Aultmore, The Deveron, Royal Brackla 12 y.o.s

Dewar's recently sent me samples of their three latest "Last Great Malts" they're bringing to the U.S. market. The idea behind the campaign is to offer expressions from different distilleries that supply malt whisky for Dewar's blends. (I can imagine a "here, take my money" deal where they'd sell a blending kit of malts and grains with enough to taste individually and still blend into something not altogether unlike Dewar's.)

The bottles came, I admit, in enjoyably gimmicky packaging, including a sort of self-contained treasure hunt to find the code to unlock... a USB stick with additional marketing information.

Or, you know, you could just find the screws.

They're all 12 year old single malts, from Aultmore (a Speyside distillery dating from 1896), the Deveron (made at Macduff Distillery, which opened in 1962 and is billed as one of the earliest modern Scotch distilleries), and Royal Brackla (opened in 1812 at Cawdor, and surely others have commented on the Macbeth angle between Royal Brackla and the Deveron; pity Aultmore isn't in Birnam Wood).

If it were tasted when 'tis tasted, then 'twere well it were tasted quickly.

No less an authority than Serge Valentin recently wrote:

I need comparisons, and I’m not good enough to assess one whisky out of the blue at any given time... That’s also why so many people find that any whisky just smells and tastes of… whisky. Give them two whiskies, and they’ll become super-good very fast!

As someone who has had a lot of whiskey that smells and tastes of whiskey, I determined to take this advice and try all three at the same time. It's a convenient trio for this, since the colors are different enough that you can keep track even if you forget where you just set down the Aultmore.

Dark to light: Royal Brackla, the Deveron, Aultmore (which in the bottle kind of really does look like pee)

I did not become super-good, or even competent, but it is fun to pretend sitting in the kitchen drinking three whiskeys at once is how you're supposed to do it.

(Prices are from binnys.com.)

Aultmore 12 YO (46% abv, natural color, non-chill filtered, ~ $60)
Nose: Honey, grassy
Palate: Light, honey, sweet; a little water rounds it out a bit and brings the honey forward
Finish: Warming and short, a bit sour

The Deveron 12 YO (40% abv, ~ $45)
Nose: Fruit, almonds, oak, maybe chocolate
Palate: Buttery, sweet, a hint of brine (water makes it watery)
Finish: Pleasant and short

Royal Brackla (40% abv, ~ $50)
Nose: Sherry sweetness, raisins, toasted raisin scones; a bit of a waft of sweat or chemicals; water makes it fruitier
Palate: Pretty much what it says on the nose, with a touch of smoke
Finish: First pour, the finish was raisiny rubber. actually kind of nasty; subsequent drinks were much nicer

The take-away: There's all decent, if unexceptional, malt whiskies. (At least once that industrial rubber taste left the Royal Brackla; if it had stayed, I'd've used it for solvent.) Older expressions are available for each, if you're curious about how they might age. The Royal Brackla, with its blast of sherry and raisins, is the most distinctive, but I suppose I'd say the Deveron would be my first choice among them if I were to buy a replacement bottle.

The Baltimore Whiskey Company

My plans for last Saturday fell through; my wife's plans did not. This left me with an unchaperoned afternoon, which I decided to spend seeing the sites in Baltimore.

The first site chosen was the Baltimore Whiskey Company. They are open for tours on Saturday from noon till four, and I'd be getting there right around noon.

"There" is the hindquarters of an unpreposessing brick building in Jones Falls. I got the Jones Falls bit off their website; I know almost nothing about Baltimore neighborhoods. The rest of the description of "there" I got from personal experience.

The entrance. You want fancy, go to the waterfront, hon.

I love distilleries that, from the street, could be galvanized chain warehouses. It suggests a small company focused on manufacturing, which is a very good thing to focus on if you're a small company that manufactures things.

Can a whiskey company door get more Baltimore than this?

The Baltimore Whiskey Company, of course, manufactures gin.

Well, and whiskey too. They are building up stock, from a rye and malted rye mashbill, that will age in 53 gallon barrels for two years before it hits the market. I admire them for that, considering very young ryes do sell these days, and some of them are even good decent drinkable. (If they offered samples of their aging rye to select tourists, that would be okay too.)

In the meantime, cash must flow. To make their gin, they macerate botanicals in grain neutral spirit (sourced, if we say "sourced" about pharmaceutical grade GNS; their copper pot still isn't ever going to give them a pure enough spirit), run it through the still a couple of times, and bottle it at 100 proof as Baltimore Shot Tower Gin. (The shot tower, a Baltimore landmark, is also featured on their logo.)

On my visit, the open 500-gallon fermenters -- they're cypress, and they're spectacular -- were filled with apple juice bubbling away, post-pressing peels and such floating on top. This will show up this summer as Charles St. Apple Brandy, following some months in used rye barrels. (The barrels are purchased from Speyside Cooperage, which opened a Kentucky office in 2010, so they're probably from one of the major distilleries.) I'm easing into apple brandy as a hobby, so I'm really looking forward to getting some Charles Street when it comes out.

They're also excited about a ginger apple liqueur -- their brandy "macerated with ginger and other botanicals, and distilled ... then sweetened with molasses, sugar, and apple juice" -- that's coming soon. It sounds like it could make a fantastic toddy, or bread pudding sauce.

Apple brandy in its larval stage.

There was no distilling going when I was there, so I got a good look at the inside of their still. The still, mashtun, and fermenters were all made by different independent craftsmen from around the country; the BWC operation is sort of a compounded craft effort, which is kind of cool -- always assuming the whiskey turns out good.

The freshly scrubbed inside of the 250 gallon still.

The outside of the still.

The left side of the still.

The Shot Tower Gin was the only spirit available for tasting. I admitted I didn't like gin. They said they get that a lot and like to hear what non-gin drinkers think of their gin.

It's the juniper that always gets me. Pine trees aren't people food. I'm happy to say BWC's gin is not particularly heavy on the juniper; you'd never take it for a London dry gin. I could even convince myself it tasted more like an herbal infused aquavit than a gin. It's not something I needed to buy, but I wouldn't wince if someone poured me a glass and I can believe Baltimore bartenders are coming up with good recipes that use it. I hope to try the "barrel rested" gin they'll be releasing in several months; I expect I'd be able to make some cocktails both my Sapphire-drinking wife and I would enjoy.

It's a bit sad to finish a post on a distillery visit with talk of gin, but considering that the Baltimore Whiskey Company started distilling in November, maybe it's just as well. I shall watch their future career with interest, and no doubt some investment as the product line matures.

My integrity is not for sale, I'm giving it away

The other week, Dewars asked me if they could send three bottles of their new-to-the-US single malts for me to review on my channels. "Certainly," I replied instantly. Only later did I face the nagging question raised by accepting their proposition:

I have channels?

Some people say taking free samples compromises a blogger's integrity and makes the reviews worthless. In my case, at least, that's not true. All my reviews are worthless. And I'd never write that a free whiskey is better than I think it is just to get more free whiskey. That would only work if marketers read my blog. But if they did that, they'd surely move on to a blogger who hadn't peaked ("hillocked" may be more accurate) with his 2012 hotel room review of Old Thompson Brand American Whiskey. Checkmate, integrity questioners!

This blog's all-time pageview champion. (Yes, the scale is pageviews per month. Yes, that includes Russian spiderbots.)

---

I got as far as the above with this post after two of the three bottles arrived. That evening, I mentioned to my 18-year-old son that I expected yet another bottle to arrive the next day. He asked, "Who is sending you all this whiskey?"
"Dewars."
"What's a doer?"
A reasonable question under the circumstances. After I answered, he asked the question I'd been asking myself: "Why are they sending it to you?"
"I guess so I'll mention it."
"You should! Then you'll get more free stuff!"
He went on to say that I shouldn't be too obvious, but subtle, like, "You might want to give this a try sometime."
The boy's got the angles worked out already.

A taxonomy of "craft" distilleries

The on-going debate over the meaning of the term "craft" in whiskey-making shows no signs of ending. (Even though, as is so often the case, the answer is waiting to be found in the dictionary: "Craft: skill used in deceiving others.")

Here, though, are the broadly accepted definitions of some other terms you may hear used to describe your favorite new distillery:

• Grain to glass: A distillery that turns grains into bottled spirits. In other words, a distillery. Even MGP is bottling these days.
• Flour to flask: A distillery that couldn't afford a milling machine but does have a gift shop.
• Soil to slainte: A distillery that grows its own grains and has a tasting room. Just as well, because after all the pretensions about growing their own grain, you really need a drink.
• Tanker to tasting: A "distilling company" that "produces" its "own" spirits, often according to an "old" "family" "recipe."
• Cradle to grave: Diageo's vision statement. Resistance is futile, or at least discouraged.
• Farm to under-the-table: A moonshiner.