campbelltown malt and finished in the finest deep charred oak casks
in fact it says twice in the front label it's unchill filtered
but they don't give us an edge statement so i'm going to take and i i guess with my experience
at what age it is and i'm going to briefly talk about how you separate
younger whiskeys from older whiskeys when the producers refuse to tell you
first of all gently roll the liquor around the inside of the glass
hold it up to the light and examine the coat line the coat line is where the wet bit meets
the dry bit and you'll see beads appear like a string of pearls and a necklace in this instance
they're sort of i would call them medium-sized they're hanging for about four to five seconds
and then they're dropping on what's called medium legs
and the legs are the little lines of the beaded liquor sliding down the inside of the glass now
if you get tiny little pearls that drop very rapidly that is a sign of young whiskey
that hasn't spent much time in a cask if it hangs about as a thick line with fatter beads which fall
more slowly and broader legs that is a sign of an older whiskey that's been in a cask for longer
so that's one of your first clues
knows it how much cask influence can you smell off the liquor if it is sharp and pungent and spirity
that is a sign that is a younger whiskey but it's a bit more complex than that because it's
a sign that's a young there's a younger whiskey that spent a short time in a cask or a younger
whiskey which is spent a far longer time in a less effective cask a fatigued cask a non-maturing cask
because a cask can age a whiskey but it doesn't necessarily mature because if the cask is fatigued
it's been filled three maybe four times before the energy has gone out the cask
and the only way you could spot that is when you're looking and smelling at the whiskey
and noticing as much what's not there that's what is there
sometimes it's very difficult to figure it out but it comes with experience
i'm getting that complexity these leather notes and the slight tobacco notes of an older
sherry cask probably an older sherry but but i'm also getting the younger nose in here
which is giving a richer delivery of the signature and the identity of glenn scotia single malt which
is one of the finest in scotland by the way always was a favorite historically with the blenders
so you're getting the fresh fruit notes of a younger whiskey but you're getting
the cask influence coming in at an early stage see they're both together immediately
that's another clue that what they've done is they've taken younger whiskey and then they've
put in one or two casks into their batch of older whiskey just to lift it up beyond its years
one reason they would do that is when they're searching through the
warehouse and they find a fight they find a fine old sherry cask looking at the back
that hasn't been disturbed for many years because bigger casks are harder to move in a warehouse
they require more people to move it they require forklift truck if the truck can get access you
see with small casks one or two people can handle them and move them and roll them
and stack them and tip them up put them in end relatively easily but not with a big 600 liter
but you can't do that and generally that's where the sherries that's the sherry style
it's the sherry casks are the biggy big ones so it's lingering at the back of the warehouse and
someone points out to the management by the way see that cast we've just checked it and it's at
35 percent volume we've had big evaporator of evaporation losses and the managers go damn
we were hoping to bottle that as some fancy 25 or 30 year old single malt but it's below
the legal minimum so do we have another cast that we can sort of is strong enough in volume
to take it from 35 back over 40 percent and even once we've done that is it still going
to be flavoursome and substantial and are people going to be prepared to pay a lot of money for
it and frankly sometimes that's not the case so i'm giving you a bit of insider knowledge here
just to give you perspective so they take this fine old cask and they say
you know it's got age but it's not got a lot else i'll tell you what if we put that
into younger whiskey say some 15 year old whiskey it's going to make it smell and taste a lot older
and we can charge a bit more for it but tell you what we won't charge too much we won't take the
piss out of them and i think that that's what they've done here with victoriana it's one of
the best of the standard range and i tell you what malt makes you're getting a good bang for
your buck in the british isles if you're to buy it because one of the advantages of not
having an age statement is they can't sell the whiskey in the age statement
do you see where i'm coming from you've got to take it and trust it's like johnny walker blue
label well that's the best isn't it because it's you know it doesn't have an age statement so it's
the most expensive and therefore it must have the oldest the finest the rarest whiskies in it
maybe not to be honest maybe it's just the grooming of the consumer
that's been taking place as all brig brands do it's not been a good year for them by the way
for the big blended brands with pubs shut bars shut hotels shut weddings not taking place
funerals not taking place above the most simple and practical form with no big parties afterwards
with airports closed down this has had a huge impact on the sale of blended whiskey but
for those of us who buy online and thank goodness for online it didn't didn't arrive a moment too
soon to be honest we've been able to go out and discover and source far more variety of
single malts than we've previously had access to and when we go out there to find out about them
when we go to see them we're going to spot them we need to know about them
we need to know the back story and therefore i am giving you an opinion backstory on this particular
single malt which happens to be a very commendable high rating single malt in my opinion
and i recommend it and i recommend everything that glenn scotia are doing at the moment particularly
if they stick to chill-filled non-chill filtering non-chill filtering natural color and bottling at
higher strength and perhaps that is one reason why their 25 year old single malt
recently won the international wines and spirits competition best single malt in the world
well done glenn scotia i'm gonna toast to you you've earned it i tell you what
it wasn't that long ago that
visiting glen scotia was virtually impossible you'd have to phone ahead there was very few
staff there my goodness they were doing the best they could with the resources they had
but the place needed major investment particularly in casks and the stills needed a good clean
and it was off the radar and people didn't bother about glen scotia because they were too
busy heading to spring bank but now spring bank is getting harder and harder to buy
it's getting harder and harder to find now we've got to spread our wings we've got to
adapt with the morphing environment out there and glen scotia is definitely a worthy
competitor to spring bank both in the same location same style of whiskey essentially and
i've been hearing things about peter glenn scotia very interesting things indeed time will tell but
there's a wonderful rich fruit fruitcakes smokiness going on in here
it's such a fantastic old-school character drum
this is the sort of bottle that i would buy another three of and put them in the stash
in case the price just goes up and up and up and up because tell you what malt makes
to be forewarned is to be forearmed and to be forearmed is to be prepared
but it's a delicious whiskey absolutely rafi recommended and i would conclude by saying that
when you have these
odd whiskies it can work really well because what i'm tasting here is some younger fresher whiskey
and some older smokier leathery tobacco whiskey and they've been beautifully blended together
i can assure you of that and the result is just it's fantastic actually it really is
a slight slightly reserved in the the development you get this lush barley sugar arrival from the
younger fresher single malt and then you get this smoky resonance sherry in the shorter development
because the intensity of the younger malt is kind of driving through and pushing on pushing away the
older whiskey into the the latter part of the development and then both occupy the finish and
the finish is just crispy tannic fresh delicious slightly savory slightly umami deliciously so
it's really such a shame that the rules do not allow a distiller to disclose on the label
the proportion and age of the single malt constructions
it has been tried and it's been knocked back and even the irish distillers some irish
independent bottles been getting into trouble about it which i think is fundamentally wrong
and it's an opportunity for a world whiskey distiller out with the british isles to jump
on it make it a feature run with it and take full advantage of it i'm ralphie this is my extras done
and dusted and a very tasty extras it was too any conclusion i would conclude by saying that
i understand why non-age statements are out there because it provides flexibility
but unfortunately from my perspective it gives all the flexibility to the producers
when they withhold that information and we have to take them and trust as regards their pricing
because you could also have a non-age statement whiskey in which younger whiskey's just put into
say for example a distillery bottle some 40 year old single malt now what you're going
to do with a cask an empty cask you're going to roll out to the backyard and put it in fire
turn it into land pill filler or sell it to the local joiner to be turned into planting tubs i
don't think so i really don't think so because you've got to smell that cask a 40 year old
single mom it's going to be magnificent so in fact you're using a really old cask that's been
emptied and its contents bottled and you're putting younger whiskey in it for a cask finish
but it's on its own single malt in-house cask finish right don't hear so much about them do you
but they do exist happens all the time distillers producers at warehouses they don't just discard
casks unless they need to so if you've got a 40 year old cask that's been gone the goal for 40
years and it's just smells magnificent and you get it straight back from the mottling plant
where it's been off to for bottling so you get that cask empty cask back as fresh as a daisy
plugged up totally intact right get some younger whiskey fill up that cask
the effect is magnificent the fact is effect is marvelous but they can't use the younger you they
could use the un under the younger age statement but then people would buy it and say see this
this 10 year old whiskey that went into a 40 year old cask for one year so it's 11 year old whiskey
oh my goodness this is absolutely so fantastic i'm going to buy half a dozen bottles but then they go
back to re-buy the that particular brand again a year later and that particular batch is all gone
they're saying oh i'm a bit disappointed it's now smelling and tasting like the actual age on the
label see this is another reason fairness to the distillers why sometimes they bring out non-age
statement whiskies but i'll leave it to that now sharing the knowledge sharing the journey
thanks for being more mates i'm ralphie from the bothy speak to you soon bye