Diageo has released Mortlach Midnight Malt – a 30-year-old whisky aged in three different casks of Calvados, rum and wine. Mortlach Midnight Malt was initially aged in both refill American oak and European oak casks before being split into the trio of different seasoned casks that formerly held Bordeaux wine, Calvados and Guatemalan rum, bottled […]
Diageo has released Mortlach Midnight Malt – a 30-year-old whisky aged in three different casks of Calvados, rum and wine.
Mortlach Midnight Malt was initially aged in both refill American oak and European oak casks before being split into the trio of different seasoned casks that formerly held Bordeaux wine, Calvados and Guatemalan rum, bottled at 49.1% alcohol by volume [98.2 proof] and is said to contain notes of apple, black pepper and mint chocolate.
Mortlach Midnight Malt 30 Years Old is being made available for $4,500 per bottle.
Laphroaig 15 yo 1967/1982 (57%, Duthie’s for Samaroli, sherry)
Laphroaig 15 yo 1967/1982 (57%, Duthie's for Samaroli, sherry)
Welcome to Inbox, our weekly round up of whisky news and PR material that has found its way in to our WFE email. It was created as we cannot write full articles or do justice to every piece received. It features items from around the world of whisky an…
Welcome to Inbox, our weekly round up of whisky news and PR material that has found its way in to our WFE email. It was created as we cannot write full articles or do justice to every piece received. It features items from around the world of whisky and is published by us each Friday. Within Inbox we aim to write a few lines detailing each press release/piece of news/PR event that we have received and provide links, where possible, for you to find out further information.
Here is the round-up of the news from this last week.
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The Speyside single malt distillery of Mortlach, often called 'The Beast of Dufftown', has announced the release of a rare new expression - the Mortlach 30 years old Midnight Malt. The new whisky has undergone a three-way finishing process in an intriguing set of casks. It has spent the majority of its maturation in either re-fill American oak or re-fill European oak. These were then married together by Dr. Craig Wilson, one of Diageo's senior malt blenders, before being split between the three casks - ex-Bordeaux red wine, ex-Calvados apple brandy and ex-Guatemalan rum.
The Mortlach 30 years old Midnight Malt has been bottled at the natural cask strength of 49.1% ABV and is limited in number. It will be available worldwide from from selected specialist and luxury retailers. A bottle will cost £3,700/ $4,495 US.
Tullibardine
The Highland distillery of Tullibardine has launched the fifth expression in its Distillery Editions Series, imaginatively titled Tullibardine Distillery Editions No.5. The single malt was distilled and filled to a single ex-bourbon cask in 2007, before undergoing a final finishing period in an ex-Sauternes dessert wine barrel from France.
The series was launched in 2020 and are exclusive to the distillery visitor centre. Each single cask has been hand selected by a different distillery team member. This fifth edition was chosen by Greg Paterson, Senior Distillery & Warehouse Operator at Tullibardine. It is limited to just 269 bottles with each costing £95.
"The sweetness of the first-fill bourbon barrel marries particularly well with the fruitiness from the time spent in the Sauternes wine cask, bringing out aromas of white peach and ripe nectarines. It's a delicious combination."
Greg Paterson.
The Derbyshire-based English whisky distillery of White Peak have announced the latest limited edition release - the Wire Works Necessary Evil Finish. It is just the fifth release from White Peak. The whisky has seen the distillery's lightly peated spirit initially matured in ex-bourbon barrels. This has then been finished for a short period in ex-beer casks. These had previously held Necessary Evil imperial stout brewed by the neighbouring Thornbridge Brewery. It is bottled at 51.3% ABV and is both non chill-filtered and of natural colour. There are just 2,059 individually numbered bottles.
The Wire Works Necessary Evil Finish is only available via the
White Peak website, with a small amount available tomorrow (Saturday 5 August) from the distillery shop. A bottle will cost £65 and is restricted to one per customer.
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Irish whiskey giant, Bushmills, has released their 10-bottle 2022 Causeway Collection – including a 33-year-old Port finish, the oldest whiskey ever released by The Old Bushmills Distillery. The other nine bottles in the Bushmills 2022 Causeway Collection include two Madeira-finished whiskies, a 25-year-old and a 30-year-old, as well as an 11-year-old Cognac cask-finished whiskey and […]
Irish whiskey giant, Bushmills, has released their 10-bottle 2022 Causeway Collection – including a 33-year-old Port finish, the oldest whiskey ever released by The Old Bushmills Distillery.
The other nine bottles in the Bushmills 2022 Causeway Collection include two Madeira-finished whiskies, a 25-year-old and a 30-year-old, as well as an 11-year-old Cognac cask-finished whiskey and an 11-year-old Banyuls-finished whiskey.
The Bushmills 2022 Causeway Collection ranges in age from nine to 33 years old and ranges in price from $90 to $1,225 per bottle.
The TTB has just announced proposed guidelines for American single malt. What happens now?
The post American Single Malt Finally Gets Its Day In The Sun appeared first on Whisky Advocate.
After years of concentrated efforts, false starts, and anticipation, last week American single malt distillers received the long-awaited news. The Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) released guidelines for the category, making it all but certain that American single malt will be an official part of the American whiskey lexicon before year-end.
Under the TTB’s proposed rule—this is technically just a notice to define and recognize American single malt whiskey and isn’t final quite yet—the whiskey must be distilled entirely at one U.S. distillery, and must be mashed, distilled, and aged in the U.S. It also has to be made from a fermented mash of 100% barley, stored in oak barrels no larger than 700 liters, and while it may not contain neutral spirits, additives like coloring, flavoring, and blending materials are allowed. As with all other whiskeys produced in the U.S., American single malt must be bottled at 40% ABV or higher as well. Over the next 60 days, the TTB will be taking commentary on these proposed guidelines; after this period, these new rules will likely go into effect.
So what exactly does this mean for American single malts? Well, for starters, it’s cause for celebration. “We’re ecstatic—it’s major validation, and it provides a framework so that when people buy a bottle of American single malt, the words on the label mean something,” says Matt Hofmann, managing director at Seattle’s Westland Distillery. “This is history in the making. How often does something like this happen? This is like when bourbon was created, or champagne was made official. This is that moment, and it’s incredibly exciting that we’re all living through it together.”
Westland was one of the founding members of the American Single Malt Whiskey Commission (ASMWC), a group that got its start in 2016 and has been pushing for official recognition ever since. While the Commission initially comprised just nine producers, today it counts over 130 members, producing more than 200 unique whiskeys. For many of these distillers, the mission is to showcase a sense of terroir in their whiskey. Westland, for example, has extensively explored different varieties of local barley and oak casks to create terroir-driven single malt expressions. Its Outpost range in particular, featuring Garryana (oak), Colere (barley), and Solum (peat) whiskeys, pushes the boundaries of production and flavor through a Washington State lens.
In Denver, Stranahan’s Colorado Whiskey head distiller Owen Martin is likewise energized by the recent news, noting just how historic this moment is for the whiskey community. “The last time there was a similar announcement at the government level was roughly three decades ago,” he says. “With American single malts now being officiated, they’ll start to compete with other established whiskey categories and gain better recognition and understanding.”
For the majority of American single malt distillers, these new regulations won’t change anything in their day-to-day doings. Instead, they’ll merely reinforce what they’ve already been doing, and, as Martin points out, shed much more light on the category for drinkers. To that end, one of the most notable changes that may take place over the next several months will be on retail shelves—your neighborhood liquor store may already have a dedicated American single malt section, but there are likely to be many more of them in the near future—just like for single malt scotch, bourbon, rye, and other styles.
Gareth Moore, CEO of Virginia Distillery Co. (also a founding member of the ASMWC), believes this move will be the catalyst for American single malt to join bourbon as being a uniquely American whiskey. “One of the ways I like to think about is, 20 years ago American whiskey was synonymous with bourbon, and if you said American whiskey, it was that or Jack Daniel’s,” he says. “But then, 10 years after that, there came the resurgence of rye, and suddenly there was bourbon, rye, and everything else. I hope American single malt is on that same trajectory, and joins that list ahead of ‘everything else.’”
With all the excitement swirling around this news, it’s hard to see any real drawbacks. But for some, the guidelines will force whiskeys they’ve long identified as American single malts into a more general categorization. “As a general concept, I think it’s great that this system for adopting new regulations is in place, and that a group of like-minded producers got together and said, ‘These are all regulations that we need to have adopted to protect this category and to protect the consumer,’” says Lance Winters, master distiller at St. George Spirits in Alameda, California. “The downside is that if you want to continue experimenting and call something American single malt, the door is closing on what exactly you can call American single malt.” Winters points to St. George’s single malt, a whiskey introduced in 2000—well before many of its cohorts. It includes malts that aren’t truly malted but instead are cooked, which would put it outside the realm of American single malt under the new guidelines.
Compared to bourbon, rye, and malt whiskeys, though, which have stricter rules on what sort of barrels can be used, American single malt would remain relatively freewheeling—aside from a maximum barrel size, for instance, there are no stipulations on what sort of oak casks producers can use in the aging process, as there are for the others (which must be aged in new, charred oak casks). “The new American single malt definition is specific enough to regulate the category, while keeping its uniqueness as an American spirit,” says Stranahan’s Martin. “Scotch whisky regulations are overly restrictive and inhibit creativity, but the ASMWC’s proposed rules are intentionally fairly broad, allowing distillers to be freer in experimentation and brand building.”
On September 27, the TTB will close the commentary period on the proposed rule. Assuming all goes well, the guidelines should fall into place roughly a month later… and then, finally, American single malt distillers can stop holding their breath, and toast to making history.
The post American Single Malt Finally Gets Its Day In The Sun appeared first on Whisky Advocate.
Foreword: In reciting the line of occupations that pioneered the American West, the storekeeper often gets left out of the conversation despite the important role those entrepreneurs played in developing and civilizing life in remote places. For many of these men selling whiskey was essential to the profitability and sustainability of their mercantile efforts. Here are the stories of three such Western merchants.
Harry Gesus was among the Jewish pioneers who helped build the frontier American West by striving to meet the mercantile desires, including liquor, of growing populations in Wyoming, Idaho and Utah. Henry’s efforts, however, were thwarted by greedy mine owners and exacted a high family cost in the premature death of three children.
During the 1890s, a decade of economic recession, Gesus and his wife with their five children moved west from New York City to Kemmerer, Wyoming, shown below, an upstart mining town created by finding rich coal deposits nearby. With a brother Gesus opened a clothing and dry goods store there, soon expanding to two other boom towns in the region. All were company-owned settlements where coal mine operators dictated many of the condition of life for residents. Seeing the mercantile success of the Gesus family, owners pressured workers to use the company stores instead. The Gesus stores closed.
Gesus moved on to Blackfoot, Idaho, a town that called itself “Potato Capital of the World. There he abandoned selling long johns and embraced liquor. He opened a saloon and liquor business he called the Kentucky Liquor Store, selling both at wholesale to local saloons and restaurants and at retail. Although living conditions in Blackfoot were better than Kemmerer, sanitary conditions were similarly poor. Outdoor privies were often crudely constructed and water supplies polluted. Doctors were few and often badly trained. Hospitals were non-existent. After having one child succumb in Kemmerer, two more Gesus children died in Blackfoot.
Gesus did not linger long in Idaho. Perhaps the memories were just too bitter. The family moved to Price, Utah, a mining settlement 120 miles south of Salt Lake City. In Price Harry Gesas opened another liquor store, advertising himself as “The Whiskey Merchant.” Again he was selling at both wholesale and retail, buying whiskey by the barrel and decanting it into ceramic jugs for his customers. When Utah went “dry” in 1917, Gesus made a final move to Salt Lake City, where his three children lay buried. There he sold tobacco.
Terming the Mormon leader Brigham Young a “whiskey man” might strike some as an absurdity, given the injunction against strong drink that has been a traditional teaching of the Church of the Latter Day Saints. The facts seem otherwise. For example, in 1873 at Young’s request the territorial legislature granted him the exclusive right to manufacture and distribute whiskey and other spiritous liquors in Utah. “Valley Tan” was the name of his principal brand.
Another link from Brigham Young to Valley Tan was through the large mercantile store the leader established to provide necessities to Mormons in Salt Lake City. He ostensibly acted on the belief that non-Mormon “Gentile” local merchants were gouging his people. Young called the establishment “Zion’s Cooperative Mercantile Institution” (ZCMI). The store, shown below, sold Valley Tan. That could never have occurred without the leader’s blessing.
ZCMI became a formidable business force, eventually manufacturing its own of boots, shoes, and a line of work clothes. It also sold everything from housing needs, lumber, nails, and the like, to household needs such as fabric, needles, thread, food preservation products, furniture, and draperies, even some beauty products. In effect ZCMI nearly everything the pioneers needed to survive and thrive. Some have called this the first real department store west of the Mississippi. It continued to be church associated until 1999.
The photo above of Sauer-McShane Mercantile in Central City, Colorado, shows a several men posing on the sidewalk in front of the building. Among them likely were Otto Sauer and John McShane, two entrepreneurs who opened the first general store in a Colorado mining town that was virtually nothing but an assemblage of wooden shacks. With whiskey as a major seller, the partners eventually made their enterprise a retail giant. They recognized that an immense amount of money from gold, silver and other metals was being unearthed and available in that part of Colorado. Area mines annually were producing the equivalent value today of $75,000,000, mostly in gold, and many mine owners were exceedingly rich.
Men of wealth often had wives or mistresses that they wanted dressed in the best finery. Sauer-McShane obliged by featuring tea and floor length dresses, laced shoes with high heels, straw and fabric hats with elaborate decoration, and bows, gloves, and brooches. While such fashionable garb might have been available in Denver, that city was over the mountains. Sauer-McShane could provide haute couture close to home and the male partner’s cash box.
As a result, among the store’s clientele were two of the most talked-about women of the West. Elizabeth “Baby Doe” Tabor, shown here, was the wife of Horace Tabor, a wealthy silver magnate and future U.S senator who had divorced his wife of 25 years to marry the beautiful Elizabeth although he was twice her age. The marriage set off a major scandal in Colorado. Baby Doe, as she became known in media coverage nationwide, had plenty of money to spend with Sauer-McShane until Tabor lost all of his in the Panic of 1893.
The other woman was Alice Ivers, shown here. When her husband was killed in a mining accident in Leadville, Colorado, she was in difficult financial straits and turned to playing cards for a living. Shown here, Alice used her good looks to distract men at the poker table. She was also very good at counting cards and winning big pots, that helped her become known throughout the West as “Poker Alice.” Ivers always wore the newest fashion dresses, many bought from Sauer-McShane.
By 1895, the Sauer-McShane store was doing the current equivalent of $5,000,000 in sales annually. The need for more space resulted in their building a new warehouse. It still stands today, bearing their name, and is on the National Register of Historic Places.
Note: More extensive material on each of these three vignettes is available elsewhere on this website: Harry Gesus, April 23, 2021; Brigham Young, August 18, 2016; and Sauer-McShane, April 19, 2018.
Foreword: In reciting the line of occupations that pioneered the American West, the storekeeper often gets left out of the conversation despite the important role those entrepreneurs played in developing and civilizing life in remote places. For many of these men selling whiskey was essential to the profitability and sustainability of their mercantile efforts. Here are the stories of three such Western merchants.
Harry Gesus was among the Jewish pioneers who helped build the frontier American West by striving to meet the mercantile desires, including liquor, of growing populations in Wyoming, Idaho and Utah. Henry’s efforts, however, were thwarted by greedy mine owners and exacted a high family cost in the premature death of three children.
During the 1890s, a decade of economic recession, Gesus and his wife with their five children moved west from New York City to Kemmerer, Wyoming, shown below, an upstart mining town created by finding rich coal deposits nearby. With a brother Gesus opened a clothing and dry goods store there, soon expanding to two other boom towns in the region. All were company-owned settlements where coal mine operators dictated many of the condition of life for residents. Seeing the mercantile success of the Gesus family, owners pressured workers to use the company stores instead. The Gesus stores closed.
Gesus moved on to Blackfoot, Idaho, a town that called itself "Potato Capital of the World. There he abandoned selling long johns and embraced liquor. He opened a saloon and liquor business he called the Kentucky Liquor Store, selling both at wholesale to local saloons and restaurants and at retail. Although living conditions in Blackfoot were better than Kemmerer, sanitary conditions were similarly poor. Outdoor privies were often crudely constructed and water supplies polluted. Doctors were few and often badly trained. Hospitals were non-existent. After having one child succumb in Kemmerer, two more Gesus children died in Blackfoot.
Gesus did not linger long in Idaho. Perhaps the memories were just too bitter. The family moved to Price, Utah, a mining settlement 120 miles south of Salt Lake City. In Price Harry Gesas opened another liquor store, advertising himself as “The Whiskey Merchant.” Again he was selling at both wholesale and retail, buying whiskey by the barrel and decanting it into ceramic jugs for his customers. When Utah went “dry” in 1917, Gesus made a final move to Salt Lake City, where his three children lay buried. There he sold tobacco.
Terming the Mormon leader Brigham Young a “whiskey man” might strike some as an absurdity, given the injunction against strong drink that has been a traditional teaching of the Church of the Latter Day Saints. The facts seem otherwise. For example, in 1873 at Young’s request the territorial legislature granted him the exclusive right to manufacture and distribute whiskey and other spiritous liquors in Utah. “Valley Tan” was the name of his principal brand.
Another link from Brigham Young to Valley Tan was through the large mercantile store the leader established to provide necessities to Mormons in Salt Lake City. He ostensibly acted on the belief that non-Mormon “Gentile” local merchants were gouging his people. Young called the establishment “Zion’s Cooperative Mercantile Institution” (ZCMI). The store, shown below, sold Valley Tan. That could never have occurred without the leader’s blessing.
ZCMI became a formidable business force, eventually manufacturing its own of boots, shoes, and a line of work clothes. It also sold everything from housing needs, lumber, nails, and the like, to household needs such as fabric, needles, thread, food preservation products, furniture, and draperies, even some beauty products. In effect ZCMI nearly everything the pioneers needed to survive and thrive. Some have called this the first real department store west of the Mississippi. It continued to be church associated until 1999.
The photo above of Sauer-McShane Mercantile in Central City, Colorado, shows a several men posing on the sidewalk in front of the building. Among them likely were Otto Sauer and John McShane, two entrepreneurs who opened the first general store in a Colorado mining town that was virtually nothing but an assemblage of wooden shacks. With whiskey as a major seller, the partners eventually made their enterprise a retail giant. They recognized that an immense amount of money from gold, silver and other metals was being unearthed and available in that part of Colorado. Area mines annually were producing the equivalent value today of $75,000,000, mostly in gold, and many mine owners were exceedingly rich.
Men of wealth often had wives or mistresses that they wanted dressed in the best finery. Sauer-McShane obliged by featuring tea and floor length dresses, laced shoes with high heels, straw and fabric hats with elaborate decoration, and bows, gloves, and brooches. While such fashionable garb might have been available in Denver, that city was over the mountains. Sauer-McShane could provide haute couture close to home and the male partner’s cash box.
As a result, among the store’s clientele were two of the most talked-about women of the West. Elizabeth “Baby Doe” Tabor, shown here, was the wife of Horace Tabor, a wealthy silver magnate and future U.S senator who had divorced his wife of 25 years to marry the beautiful Elizabeth although he was twice her age. The marriage set off a major scandal in Colorado. Baby Doe, as she became known in media coverage nationwide, had plenty of money to spend with Sauer-McShane until Tabor lost all of his in the Panic of 1893.
The other woman was Alice Ivers, shown here. When her husband was killed in a mining accident in Leadville, Colorado, she was in difficult financial straits and turned to playing cards for a living. Shown here, Alice used her good looks to distract men at the poker table. She was also very good at counting cards and winning big pots, that helped her become known throughout the West as “Poker Alice.” Ivers always wore the newest fashion dresses, many bought from Sauer-McShane.
By 1895, the Sauer-McShane store was doing the current equivalent of $5,000,000 in sales annually. The need for more space resulted in their building a new warehouse. It still stands today, bearing their name, and is on the National Register of Historic Places.
Note: More extensive material on each of these three vignettes is available elsewhere on this website: Harry Gesus, April 23, 2021; Brigham Young, August 18, 2016; and Sauer-McShane, April 19, 2018.
Dalwhinnie 15 yo (43%, OB, +/-2021)Dalwhinnie 2006/2021 ‘Distiller’s Edition’ (43%, OB, D.SC.315)Dalwhinnie 16 yo (15?) (43%, Sestante, +/-1980)Dalwhinnie 33 yo 1987/2020 (49.8%, OB, Casks of Distinction for Abbot Society, 1st fill American oak, cask #…
Dalwhinnie 15 yo (43%, OB, +/-2021)
Dalwhinnie 2006/2021 'Distiller's Edition' (43%, OB, D.SC.315)
Dalwhinnie 16 yo (15?) (43%, Sestante, +/-1980)
Dalwhinnie 33 yo 1987/2020 (49.8%, OB, Casks of Distinction for Abbot Society, 1st fill American oak, cask #819, 156 bottles)
The post 
