clean spring water usually (is what they claim on tours anyway) True distilled water isn't actually very nice tasting, all the mineral ions in it have been removed and you can tell something's wrong. It might be an interesting make spirit has enough in it for that not to matter, but a filtered spring water could well be good enough. Equally for quality control presumably they would want a regular water quality so some sort of processed water will be required vs just taking it out of a spring.
The OCUK Whisky (and Whiskey) review thread
- Thread starter Uriel
- Start date
The clean spring water thing is generally what they claim they use for their distillate, not for diluting before bottling. Most distilleries don't bottle on site, Springbank do, I can't think of many others.
Kilchomann do (or at least did when I was there) and I should have the photographs for that somewhere. I thought Glenfiddich/Balvennie have a joint bottling plant in Dufftown but we also visited a few dunnages where they were doing bottling on site too so it's possible I'm thinking of those rather than the distilleries we saw on the same tour. Blair Athol used to (for their single malt - nb most of their whisky goes off for blending though, no idea where that happens) and way back I thought Talisker showed us a bottling room but it's possible it was just museum vs still used. I'll have a hunt through my photos and see if I can work out where they're from.
Yeah I did think Kilchoman did as well, as they say they do everything on site from growing the barley etc but I wasn't certain if they bottled or not. Many distilleries don't even have their dunnage warehouses on site, never mind bottling. Most Diageo stock ends up maturing in their massive warehouse complex in Fife I think it is.
I don't know, you'd think with the amount of money they spent on the site they would have included that, but I didn't actually hear if they did. To be honest I don't pay much attention to what Macallan do.
Associate
- Joined
- 7 Jul 2015
- Posts
- 1,276
- Location
- Portslade area
I wonder if any of the cheap ones just stick in water off a tap ha ha
Anyone know much about Aberlour 12 non chill-filtered? Seemed like it got discontinued a few years ago and I was sad I never picked one up as I enjoyed the 12 double cask matured for the price and read the ncf was a big improvement on that.
I've spotted it here in the new bottle design, which I take to mean it is back, but I can't find it anywhere else. It's fairly steeply priced here so I'm teetering on just grabbing it, but the 50+ mark is hard to justify when I have 4 bottles in the cabinet!
Aberlour 12 Year Old Scotch Whisky : The Whisky Exchange
I've spotted it here in the new bottle design, which I take to mean it is back, but I can't find it anywhere else. It's fairly steeply priced here so I'm teetering on just grabbing it, but the 50+ mark is hard to justify when I have 4 bottles in the cabinet!
Aberlour 12 Year Old Scotch Whisky : The Whisky Exchange
Thanks for replying, I think it's an itch I just have to scratch at this point!
Similarly Benromach 100 proof 10 year, I had a pour of that in a restaurant a few years ago and loved it, and failed to pick up a bottle before that got discontinued.
Benromach 10 Year Old - 100° Proof Whisky - Master of Malt
If anyone ever sees a bottle of that for sale please message me!
Keep an eye on auctions. I've seen a few on Scotch Whisky Auctions relatively recently and they don't go for crazy money, generally around £50 to £55ish. I dare say they will be on other auction sites too.
Great pointer thank you, few bottles on here
WhiskyAuction.Com
Anyone used that website before? Seems very clunky, I don't even know where to click to register!
Soldato
- Joined
- 22 Jan 2014
- Posts
- 3,860
Especially all the fees - so many of which seem to be percentages that get calculated on the sale price plus the percentage already added for something else, which is in addition to the percentage also applied on that to boot.Auctions are dangerous don't get carried away.
I haven't used that one, but I'd probably avoid it for now at least. It's based in Germany and with the current balls up that's been made with getting things from the EU you could end up getting stung for a lot. I can't remember if it was on here, or it was elsewhere, I saw someone had been hit with around a £50 import charge for getting a bottle that cost around the same from France.
I'd stick to UK based ones for now, until things settle down a bit and are clearer at least.
It's not that bad, it's generally a percentage of the auction price plus vat and shipping. I can't recall seeing any that do more than that, but perhaps some do.
One thing I've gathered from perusing the auctions is how expensive a Macallan 10yo cask strength is! Makes me think if more cask strength age statement stuff will end up that way, and inclines me to try and by some. Primarily to taste before it all ends up too expensive, but wonder if it might be worth a few investment bottles too. Very speculative I know.
Can anyone recommend any good age statement cask strength editions? Mainly interested in speyside but can be convinced elsewhere.
Can anyone recommend any good age statement cask strength editions? Mainly interested in speyside but can be convinced elsewhere.
Without going into specific bottles if you are particularly interested in cask strength whiskies it might be worth your while looking at an SMWS membership, all their releases are cask strength. Other independent bottlers like Signatory Vintage, Cadenheads and Gordon & MacPhail will probably be your best bet, outwith SMWS, for getting age statement cask strength bottles. While you can get original bottling CS versions they tend not to be particularly old, and are also usually snapped up by flippers to stick on the auction houses for a quick profit. It's genuinely silly what some people are willing to pay just to say they have a bottle, when the whisky isn't anywhere near good enough to warrant what they are paying. I'm talking about things like Springbank and Kilkerran here where they are good at the RRP, but not for the inflated prices on auctions.
And with regards Macallan, you can safely ignore that as far as it goes as an indicator of general pricing. It isn't really aimed at the UK market, the bulk of stock gets exported to the US and Asia, so while it is expensive everywhere it is particularly so here. They are also catering to the speculator market, so they expect that much of what they put out will go into collections and auction houses. When the whisky isn't expected to be drunk there really isn't much incentive for them to put great whisky in the bottles. That's not to say it will be bad but, again, it is almost certainly not worth what you would be paying for it.
As for investment in whisky, I suspect now isn't a great time for it, you can probably make some quick cash on the types of things I mentioned, but longer term investments in what is coming out just now probably won't work. as I dount they will hold their value, whisky prices are pretty close to the peak of what the market can sustain. But that's just my opinion.