5 whiskies to lure people into whisky

First and foremost: Happy New Year to each and everyone of you wonderful people! May the best of 2023 prove to become the worst of 2024! It's likely there's challenging times ahead for whisky, but let's leave the doom and gloom for another occasion and start things with a bit of positivity!

Back in November I hosted a tasting / introduction lecture on whisky, specifically aimed at people new or at least relatively new to whisky. I dubbed it ‘what is whisky (and why does it taste so good)?’ and capped it at 30 attendees – a good mix of young (late 20’s) and older (early 70’s) folk showed up and, much to my relief, the audience showed an almost 50/50  men-women-x ratio.

The approach I took was me talking for about 40-45 minutes about the basics of whisky – a brief history, covering the  ingredients and production processes, some basic terminology & how to read a label, where flavours come from and the occasional myth busting. After that, we took the better part of the evening trying 5 different scotch single malt whiskies. Truth be told, selecting just 5 whiskies to be tasted by 30 people who were either relatively or completely new to whisky, was what really made me nervous, much more than standing and talking in front of a group of people. In a way, I felt I had a responsibility to whisky to pick the right examples to help people get some sort of basic understanding of what whisky is, can be and has to offer. It was pretty obvious that not all would be winners for all attendees (tastes and preferences differ, and luckily so). So I wasn’t there to ‘convert’ all 30 attending into deep whisky geekery, but at least I aimed  to tickle a few interests left, right and centre; to  light maybe a few sparks. The really good bit about evenings like these, is you’re standing in front of crowd of completely unbiassed people. As they pretty much start from a blank canvas, getting some unfiltered and utterly ‘objective’ feedback as to what went down well and what perhaps less so (30 people, 31 opinions, of course), was nothing short of a delightful eye opener.  I’d never claim to be an expert, but I am embedded into whisky geekery, which means I tend to look at things with a set of preconceptions, possibly an ‘idée fixe’ here and there and, gods forbid, biases too. I was careful not to steer my audience in terms of what they ‘should’ be nosing and tasting, but rather left it to themselves to sort that bit out. The unfiltered responses were often spot on and very interesting.

Now, I picked 5 Scotch single malts, but obviously I could have taken things pretty much in any direction  I deemed fit. I could ‘ve picked whiskies from all over the world, lining up an Irish against a few Scotch, throw in a bourbon and perhaps something from Japan or India or domestic even. Arguably that would have been an equally valid approach to letting people explore the wonders of whisky. But I dialled in and purposefully focussed on Scotch single malt. Mainly because I felt it might be overwhelming to people new to the whole thing to visit all corners of the world. By picking 5 scotches, I felt it would probably be somewhat recognisable and ‘familiar’, even to those who never dipped their toe beyond the proverbial J&B  and coke.

Even still, this decision to home in on Scotch came with its own challenges. I still needed to pick 5 whiskies that would be both accessible and approachable in terms of taste, availability  and price while also being interesting and distinctive enough in their own right. The challenge here is obviously me not being strapped for choice, but rather having to pick from a plethora of excellent options. So in the end, I decided to let flavours  and diversity lead the way, opting for a bourbon cask matured, an outspoken sherry cask character, an old school style whisky, a peated single malt and a bit of an odd one out. The pick for the odd one out was the Loch Lomond Inchmurrin – not because it tastes ‘odd’, but because it’s distilled in their straight neck stills. It also happens that I picked this whisky as my value pick of 2023. So obviously I won’t revisit it in this series, but will pick something different. You’ll see it when we get there.

So here’s what I ended up picking for my whisky 101 tasting (and what I’ll be reviewing in the coming weeks):

Balblair 12 yo

Inchmurrin 12 yo (will be replaced with something else)

Bunnahabhain 12 yo

Benromach 10 yo

Ledaig Sinclair series Rioja cask

I’m well aware that all of these whiskies have been reviewed and discussed at length by just about anyone reviewing and/or discussing all things whisky on the world wide web, but for me too it was an often pleasant reacquaintance. So here’s the deal: I’ll review these (minus the Inchmurrin), but also expand on why I picked them and which other whiskies could or couldn’t take their place filling the same purpose.

Balblair 12 yo. 46% ABV, NC, UCF, ex-bourbon and double fired American Oak. 2022 release, app. €50

When searching 5 suitable bottles, I tried to tick as many of the ABCD boxes of whisky as possible (Age, Bottling Strength,  Chill filtering and Dye). For a whisky with a clear and distinct bourbon cask influence, I landed on Balblair 12 yo. It’s available and affordable, ticks all the right boxes and in the entire line-up, it was the one I was least familiar with. I tried it before on a few occasions, but never bought a full bottle (it took me some time to get over them dropping the vintage approach and significantly  bumping up the prices for the core range that replaced the vintage releases). For each whisky, I took notes from the neck pour prior to the tasting and from the last 10 - 15 cl in the bottle  a few weeks after the tasting. The difference in experience can be quite interesting, I can tell you.

Nose

Sour fruit with citrus and lemons, green apples, dry wood with a soft bitterness to it and a whiff of vanilla and honey. The sour-citrus notes from the neck pour mellowed out significantly with some air in the bottle. Still citrus and orchard driven, but much more gentle the second time round, getting the company of stone fruit and tinned apricot.

Palate

The nose translates nicely into the palate, but subdued and nicely balanced on a dry, medium full mouthfeel. A bit of pepper towards the end. The ‘aired’ bottle put the orchard notes up front, making for a very pleasant sweet and sour balance against the vanilla and soft honey notes.

Finish

Drying and pleasantly long on gentle wood, soft pepper and an echo of citrus.

Final thoughts

A textbook example of a bourbon cask matured whisky! Very approachable in terms of flavour and overall experience. Straightforward, but engaging and while it’s unlikely to blow a seasoned enthusiast’s socks off, it’s a very solid sipping whisky and also absolutely flawless. I did consider a few other options for the bourbon cask matured whisky, particularly Deanston 12 and Glencadam 10. The latter is one of my absolute delights and one I adore, although I felt it could perhaps be too subtle and delicate to clearly state the case for bourbon cask matured whisky to convince ‘newbies’ of the perks, flavours and delights to be found in this type of whisky (?). The Deanston was my initial pick as it pretty much ticks all of the required boxes, but it would also mean there would be 3  whiskies from the same company (Distell) in the line-up. Somehow, that didn’t seem entirely right, so the Balblair it was. And it fits the bill perfectly. 83/100