Cutty Sark again at Lochgreen House

Tuesday night was again down in deepest Ayrshire, at Lochgreen House in Troon educating a group of Greek bartenders about blended whisky for Cutty Sark.  Our normal line up has been North British 5 yo, J&B, Cutty Sark, Dewar's White Label, Ballantine's & Johnnie Walker Red Label.  The guys and gals at Cutty see these as being what they call their "competitive set".
We've been doing these events for their overseas distributors and customers for about 18 months now.  Initially, I thought that they were being very brave, putting their juice up clinically against the opposition, but Cutty ALWAYS shows well.  The liquid is of fantastic quality.
The Greeks, from W.S. Karoulias, Cutty's distributors in Athens, wanted the competitive set changed, because they see the competition differently in Greece.  Thus, the line up this week was N.B. 5yo, Cutty, Dewar's, Grant's, Haig and J.W. Red.
Again, Cutty showed up wonderfully.  It is a long time since I last tasted either Grant's or Haig.  The Grant's showed well, but the Haig's flavour was flat, old-fashioned and exceedingly disappointing.
The group was quite knowledgeable, had a good command of English - sometimes one of the group has had to translate my words into Russian, Turkish or Portuguese and that adds to the length of the night.
We have dinner and then jump into a bus which takes us to Alloway, where we wander around the old churchyard and down to the Brig o' Doon where we drink Tam O' Shanter, Cutty Sark 25 yo.
It's a tough life...
Last night was a meeting of the Co-operative Area Committee in Stirling.  A relatively easy meeting, we dispensed £5,697.84 from the Community Fund to deserving organisations, but there were applications totalling over £11,000, so we had to disappoint some groups.
Today I found some tasting notes which had become buried in the paperwork on my desk.  I really must tidy it more regularly.  I will get them up onto the website within the next couple of days - I hope!

I know, I promised to be more proactive with posts, keeping them up to date - and I haven't posted since May.
Sorry.
It has been a very hectic few months, especially the past 10 weeks.
I have been continuing with the Cutty Sark Whisky Academy, educating their overseas customers (and a few of Edrington's staff as well) on a) the quality of the liquid that goes into the Cutty bottle and b) the importance of the blended category to the industry and the on-trade.
have tasted a considerable number of malt whiskies as a pre-cursor to the writing and publication of the next edition of The Malt Whisky File scheduled for March, 2013.  A large proportion of these have been revisiting whiskies I have previously tasted and updating my tasting notes.  Some have improved the quality of the liquid, some have slipped.
I took the whisky courses, The Scotch Whisky Trail Certificate course and the Advanced Whisky course out of the City of Glasgow College and held them in the premises of The Good Spirits Company in Glasgow.  I had to handle all the administration, copying of handouts, etc.  It involved me in a LOT more work, a bit more stress, but I think that I enjoyed it more.  At least Ithe students and I did not have to wade through the administrative morass which the City of Glasgow College created the past couple of times I held it there.  But I used two and a half reams of paper and 18/20 ink cartridges just for printing handouts.  These were things I had not taken into account when costing the exercise.
The entry level course was a big success with 25 enrolled.  (Really too many, I should stick to an absolute maximum of 22, but had held 2 places open for a couple of Tomatin's staff and, an hour after they advised they wouldn't be able to make it, Whyte & Mackay asked if they could enrol 3 of their staff.)  19 sat the exam with very good results - all 19 passed.  Despite the fact that I created this course in 1998 and have delivered it in an 8 week evening class format at least 20 times now, the colleges have never created a Feedback Form.  I did this time and, although almost all were effusive in their praise of the course, one suggested that I did not cover the basics sufficiently.  I will now make a wee change or two to weeks one and two.
My break-even point is 12 students.  The Advanced course was supposed to have 12, but one advised a week before it was due to start that he wouldn't make it.  We ran with 11, but I think that I lost money in doing that.  (Note to self:  be more firm with this.)
Deanston finally opened the visitor centre at the distillery in May and it seems as if it is doing the business.  I was there yesterday and the place was stowed out: cars parked everywhere, queues of people waiting to take a tour and the coffee shop had no free seats when I arrived at 2.00p.m. for a meeting.  The level of business they were doing meant that my meeting took place in several bits of free space at the till.
I have been attempting to get some golf in and had done well over the winter, getting out almost every week at least once.  Managed a round in the last week in June, no golf July or August and, over the past 10 weeks managed to fit golf in three times.
Maybe I'll manage to fit more rounds in over the winter, although, as I said above, I am supposed to be compiling the next edition of the MWF and the next entry level course starts on 14th January.

Scotch Whisky Trail Week 4

Week 4 is History to 1850 and in previous years, I haven't had a Powerpoint preentation for this, relying only on the handout I create which has the most important relevant dates between 1494 & 1850. This year, I created a wee presentation with details of the Rev. Mr. Robert Moodie in the Statistical Account of Clackmannan, 1799. What? You don't know what he said? Well, you will just have to enrol on my course and find out, won't you?
The sharp eyed amongst you might notice my "deliberate" error in the presentation - the subject of the evening was History to 1850 and the slide on the screen says "History to 1825". I chnaged it before the class started.
Whiskies this week: Highland Park 12, Old Pulteney 12, Aberlour 10, GlenDronach 12, Bowmore 12, Bowmore 15 and Ardbeg 10. Great line up, all demonstrating varied, different and quite impressive aspects of whisky flavour.
The students are starting to get objective about the whiskies; this is the part of the course where they start to suggest flavours/aromas I have missed in my comments as their confidence builds. In future weeks, I have less work to do and they become be more than happy to put in their opinions.
Rather stupidly, I took my camera into the college to photograph the students at work - and forgot. Took the pic of the bottles, forgot to photograph the students. Will remember next week. I hope!

Scotch Whisky Trail course

The latest running of the course started on Tuesday. Pleased to see some women back. After the past couple when it has been all male. Not quite sure of their backgrounds, the college yet again got the applications wrong. The student listed was of 16 students, the register was of 18 and the class was of 19 with one no show. Student Services?
Quite an animated bunch with more feedback than from 2010's entry level students, I'm looking forward quite excitedly to the rest of this spring's course. Trying to get a visit to Deanston, visitor centre doesn't open until after the course, but trying nonetheless as, in 14 years, the course hasn't visited Deanston. We'll see.

Weather & Glen Marnoch 40 yo

Scotland is being buffeted by rather strong breezes at the moment. A gust of 165 mph was recorded around 3.30p.m. on Cairngorm this afternoon and the worst is yet to come so they tell us. Many roads closed - either snow or trees down - Tay, Forth & Erskine bridges all closed to ALL traffic and Friarton & Skye bridges closed to high sided vehicles. The A66 is closed because of overturned vehicles, there are 2 overturned at the Rest And Be Thankful, Byres Road in Glasgow is closed, others such as the coast road south of Skelmorlie are flooded. 80mph winds blowing across the country with gusts higher than this. All Scotland's schools were closed by 12.30p.m.
On a more enjoyable note, Aldi released their 40yo Glen Marnoch Single Speyside Malt today. 3000 bottles between 450 branches. I visited Stirling before 10, no stock and one of my students, Alan Hall, said there were no bottles in Kilmarnock.
The bottle was on Aldi's shelves (when it was there) for £49.99 a bottle. I have heard that there are already bottles on ebay at £300.00. Just think of the extra profit Aldi could have made!

Advanced Whisky course

I am tutoring the Advanced Whisky course at the City of Glasgow College at the moment. This week, the students had to present for 5 minutes on a whisky-related subject of their own selection. All the students' presentations showed very good levels of research into their subjects.
Alan Hall (who for some reason on Tuesday, I was calling Peter - must have been a senior moment or three) presented on Customs Officer Malcolm Gillespie. His presentation was entertaining and contained lots of detail, some specifics of which I hadn't come across before.
Ian Petrie presented on Advertising. He did a critique of half a dozen ads from magazines. His outcome of this was that, with the exception of Jack Daniels, they didn't hit their target audience of 20-35 years old. It's true that the JD ad was the only one which wasn't the "glass & bottle" style, but I felt that the Glenfiddich ad has moved away from it quite considerably.
Steve Richardson presented on Abhainn Dearg, the new distillery on Lewis. He had produced a Powerpoint slideshow with a lot of detail and included some historical facts of illicit distillation in the Outer Isles.
Bob Arnott also had a Powerpoint show, this time on the relative merits of Dunnage Warehousing versus Racking. It was a thoughtful presentation and pushed the oft-quoted reason of cost versus quality, but laid the question, "but should cost be the deciding factor?" and suggested that to mature whisky in large, central warehouses and not at the distillery, while not breaking the rules, was breaking the spirit of the regulations.
Jim Coleman posed the question: “Are Whisky Bloggers Important to the Industry?” As a whisky blogger, Jim may be biased, but he argued that most bloggers have no direct affiliation to any whisky company and so they are de facto independent. As such, they help to “spread the good word” and encourage enjoyment in all forms.
James Farrelly also posed a question. This time it was “Does Scotch Whisky Have a Future?” James had obviously done a lot of digging to obtain the statistics he argued with and his conclusion was that, “yes, it does have a future, but that it needs some generic advertising.”
Stefan Kah’s subject was German Whisky and he looked in detail at the many German whisky distilleries, most of which had developed out of fruit spirits distillation. He demonstrated their uniqueness and differences from the general acceptance of “what is a whisky” by sampling the products of two small distilleries including a smoky Steiger Wald which was coarse, rough and out of balance. He advised that most were very small, amateur producers and could not understand why Jim Murray’s Whisky Bible 2011 had scored all of the German Whiskies he had tasted in excess of 90 points.
Jeff McKenzie caused us to look at “What Do We Expect From a Whisky?” His presentation was thought provoking and fitted in well following on from Stefan’s. He suggested that we all look for Scotch look-alikes and argued that each country should develop their own style of whisky.
Gary Ledgerwood’s subject was Prohibition. He looked at the fact that, during Prohibition, whisky was available as a medicine, the routes into the States, and shortcuts for the production of bathtub whisky. His conclusion was that the industry had “played it right” and that the fact that they had continued to supply U.S. distributors (whether legal or not) had served them well since then.
Jim Schultz argued that “Proof = Bravado & Rent”. He argued that high alcoholic strength (proof) = bravado as it makes us less inhibited and thus braver to say and do what we would have been reticent to say or do when sober. He argued that proof makes our kidneys work harder and that the alcohol is in our bodies for a short period of time and therefore proof = rent. Amusing and different.
All in all a very good demonstration of their understanding of the subject and good to note that there was no overlap, in that every student had selected a completely different subject. As a tutor, when setting a project for a number of students, I regularly expect that there will be a couple who will select the same or similar topics. This time, all different.
Naturally, there was ablind tasting after their challenges: Aberlour 10, Bowmore 12, Glenlivet 18 and Glenlivet 12 - in that order to confuse them. They all got the order correct and identified the regions and James Farrelly correctly identified Glenlivet 18.

Scotch Whisky Trail Course ends

The spring 2010 season of courses is now over with the final night - and the EXAM!! - of the Scotch Whisky Trail Course last night. I always seem to get a good bunch of guys and gals who are there to enjoy themselves and to pick up a wee bit knowledge about the cratur. The exam scores last night were very good. Taken as a whole, at 73%, they probably had probably the best average score in the 11 years I have been running the course.
The examconsists of 50 multiple choice questions and 3 whiskies tasted blind, with one mark being given for correctly identifying whether the whisky is a blended whisky or a single malt and 5 marks for correctly identifying the brand. The tasting side of it is really just for fun and doesn't count towards the final percentage.
We finished up with a fairly comprehensive tasting of Japanese (and other) whiskies, with samples from Yamazaki, Chichibu, Hanyu, Fuji-Gotemba, Karuizawa, Yoichi & Hakushu, not forgetting Glann ar Mor, Mackmyra, Bakery Hill, Sullivan's Cove & Kilchoman.
Today I have been down to more mundane things - decorating the bathroom. I HATE painting skirting boards! I need a dram now.

Scotch Whisky Trail Certificate Course week 7

The course last night was a trip for the students to Glengoyne distillery. A couple of them had been there before, at least one had NEVER been to a whisky distillery, never mind Glengoyne!
A great night, looked after by Louise & Callum. Stuart had looked out some samples for me to deliver to them showing the effects of different woods on maturation. We sampled:
a 3 years old Glengoyne from a first fill Oloroso European oak hogshead at 63.5%: medium-bodied, rich and Sherried with rubber/nuttiness and a little apple; with water, it became bigger with tangerines and some perfume.
a 12 yo first fill Oloroso American oak butt at 58.2%: Richer, with more toffee, honey and apple; with water, a distinct ceral note of Sugar Puffs breakfast cereal opened out.
a 19 yo second fill Oloroso European oak butt at 55.8%: a wee bit dumb on the nose, showing a little toffee & not much more; with water, it really opened out with fresh citrus, lemon/lime, honey and apricot.
and finally, Glengoyne 21 yo, the current bottling, which is all from a mix of 10-12 casks of first fill Oloroso European oak at 43%: Sherry nuttiness leaps out of the glass with a dense beeswax note and a little perfume; with water, the beeswax becomes softer, with notes of furniture polish and some apple and peach.
A great way to demonstrate the effects of the different woods. With the beeswax and fruity characters of the European oak and the definite cereal characters of the American wood.
Another great night!
The students now have to sit the exam next week.

Adanced Whisky Course

The Advanced Whisky Course is now into its seventh week and going amazingly well. I was not 100% convinced that it would work as well as it has. Looking into the minutiae of whisky is not everyone's cup of tea, but it seems that the students on the first running of the course like it.
This week was easy for me, the students had to deliver a 15 minute address on some aspect of whisky. We had chill-filtration, profiles of Auchentoshan and Glenfarclas (including a sample of the 1958 from the Family Casks!), an Italian whisky club, poetry and art & whisky. Wonderfully imaginative and very good and in-depth research involved by the students. I was impressed!
The entry level course, The Scotch Whisky Trail Certificate course has just had its 6th week and again, a good bunch of students, a couple of publicans, a whisky writer, two restaurant staff and the balance of aficionados.
Scotland's weather has improved, it has ben very stable over the past week with blue skies and sunshine, although it is cold out of the sunshine. As I look west just now, the sun is sinking over Stirlimng Castle and the sky is picking up a rosy glow, soon to be purple, gold and many other colours.