
How Sherry Became the Secret to Great Scotch - bcaulfield
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/why-great-scotch-needs-sherry
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tptacek
Sherry is the reason people like Macallan, but:

* lots of Scotch has no sherry, and, particularly, the smokey peaty Islays tend not to be sherried at all. Sherried Scotch is a distinctive style, mostly centered in Speyside.

* There are better, cheaper sherry bomb whiskies than Macallan; try Aberlour A’bunadh (cheap, excellent) and Glendronach (still substantially cheaper than Macallan, and I think much better).

The big trend in Scotch is towards “no age statement” (NAS) bottlings, because
Scotland is not keeping up with resurgent global demand. NAS bottles are
younger spirits, but tend to have more interesting casks, which is a bonus if
sherried whiskies are what you’re into.

For what it’s worth, my mental model is that ex-bourbon casks add basically no
flavors other than the wood; I think of them as “neutrally casked”.

~~~
vowelless
> Aberlour A’bunadh

Where are you getting cheap Aberlour A'bunadh?? It's my favorite scotch but I
cannot find it for less than 2 to 3 times the price of Macallan 12.

Also, Glenmorangie is a delicious sherry scotch. Tastes a lot like Macallan
and usually cheaper.

> The big trend in Scotch is towards “no age statement” (NAS) bottlings,
> because Scotland is not keeping up with resurgent global demand. NAS bottles
> are younger spirits, but tend to have more interesting casks, which is a
> bonus if sherried whiskies are what you’re into.

Interestingly, Macallan in the US still has an age statement. This, however,
is not the case in other countries. They have names instead (like "Ruby").

~~~
flyinghamster
> Where are you getting cheap Aberlour A'bunadh?? It's my favorite scotch but
> I cannot find it for less than 2 to 3 times the price of Macallan 12.

I was going to ask that, as well. :-) In Chicagoland at least, there isn't a
huge price difference, though ($67 for Macallan 12, $90 for A'bunadh). On the
other hand, last time I had a bottle of A'bunadh, it was in the $60-$65 range.

Fortunately, being cask strength, the A'bunadh bottle can go farther, provided
you dilute it properly.

While I like the Speyside style, I like peated Islays as well. I'm interested
in the Lagavulin 8 - the 16 is still just a bit too dear (though down in price
from a few years ago).

~~~
tptacek
Weird. I just paid mid-60s for a bottle, from Binnys, off Instacart no less,
but yeah the price right now is just shy of $90.

It’s not worth $90. You can get a Dronach for that much.

A good relatively inexpensive sherry Speyside is Dailuane (in my experience
_only_ the cheap Dailuanes are good).

~~~
wheels
Whisky became hip in the last 5-ish years and all of the stuff I used to
recommend to people has gotten too expensive. I've expanded significantly
towards other matured spirits where the prices haven't gotten as redonkulous
yet: rum, brandy, and even some good tequila.

~~~
peterwwillis
Weird side effect: I found Scottish whiskeys were cheaper in Japan for the
past 5 years compared to the US. That and buying in a spirit's native country
saves me a chunk of change. I'm almost out of good rum, so I might need to
plan my next vacation to the Caribbean..

~~~
omnimus
Go Barbados or Jamaica.

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fraa-orolo
I've got a bone to pick with the article - it makes it sound like the Scottish
only invented whisky in the beginning of 19th century:

> So it was only a matter of time before the Scots started storing their local
> moonshine, a clear distillate called uisge beatha (“water of life”), inside
> them. “Around 1800, distillers in Scotland realized that putting this clear
> spirit in a barrel not only made financial sense, but also made the liquid
> look and taste better,”

whereas Scotch whisky has been around for at least 500 years. In the second
half of 18th century and early 19th century making distilled spirits was
outlawed in Scotland, so, naturally, people turned to moonshining - much less
risk in that than storing casks for decades to mature into proper whisky;
that's the reason for the prominence of clear spirits.

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dboreham
One thing to know : I had always had the idea that Whisky tasted basically of
the barrel, with the implication that the stuff put in the barrel doesn't
taste of much -- like pure ethanol. This turns out to be not the case. I
happened to visit a distillery where they let you drink the liquid straight
out the still (that, in turn, because this particular distillery hasn't been
in business long enough to have final product ready to sell). I was surprised
to find that the distillate liquor tasted very much like Whisky.

~~~
maaarghk
Harris?

~~~
dboreham
Unfortunately no. It turns out there's a distillery in Fife now :
[https://www.kingsbarnsdistillery.com/](https://www.kingsbarnsdistillery.com/)

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peterwwillis
Sherry is definitely underappreciated in the US. One of my favorite aspects of
it is how it is poured in Spain. A Venenciador uses a long rod with a thin cup
to dip into a cask and pour the sherry into a small glass from high up in the
air. This is a regular part of the sampling process in bodegas, but it is also
performed at parties, weddings and fancy restaurants. It takes a lot of
practice to get good at it, so good Venenciadors can make a living just
pouring sherry. Really good Venenciadors can pour accurately over a meter in
distance.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kcmhtGvsc4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kcmhtGvsc4)

~~~
jackhack
Interesting it's so firmly a part of the ritual of serving sherry. But then
aeration is known to improve the flavours of many types of spirits and even
electronic wine bottle toppers are available to spin the air.

~~~
toomanybeersies
A classic trick in restaurants for serving older red wines that need to breath
a bit is to just pour it through a sieve when pouring it into the decanter (it
should be poured into a decanter to pour it off the sediment in the bottle) to
aerate the wine.

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dustinkirkland
I do love single malt scotch whisky.

But I will say...Sherry by itself is totally underated.

I spent a week in Jerez a few years ago studying Sherry and it is truly an
art.

If you like Single Malt and Sour Beer, you owe it to yourself to seek out a
Sherry bar and explore the magic of Fino, Amontillado, and the ever evasive
Palo Cortado.

~~~
tptacek
The tough thing about sherry is that it doesn’t keep. I can keep 5-6 different
interesting whiskeys in my house for months, but a sherry bottle has to get
drunk within a week.

We had a restaurant in Chicago, Vera, with a huge sherry list. It was kind a
of a miracle; I’d rather go there than to Longman with their equivalently long
whiskey list. Gone now though :(.

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toomanybeersies
It's interesting how simple coincidences and accidents can become such a
fundamental part of the character of a product.

The peat smoke in Scotch is another good example of this. They only used peat
to dry the malt as coke was too expensive and hard to source in Scotland.

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seanhandley
For me, a great whisky is "spirit led" i.e. the flavour is dominated by the
flavours present in the spirit itself before maturation.

It's difficult and expensive to make a really good "spirit led" whisky so many
distilleries use casks as a way to imbue more flavours. Of course, a good cask
helps (and you can't have whisky without casks) but beware of marketing
departments trying to bamboozle you with fancy barrels.

The real art is in the distillation itself.

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HillaryBriss
The Macallan is kind of a special case of sherry barrel aging nowadays.

Because of US laws that require aging bourbon in new, freshly charred,
American oak barrels, a large quantity of the barrels sold to distillers
across the globe are "ex bourbon."

So, now, an awful lot of booze out there -- and not just whiskey, but also
American brandy and some Caribbean rums -- tastes sorta like bourbon.

~~~
tptacek
It tastes sort of like American oak, but not so much like bourbon. To a first
approximation, everything not aged in Sherry butts has basically always been
aged in ex bourbon casks, and lots of Scotch varieties have never been
sherried.

~~~
HillaryBriss
> To a first approximation, everything not aged in Sherry butts has basically
> always been aged in ex bourbon casks ...

What historical evidence supports the notion that rum and brandy were, even to
a first approximation, basically always aged in ex bourbon casks?

~~~
tptacek
Scotch. All the scotches. I'm not talking about rum and brandy (I am however
at this minute getting tipsy on a pretty amazing Plantation rum aged in cognac
barrels, so I guess I could nerd out on rum a bit too --- though all I know
about rum is "buy the Plantation rums that are aged in interesting barrels").

~~~
voltagex_
Which Plantation rum?

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taurath
Some of the most lovely bourbons I’ve had recently are port barrel aged, so
this isn’t a surprise!

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tptacek
Which one? The only wine barrel bourbon I've had is High West's Midwinter. I'd
be interested in other ones.

Kilchoman's port cask Scotch is really amazing.

~~~
taurath
Local one in the Pacific Northwest - Cadee distillery Cascadia

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beilabs
For those interested in an Irish version check out Green Spot and Red Breast.
Some of my favourites...

