Scotch Whisky Trail Certificate course

Last night was the final week of the last running of the Scotch Whisky Trail Certificate course.  The Good Spirits Company is proving to be an excellent venue for it.
This class was a maximum attendance of 23, although only 20 sat the exam last night.  Good scores, everyone passed (as it is a leisure course, I'm not sure that anyone should fail, but we will see).  The poorest score last night was 55%, with the highest being 83% and the average being 69%.  And one student, Ian Hutchison, got a full 100% in the blind tasting; this is the first time in 15 years of running the course that anyone has done that.  The three whiskies were High Commissioner, Auchentoshan Select and Laphroaig 10.
Despite the course running at what is now The City of Glasgow College for 13 years, feedback forms were never a part of the package.  I inaugurated them in the courses which I ran in the autumn of 2012 and I must say that the responses have done great things for stroking my ego!
One thing which has come out of them is that a couple of this course's responses and one from the autumn's have said that the course is more advanced than they thought that it was going to be.  I refer to this course as the "entry level course", so perhaps I will look at being less informative/technical at least for the first couple of weeks.  I know that the course has evolved quite a bit from its first running back in 1999 because of a few of the students having been serial students (one has been on the entry level course six times!) and my adjusting the content to give them something extra.
Another thing which has come out of this batch of feedback is the timing of the distillery visit.  My thinking behind it has always been that they do 6 weeks of classroom study, then a distillery visit to bring everything together and then the exam on the last week.  Perhaps I should fit the distillery visit in around week 3 after they have done malt whisky production in week 1 and grain whisky production and the blend in week 2.  Food for thought before the next course starts on September 16th.

BenRiach Maltings reopen

Word came through this week that BenRiach's maltings have reopened.

Billy Walker, the company's MD, said: “From a commercial point of view, it makes no sense because the costs of producing malted barley are significantly more.  The reason we’re doing it is because we had everything in place and in fantastic condition.  Bolting the maltings onto BenRiach is a beautiful join-up.”

It brings to eight the number of distillers who malt at least a portion of their own barley.

Today, I have a meeting of Delph Pond Forum and can advise them that the group, of which I am the treasurer, has been successful in its bid for funding from The Co-operative's Community Fund.  The Forum is attempting to raise funds for interpretation boards around the pond giving visitors to the area and schoolchildren (as the park has been used by local schools as an outdoor classroom in the past couple of years) information about the area's flora and fauna.  We are gradually having the locals accept some responsibility for the area and to understand the importance of protecting the area's biodiversity.

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.

Happy New Year & Glenmorangie Artein

I hope that you all have had a very merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Christmas for me was good, Santa was very generous, but at New Year, I was hit by the winetr vomiting bug. I only had one dram at Hogmanay - it was at midnight and I only had the one, a normally very pleasant Aberlour a'Bunadh, which I didn't enjoy very much at all. Fortunately, the nausea only lasted around 24 hours, so the rest of the season was enjoyed thoroughly!
Scotland has been batterd, bruised and beaten by the wind in the past few weeks. I can never remember a succession of winds as strong or sustained as we have experienced over the past 6 weeks or so. Many trees down, 30,000 electricity customers cut off at one point, people without power for 3 days. In 2012, we are supposed to have the technology to prevent all this happening.
Glenmorangie released Artein on 4th January. Artein is the third release in its award-winning Private Edition range. Artein is the Gaelic for "stone" and the name links together the distillery's hard water supply from Tarlogie Spring with the stony soil of Sassicaia's vineyards in Tuscany's Bolgheri.
‘Artein’ is an assemblage of 15 and 21 Years Old Glenmorangie, finished by extra maturation in these Supertuscan wine casks.
I think that it is a great addition to their range (see my tasting note on my website) and, in my experience/opinion, supertuscan casks have done a fabulous job of finishing the whiskies they were involved with.
I am very humbled to have been voted "Whisky Man of the Year 2011" by whisky bloggers www.whiskyboys.com.

Damaged foot & record results for Scotch industry

In the summer of 2005, I was pulling my then 6 year old daughter through the surf on a beach in the Western Loire to the south of the mouth of the Loire. The water here has fine sand in it, so the water isn't crystal clear and I stumbled across some rocks and ripped the sole of my foot open on rocks and oyster shells. My foot was bandaged up and I spent a few days hobbling around. Some months later, I noticed that where my foot had been cut, lumps of hard skin were manifesting. Went to the quack who diagnosed verrucas. I maintained that I felt that there were pieces of rock/shell embedded in my foot. For about 18 months, I treated the foot with a liquid and had cryotherapy (liquid nitrogen) treatment on the sole of my foot. It didn't clear up, so I thought that I was stuck with it. It wasn't causing pain, just a little discomfort which I put up with.
Until a couple of months ago when the foot started to be painful. Went back to the quack who arranged for an x ray to see if there were actually any foreign bodies in my foot because, as he said, my foot shouldn't have been like this for 6 years. He also suggested that I recommence the cryotherapy.
At 5.00pm last night, I saw a sadistic nurse who treated the sole of my foot with the liquid nitrogen - as it has NEVER been treated before! I now cannot walk, I was in sincere pain driving home from the surgery last night, the damaged area is on the ball of my left foot, where the clutch pedal sits.
The good news is that the Scotch Whisky industry has reported record export figures - again! Export sales rose by 23% in the 9 months to 30th September, effectively achieving 2010's exports in the first 9 months of 2011! Brazil, with its 7% annual growth in GDP is the world's fastest growing whisky drinking nation: sales increased by 50% in the 9 months!
See http://www.heraldscotland.com/business/corporate-sme/exports-of-scotch-whisky-surge-to-hit-record-levels-1.1137758?3378

Wallace Monument

Yesterday, as we are close to St. Andrew's Day, many buildings, castles, etc. were open to the public for FREE. The Wallace Monument is about 2 miles away from where I sit in my study. Despite its proximity, we have not visited it in the 6 years we have lived here, thus my daughter has never been near it - because the cost is, quite frankly prohibitive. £30.00 for the three of us. Just to climb up and climb down again.
Thus, as it was free (see it's true, we Scots are tight!), I took my daughter along.
The queues were extraordinary and it was freezing cold standing in the queue. They told us when we arrived that it would be about an hour before we would be able to get inside the monument. Then they told us that we would only be able to get to the third floor. One of the reasons for going was to experience the view and take photographs of our home area from the top!
We froze, we waited.
It was quite good, but it was not worth £30.00
Tonight is my daughter's first parents' night at secondary school. She had good reports from her primary school up until the summer, but i am not sure about how things are going at secondary. Now we will find out how she has really been getting on.

Injuries

Arrived back from 5 days at my buddy Jim's caravan at Wemyss Bay. A HUGE caravan site with thousands of caravans, but his is tucked away in a secluded corner; the weather was fabulous, so we had a good time.
Went over to Rothesay (one must when one is doon the watter), visited Rothesay Castle - an impressive ruin which must have been pretty impregnable in its prime with ten feet thick walls. We ate lunch in a very good restaurant - Brechin's Brasserie: small, friendly, no chips!, good food and reasonable pricing. Will definitely go back!
Also ate at the revamped Nardini's in Largs: again, very impressive decor, service and food and not, despite what was suggested, expensive.
Came home, set to recommence work on the fence and was struck down by the Winter Vomiting Virus. Had to spend the next day in bed, very unpleasant and uncomfortable.
Finally got back started work on the fence rebuilding on Wednesday. Weather great, learning as I go along, pleasing results, still not venturing too far from a toilet.
Was due to attend the launch of the Old Pulteney sponsorship of Jock Wishart's Row to the Arctic last night, but it was called off by the grounding off all flights to and from the UK by a cloud of volcanic ash emanating from and Icelandic volcano which was heading this way. Our good weather meant that it wasn't being blown away fast enough. Heard today that 23,666 flights across Europe had been cancelled yesterday and today by the cloud.
Was greatly assisted by my father-in-law, who knows about these things, in the dismantling of our garden shed. It has to be dismantled so that a digger can come in and excavate a 3 metre deep hole in the search for our foundations. It is our intention to have a sunroom built on the northwest corner of our home and, despite the fcat that the house is only five years old, neither the council planning department, nor the consultant engineers who consulted in the original build have records of how the foundations were laid. Incompetence or what? So a hole has to be dug to confirm what the architect thinks, that the house is built on piles, or stilts sunk into the clay.
Anyway, pa-in-law aided me in about 45 minutes to do what it would have taken me two days to do.
Late yesterday afternoon I twisted my knee preventing myself from falling from the fence into the trench at the side of the garden. Today can hardly walk. Looks like the fence is going to take longer than two weeks to rebuild.

The Whisky Courses Continue

Now into the fourth week, last night saw us into history of the industry up to 1850, having already looked at malt and grain production, the blend and maturation. The Scotch Whisky Trail Certificate Course is a good wee group of a dozen bar staff, private consumers, a ship's steward and a whisky writer. One, last week, announced that he had been to many courses over the course of his life and that this was "by far, the best course I have ever been on!" Made me feel good.
The great thing about this course is that the students are coming in with already formed, pre-conceived ideas and the course opens their eyes to how good some brands (especially blends) are which they had previously discounted as poor.
The Advanced Course, running for the first time, is very different and looks at some obscure areas of the industry from obtuse angles. The students taste whiskies blind and are becoming very proficient at identifying regional and local characteristics in the whiskies. They say that they are finding the course difficult which I am pleased about because have I found it dfficult to create the course materials. I certainly wouldn't iike the students to find things easy!
Attached is a picture of the students enjoying themselves on the Whisky Trail Course.

Premium bottlings

Following my post of yesterday, I have had a long intercourse with a couple of my students about whether or not a bottling such as Glengoyne 40 Years Old is at £3,750.00 per bottle value for money. One argued that the value of the liquid wasn't in question, but that most whisky drinkers would prefer to buy the whisky in an ordinary bottle, then they would be able to drink it. To buy a bottling in an expensive decanter with its wooden box and associated add ons just gives items which the drinker doesn't need - or want, he argued.
The other side was also put, by me, that the bottlers are making a statement in wrapping their superlative product in crystal and adding on extras, such as a booklet detailing what was happening in the world on the day that the whisky was distilled. And then cocooning it in a highly polished container.
The bottle which started all this is in the attached image.

23rd July, 2009

Just back from 18 days holiday. Visited the town of Erquy on the north coast of Brittany, what the call "le Cote d'Emeraude". Erquy is a very pleasant wee town with fabulous beaches - acres of sand! It has French, Belgian, Dutch, German and Swiss tourist - and damned few Brits! Good food and friendly locals. We holidayed in the Western Loire two years ago and noticed that the Euro prices had risen quite considerably since 2007. That added to the poor Sterling - Euro exchange rate made for an expensive holiday.
I was even in swimming a few times and the water wasn't too cold.
Visited Glann ar Mor distillery and hour and a half to the north west of Erquy. Here, Jean Donnay and his wife Martine operate the Celtique Whisky Compagnie, a Breton independent bottler, see http://www.celtic-whisky.com. Jean and Patrick, his helper (warehouseman/mashman/stillman/etc.) produce small amounts of spirit from distillery buildings which have the date 1668 carved into the lintel above the door. The first of Glann ar Mor's spirit became whisky at three years old earlier this year and was bottled at 3 years and 4 months old. My tasting note will follow.
Very cute little stills with a production of around a mere 50,000 bottles per annum, distillation is slow, wash still distillation takes 14 hours, spirit still distillation even slower.
Jean Donnay is a driven character, enthused, animated and focussed. A great ambassador for his own product, the stills were made for him in the Charente and are both direct fired - without rummagers.