Whisky Advocate Winter 2015

If you or any of your friends are thinking of visiting Scotland to tour distilleries and learn more about whisky, your first stop should be Speyside. Why? Well, to begin, over 50 of Scotland’s distilleries (nearly half ) are all located in close proximity to each other in the vicinity of the Spey river, which is why it’s called Speyside. But it’s not just the quantity of distilleries that makes Speyside so attractive, it’s also the quality. Some of the most highly-regarded distilleries—including Macallan, Glenlivet, Glenfiddich, Balvenie, Mortlach, and Glenfarclas— are all located in Speyside. And many of them give great tours. Inside, we have compiled a comprehensive guide that will help you plan—and enjoy— your next whisky-soaked visit there. We have details on distillery tours (plus a guide to silent distilleries…

THE VALUE ISSUE Dear John, The Fall 2015 Issue is Your Best in Years. Well Done! Thanks, Jon Hieb You’re welcome, Jon! Dear John, I thoroughly enjoy your magazine and looked forward to reading the Best Under $100 article (last issue). I was dismayed that you included teasers such as Stagg, Eagle Rare 17, and Sazerac 18. I love them all but as part of the [Buffalo Trace Antique Collection] release they are as unobtainable as Pappy, at least at [list price]. I thought your goal was to list only those labels that can actually be found. Jim Molnar, Atlanta Jim, that was a difficult decision, but there are still quite a few places that sell the Antique Collection at the very fair list price to customers, selecting them by loyalty or by random lottery. As we said…

Toronto used to be a distilling city. The sprawling Gooderham and Worts complex was at one time the world’s largest distillery, producing millions of gallons of whisky and other spirits while serving as the anchor of Toronto’s east end brewing and distilling district. Two World Wars, Canada’s dabble with prohibition, and eventual industry consolidation did a number on the huge distillery, though, and by the mid-20th century its fortunes were in steep decline. By 1990 it was closed, transformed into an event space and popular movie set, and a decade later even finding a decent cocktail in the city could be a challenge. Thankfully, the new millennium has been good to Toronto, with new distilleries and breweries born and fine cocktail and whisky bars abounding, transforming the city rather suddenly into…

Japanese whiskies are delivering a phenomenal return compared to any other segment of the whisky market this year. Most prized are the single cask releases from Karuizawa, though there has been a ripple effect down through the past decade’s releases from Hanyu and scarce grain whisky from Kawasaki. Prize-winning vintages of Yamazaki, single cask Yoichi, and limited edition Hibiki blends have all surged in value. Consider this. In October 2014, two Karuizawa single casks were released in London, costing £375 per bottle. The pair included a 30 year old sherry cask bottled at 58.2% and a 29 year old bourbon cask at 53.9%, both produced in the 1980s at the cult distillery in the Nagano prefecture. The labels match up to show the piercing stare of a white-faced geisha, her face…

What’s aging in whiskey barrels isn’t just for helping you get sauced, but increasingly, is also for helping your food get saucy. Beyond being utilized for barrel-aged beers, used barrels are also being employed to create barrelaged sauces and condiments. San Francisco’s Sosu Sauces produces Barrel-Aged Sriracha. “My husband really enjoys whiskey, and so do I, and it was almost this silly idea at first,” says Lisa Murphy, founder of Sosu Sauces. “Like hey, ‘What if we started fermenting in a wooden barrel?’” Murphy uses full-sized rye whiskey barrels, and while she doesn’t officially disclose her source, it’s a Bay Area distiller with fullsized rye barrels lying around. “The whiskey that’s in there has a spicier note to it,” she says. “It complements what we’re doing, a spicy sriracha. The whiskey is…

It’s highly probable that you have encountered a whisky flavor map or sensory wheel on your lifelong quest to find your favorite dram. Like some liquid Rorschach test, you may have tried to decipher the inkblot of a whisky spider chart, attempting to equate that spiky snowflake to the pleasurable sensations ricocheting around your mouth. You may spy a flavor wheel in the opening chapters of a whisky tome, displayed on a poster in your liquor store, or tucked into one of those curled booklets spooning your bottle deep inside its cardboard tube. Most of the published classifications of whisky flavor begin with a core number of aroma and flavor descriptions. What I want to know is this: how do we link this descriptive vocabulary to the chemical compounds created by…