Whisky Online Blog

What is the value of whisky to you? There is much talk of whisky speculation, investment, expanding markets, developing markets, collecting, consumption, branding and super-premium these days. Is it a coincidence that it all seems to have come at a time when I’ve just started a new job in a relatively youthful auction house? Or is my position a symptom of circumstance or, worse still, the ‘market’? I know for a fact that my job exists because its existence facilitates profit. We talk a lot about value these days. I see all the rants, raves and comments about it coagulating like puddles on the shores of social media. I hear it when I speak to the retailers. Margins, allocations and profits are getting tighter and tighter, the auctioneers are winning and the retailers are fighting up hill. Is this all because there is less and less of the old stuff to go around, the juicy old bottles that everyone wants. The spiraling auction prices and the increasing feeling that the old bottles and new releases are two separate worlds would seem to suggest so.

The star bottles in our latest auction. How many of us can now afford to obtain, let alone open, bottles such as these?

But there is a bigger picture here I think. All this increasing talk of value or perception of value seems indicative of a trending change in the way many of us think about whisky. How many of us can now afford to open old 1960s Laphroaigs or 1950s Macallans? These bottles have become tokens, they are symbolic of their perceived worth, in short, they are currency. Ten years ago there was McTears in Glasgow, they held whisky auctions no more than four times a year. Christie’s and Sotheby’s did fine wine auctions but that is something still far divorced from whisky in terms of the truly astronomical prices and quantities, it was then and it still is. Now we have the online specialist aucitoneers Whisky Auction, Scotch Whisky Auctions and more on the horizon no doubt. We have McTears (now on ten auctions a year), Bonhams and, most recently, Mulberry Bank Auctions, where I work. There will almost certainly be further additions to this list in the next year and I haven’t even mentioned all the smaller auction houses in Britain that do occasional whisky auctions or specialist sections of larger auctions dedicated to whisky. There has been an explosion of whisky at auction over the past decade, in both prices achieved and quantity sold. But what does it all mean?

One of the best illustrations of why whisky has value is Ardbeg Manager's Dram. Bottled in 1999 it was a single cask of astonishing quality and character. The bottles were practically given away at £69 a piece. Now enough people want one of these incredible bottles that the price is nudging £2000 a pop.

With straightforward analysis it means that the desire to drink great whisky, coupled with the cumulative effect of three decades worth of cheap to fairly priced, good to outstanding quality whiskies being steadily released around the world, has created a huge demand and an ever dwindling supply. Their inevitable consumption means there are more people who want to hoard/collect and drink than there are bottles left to satisfy these demands. It also means there are many people who kept or own these bottles, for whatever reason, and are increasingly persuaded to part with them, almost always because they seem too valuable to justify keeping. Or they were keen eyed enough to spot an opportunity and played it with an eye to raw investment. The bottom line is money has the power to exert influence over our perceptions of what something is for and what we are willing to do with it. I swore I would never part with the small selection of very special bottles I had gathered throughout the previous decade, but then in 2010 I had an overdraft and I badly wanted to go traveling . Needless to say I soon found out that I wasn’t so attached to them after all, I could no longer justify sitting on several thousand pounds worth of bottled liquid. Do I miss those bottles? No, not really, one or two that were unique and I’ll never see again, but I’ve been fortunate enough to taste most of them already in my lifetime and I’ll taste many more great drams so I don’t feel too precious about it. But the point is they evolved in my mind from potential bottled memories and stored olfactory beauty into the achievable fantasy of black ink on my bank statement instead of red and a few more stamps in my passport.

Unlike Whisky, it's impossible to put a price on the best experiences in your life. After the time I had in South America I'll never regret selling my bottles for a second.

People rant and rave about whisky being for drinking a lot these days, it is the understandable and ill informed reaction to the many discussions about collecting/investing/speculating (call it what you will). People seem awfully proud to blurt out their philosophy that ‘Whisky is for drinking not for collecting’ every time they hear of a bottle being stored in a dark cupboard rather than immediately cracked open with pristine abandon while the cork burns in the fire. Of course whisky is for drinking, it is after all a drink, that is the very reason these bottles are expensive. Forget the artificially expensive Dalmore (insert ludicrous latin name here) for a minute, these are different beasts altogether. I’m talking about the vast majority of older bottles and the more desirable, modern independent bottlings, these whiskies acquire great expense because people want to own and drink them (because word spread out from the many that already have). The number of people acquiring them for purely monetary purposes is nothing like the number of people who want to keep them with a view to one day drinking them.

There are more of these old bottles getting opened than you might imagine. That's another reason for their ever increasing value. (And yes I know it's a Cognac but give me a break.)

However, if you’ll allow me to play Devil’s advocate to myself for a moment there is a flip side. Whisky is for drinking. I come back to my original question, what is the value of whisky to you? Is it a drink that stokes the fires of great company and friendship? Is it grease to the cogs of late night imagination? Is it the ink that outlines and shades your greatest and darkest memories? Is it a liquid bound up in tears and laughter, one that toasts the fortunes and mourns the people and joys that happenstance cuts out of your life? This is where our passion for whisky often lies, it is born in the avenues of surprise and exploration and it is a glorious journey. But we are changing, these perceptions are being all too often forgotten and swept away in the face of the behemoth of money and its sticky fingers that latch onto every corner of our lives. We have made an enemy of our own passions. ‘Whisky’ is now an industry with sub-markets, markets forged by the very love we feel for the drink that started us on this journey in the first place. The prices now paid for the great bottlings are a measure of the length to which we are willing to go for our love of ‘the hard stuff’. At the end of the day these prices are paid because there are more than enough people with the money and the will to pay it who want these whiskies. The same money and keen willpower that has fired this expanding market for rare and desirable bottles.

When we speak of wine nowadays it suffers from an image of middle-class, Guardian-reading, bourgeois association. It is linked with wealth, food matching, Michelin stars and snobbery. The mainstream press chooses to forget in these instances (whenever it suits them) the vast quantities of people who nightly chastise their innards with litres of putrid Blossom Hill swill. The predominant and popular image is of finery and privilege. A shame that, amongst these two ends of the spectrum, is often lost the truth that wine was, and often remains, a grassroots, agricultural industry. One that requires great skill and offers simple and delicious reward beyond the obvious financial return. Wine’s rustic origins and proud role in the history of human decadence, zest for life and earned indulgence is often lost or forgotten amidst a global industry hell bent on image, price control and premium products aimed at premium clientele. Whisky it seems, in this sense, is not far behind. The only difference is whisky will never be as big as wine. The idea that a case of old whisky, even something like Malt Mill (God willing!) would match the price at auction of a case of 1870 Latour (if one should ever come up for sale), is somewhat ludicrous. Whisky is acting bigger than it is, and therefore it feels like it is bursting at the seems a little bit. It makes you wonder how much longer these markets can sustain themselves. How much higher in price can these top end Ardbegs and Port Ellens go? Whisky as an industry has always had its big ups and very big downs. It has also quite noticeably always failed to learn from its own history. Probably something to do with it being a long term product that requires great age and, as a result, the people that sell it are often replaced every ten-twenty years with a new set of people with big wide dollar signs in their eyes, all looking straight ahead into developing markets and never glancing over their shoulder to what has gone before. This specialist and rare whisky market is still a relatively new beast, I wonder how long before it, like the the rest of the industry at large has several times already, takes its first tumble? Is it just me or does it feel like we’re in those slow, steep, up-hill moments before the roller-coaster plunges…

A visual history of the Whisky industry.

I know that we all love whisky, with great passion. All this social media debating and all these blogs (including this one) wouldn’t exist without that love. I’ll be honest right now and say I’m not a fan of capitalism and the vast profiteering its structures can facilitate, despite the obvious fact that I am one of many who has undeniably reaped more than my fair share of its spoils over the years in the guise of privilege. With this in mind I have often struggled to reconcile my love of an increasingly expensive drink and the money I’ve paid for it on many an occasion, with the vastly unfair distribution of wealth on this planet. I suppose my musings today have been largely driven by these internal conflicts. Whatever it is, I am increasingly having to remind myself that whisky is, first and foremost, a source of joy, along with art, music, love, sex, films, expression, adventure, exercise, food of greater extravagance than is considered essential, literature and general festivities. These are the apps of life, not just to alleviate pain but to actively provide joy and decadence, to make life worth living. We have an abundance of them here in the west which is partly why so many of us are curdled by gnawing guilt. But the fact is we have them and we should not be ashamed to enjoy them so long as we appreciate our incredible good fortune to have them. I’m just sad to see that whisky is being transported ever upwards and away from these more humble spheres into realms where it is often all too easy to forget (or just to fucking expensive to remember) why we truly love it.

So, what is the value of whisky to you?

This image from the Vancouver riots seems somehow appropriate for 2011. Almost makes me wish I'd been there. Almost makes me wish it (probably) wasn't photoshopped.

By any measure this has been a tumultuous year, 2012 has a lot to live up to it seems. It’s going to need more than the Olympics and a pile of hogwash about the end of the Mayan calender to compete with what 2011 has thrown at our feet. The Arab spring, an increasingly introverted and suicidal Euro, the UK Economy being run by a bunch of public school boys who still don’t understand why the general population can’t simply inherit some money to ease their financial quibbles. In Britain we had riots, marches, fury, extensive government cuts and a Scottish government of increasing popularity making good their promise and laying the framework for the potential dismantling of the UK. In America they had their own economic woes, they had less money than Apple at one point, and then there was the 10th anniversary of 9/11. Europe finally caved and went begging to China for spare cash, everyone’s favourite EU leader Berlusconi sadly had to go due to his country managing to have some kind of anti-economy based solely on under age prostitution, ‘Bunga Bunga’ parties, whisky faking and bribery. Angela Merkel proved herself to be the Girl Guide of Europe, David Cameron failed to deny he was a Synthetic Android from the Alien film franchise and Nicholas Sarkozy remained short. China continued to become massiver and massiver and to ignore ever increasing grumbles about its rather lax attitude towards human rights, after all who cares what others think when you have that much disposable income. Greece finally collapsed after years of reliance on an economy based solely on plate breaking and Ireland still writhes in the grip of the great cappuccino famine of 2011. This was also the year of the phone hacking scandal where Rupert Murdoch and his underlings managed to create the buck that never stops. Dictators of the world fell like playing cards in a wind tunnel this year, who can forget the blood lusty, yet satisfying way Colonel Gaddafi was gunned down in the streen, HA! Happy times. The most recent one though was North Korea’s comedy miniature despot Kim Jong-il who died, we can only assume from reading his official biography, from the fact that he never defecated. An impressive feat although it did explain why he spoke utter shit for most of his life. His copycat fat son is everyone’s favourite to win Despots On Ice 2012. Oh, and Bin Laden got shot in the head by Navy Seals. Apparently the reason he wasn’t forcibly extracted back to US soil to stand trial was that he was defending himself with automatic loaded wives, or something like that according to a memo from the CIA. So, a tumultuous year all in all.

But what about the year in Whisky? Well as the above image suggests it was a very good  year for publicity stunts. Dalmore, Macallan, Glenfiddich, Old Pulteney, they all clambered over each other, slavering at the gums like hounds of the baskerville with marketing diplomas. Desperate to conquer the squalid back pages of the press with their fetid little bling bottlings, or to tell us that Jim Murray, the greatest gift to whisky since domestic violence, had endorsed their product with his latest super score. There were other things afoot in whisky as well with the ‘world’ whiskies starting to finally gain the recognition they deserve. People continued to complain about the Ardbeg Committee with staggering levels of naivety, as if it was actually supposed to be some kind of exclusive country club instead of a big, oily marketing engine that runs on raw, self perpetuating nonsense. Maybe in 2012 people will actually stop complaining and realise that it is the way it is and they can’t help it so just stop approaching me at festivals and complaining to me because I happened to work at the distillery for two summers while at uni as if that somehow means I can just call up someone at Moet Hennessey and ‘have a wee word’. Gosh it feels good to get things off your chest. In related Ardbeggy news, the great blender Rachel Barrie left Glenmorangie and headed to the Bowmore/Glen Garioch/Auchentoshan stable and proceeded to say some very encouraging things about future production methods, although I’m still waiting for a reply to a comment I made on her facebook status about doing some more peated Glen Garioch, time will tell. The rush for Port Ellen 11th release drove consumers into a frenzy of mindless violence that ended in further outbreaks of rioting throughout the whisky shops of Europe. Lady Gaga got five cases though.  Whiskyfun turned 9 this year on July 28th, selfishly only 8 days after my own birthday thereby overshadowing that event in the whisky calender for so many people. I’ll get you yet Valentin (shakes fist). There has been much speculation over what Serge will do once Whiskyfun turns 10. However we all know he will convert the site into an online scores auctioneering base where companies bid thousands of euros (or francs depending on how things are looking come August) a time for whatever score he is offering that week. The first score will be 98 points and we know Inverhouse are already putting together a bid for their new non-aged, Iron Bru finished An Cnoc. Good times ahead.

The Hadron Collider, a big player in the whisky scene of 2012? Also don't do what I just did and run a google image search for 'Large Hardon Collider' by mistake.

So what does 2012 hold for whisky? I suspect we will see even higher prices, more fakes, the pointlessness of the ‘most expensive bottle ever sold’ war will spiral into the cosmic belly button of utter despair and consume all who dare venture near, like a black hole of fat, sweaty bollocks. The German Independent Bottling market will continue to blossom providing the best whiskies and the best prices. Kilchoman will continue to get better with age. Richard Patterson will host a tasting in the Large Hadron Collider. Ralfy will move to Sky One. Joel and Neil from caskstrength.net will open for the Pope at Glastonbury. Fred and Stuart Laing will merge into a single, two-headed person like Zaphod Beeblebrox from the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. The Port Ellen 12th release will be released in the style of Red Cross aid parcels in Ethiopia. UN soldiers will throw armfuls of them into baying crowds of angry whisky lovers armed to the teeth with pitchforks and ipads and just hope for the best while a representative from Diageo looks on via a satellite link up and calmly motions to his minions to begin ‘phase 2′. The Olympic opening ceremony will be sponsored by Bruichladdich, Jim McEwan and Boris Johnson will open the show with a beginners guide to Coopering. Octomore will be peated to 1 trillion ppm thus causing a tear in the space time continuum and creating what is known as a ‘phenolic irregularity’. Dave Broom will be the new Doctor Who companion and Martine Nouet will be the new Doctor Who. Daftmill will buy Diageo, George Osborne will retire from politics and re-open Brora with his vast personal fortune and Nick Clegg, finally overwhelmed by his spineless guilt, will commit suicide live on national television by downing a thousand miniatures of Edradour. So an exciting year for us all to look forward to.

Be sure to tune in for Nick Clegg's 'dram with destiny' in 2012.

On a personal note it is difficult to comment too succinctly on a  year that was racked by so much intensity, belt tightening, death and downright misery, purely because for me it was far and away the best year of my life. I travelled and made some of the best friends I’ve ever had, I found a great new job, moved into the best flat I’ve ever lived in with the best flatmate I’ve ever had and I’m in a position where things seem to be looking up. I am, in short, incredibly lucky and I try to realise it every day. So the final tasting of 2011 will be one themed around starting as you mean to go on, at least for as long as possible, I’m not sure how many more great Brora tastings I’ll be able to do..? A worrying thought indeed.

Brora 1970-2002. 32yo. Douglas Laing ‘Old & Rare’. 58.4%. 70cl. 

Huge thanks to Wayne for opening this beauty.

Colour: Straw Gold

Nose: Why do other distilleries bother making peated whisky? This is just another typically perfect early Brora. A myriad of farmyard, industrial, coastal and medical qualities with farminess taking the initial lead. Just beautiful! Opens up slowly with lemon skins, oils, mineral notes, pebbles, sea salt, camphor and tar. Sea air, brine, coal and a perfect underlying waxiness. It’s definitely leaning more towards coastal guises now. Lots of sea spray, lime juice, olive oil, seaweed, white flowers, sandalwood and tcp. It’s just massively fresh and vibrant. Just stunning, lets see if water can improve it even further… With water it just becomes almost hyper coastal, like raw sea water and oysters. Lemon juice, raw peat smoke, old kilns, iodine.

Palate: Massively oily on delivery, like boiler sheds, thick green peats, tar, peat oil, drying medicinal notes, smoked cereals, sea water, green olives in brine, hay, hessian and treacle. Smoked vanilla (?), chilli oatcakes, black pepper, Riesling, melted butter and chopped chives. Shellfish, crab meat, smoked mussels, fresh lemon juice, cured ham and more salt. With water: a really luxurious, elegant peat comes through now, loads of olive oil, bonfire smoke, burning grass, wax, smoked cereals, peppered mackerel and some wonderfully farmy notes of engine oil and horse stables.

Finish: Very long with drying peat smoke, wax, cereals, tar, white pepper, burnt toast, camphor and fish oil.

Comments: Another incredibly Brora, I think the 1970 and 71s were not quite as stellar as the 72s in my opinion. It seems like they were still experimenting and constantly tweaking the recipe, in 1972 they must have got things very right. However, this is all relative as this one is still galaxies ahead of most modern peated malts.

Score: 94/100

Brora 1972-1995. 22yo. OB Rare Malts. 61.6%. 70cl.

This is one of several truly legendary early Broras from the Rare Malts series.

Colour: Gold

Nose: Ouch! The word beast could have been invented for this one. Imagine a peat, honey, salt and turpentine smoothy and you’re not far off. Quite closed even after a long time in glass, aggressive and difficult but even with all that grumpy, miserly austerity it is still quite beautiful. Struck flints, big, raw mineral notes, hay, horse stables, burnt grass and old petrol cans. A true powerhouse whisky. I think we’ll add a bit of water straight away… with a little water it starts to freshen out a bit, salt, lemons, limes and a nice manure quality all start to make themselves felt. Becomes intensely ‘Brora’ with a huge farminess and notes of coal fires, seaweed, parsley and wax. Lets try another little bit of water: it actually got even better, now its super fresh, leafy, smoky and very medicinal. A stunning and perfect mix of all the classic Brora characters. This is one of those whiskies that swims like a fish, it absolutely needs careful time with water to bloom, but when it does, my god it’s magnificent.

Palate: Neat it is an aggressive bag of gravel, wet earth, green, concentrated peat oil and feisty minerals. Some farmyard hints of stables, hay, horses and tar then muesli, rope, wet leaves, coal and mercurochrome. With a first dilution… wow, a perfect profile, all on minty, leafy peats, all kinds of wax, a dazzling array of coastal notes and different oils. Perfect but lets try a little more water anyway… the peat gets even oilier, almost simmering like an old Ardbeg, oily, fat and mouth coating with a wonderfully farmy dirtiness. Superlative notes of seaweed, tar, tcp, bread, olive oil, brine, anchovies, kippers, black and green peppercorns, hummus, matchsticks and more salt. It’s quite incredible really, we’d best stop.

Finish: Ask me in 2013 how it’s coming along

Comments: I’ve wanted to taste this one for a long long time and, thanks to the generosity of Mr Brora (aka Serge) at D-Day I was finally able to. All I can say is these bottles are now expensive for a very good reason, they’re fucking brilliant whisky. Water is essential with this one, even adding it in increments it seems to change drastically with each new dilution. You could literally play for days if you had a full bottle, adding a little water, then a bit more whisky, seeing just how epic you could make it, mind the ‘ground zero’ of perfection if you like. There’s nothing being made anywhere in the world today in my opinion that can hold a candle to this kind of whisky. Maybe for 2012 the industry could look to the past a bit more for future inspiration.

Score: 96/100

Whatever happens next year I hope you can all become happier, wiser and more aware in everything you do and achieve. Enjoy the simple things in life, strive to make things better for yourself and all those around you. And above all, don’t take things too seriously.

Happy Hogmanay from all of us here at Whisky Online. Slante!

Angus. 31/12/2011

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH! What do you mean not funny?! HAHAHAHAH! Well it amused me.

So, yes, Glen Ord. This is another residual tasting from D-Day. A rather fascinating old official 5yo along with a much more recent offering from Douglas Laing. The fact that Glen Ord is not a popular dram perhaps says something about modern tastes. People do seem easily seduced by the sweetness of modern ‘populist’ whiskies. More ‘difficult’ distillates such as Glen Ord seem like hard sell nowadays. With its fragrant waxiness, light coastal qualities and elegant herbaceous aspects, it is not a distillate that comes easily to most palates. Or is it? Whenever I host a tasting, which isn’t too often these days admittedly, but whenever I do I go to great lengths to make sure there is something like a Glen Ord, a Clynelish or a Springbank in the mix alongside your Glenmorangies, Glenlivets or Macallans. If people know about these kinds of differences and get to experience them then they will often go for the more tricky or elegant dram over the sweet one. Maybe it’s the familiar pitfall of modern culture where people are quite happy to be told what to drink rather than discover it for themselves. Perhaps an explanation of Jim Murray’s continued success in certain corners of the market. Remember when Glen Ord was sold as a deal with the Classic Malts series about ten years ago in the old oval green label packaging. They couldn’t give the stuff away. A shame considering it is a better spirit than at least half the whiskies they chose for the classic malts series. Anyway, I’m not really complaining, under appreciation helps keeps the prices down and that suits me fine.

Glen Ord 5yo OB. 43%. 75cl. 1970s. Italian Import. 

This is another of the many drams that came my way courtesy of Olivier over the D-Day weekend. Merci Olivier.

Colour: Pale white wine

Nose: Typically old style and very Glen Ord with these lovely delicate notes of honeyed wax, honeycomb, struck flints, wild flowers, a pinch of salt and dried cereals. Quite petroly and drying with a fragrant smoky herbal quality, very akin to some mid aged classy Riesling in some ways. Miles away from any modern distillates, very approachable, bottle ageing has probably helped a great deal here. Touches of vanilla, rice pudding, eucalyptus toothpaste, porridge, grass and some very fine minerals.

Palate: Very soft and drying delivery but not lacking in punch or strength, rather more silky washing over of the palate. Lots of flavour concentration, all on seashore notes, wax, buttered toast with honey, more floral aspects, cooking oil, burnt almonds, caraway seeds and herb liqueurs. Quite extraordinarily drinkable. Given this blind you would never say it was a five year old whisky. Admittedly there are probably much older casks in the vatting as was pretty typical back in the (good) old days. It’s a perfect example of this old highland style that I love, you just cannot find this kind of whisky being made anywhere in Scotland these days. Leaves you with a very watery mouth, a whole bottle of this would easily disappear over the course of a night, hugely moreish and satisfying.

Finish: Medium and with more intricate herbal touches, notes of tarragon and sorrel with more caraway, nutmeg and toast notes. Some lemon drops knocking about in there somewhere too.

Comments: Just another brilliant old style bottling. I love it. These bottlings show up from time to time and aren’t particularly expensive. Buy one if you see it, buy it and drink it.

Score: 91/100

Glen Ord 14yo. Douglas Laing. OMC. 50%. 70cl. (from an official sample so no pic sorry)

Colour: Pale white wine (virtually the same as the 5yo)

Nose: A world apart, much more modern (although still slightly old style by modern standards if you see what I mean), lots more wood noise with vanilla cream, dessicated coconut and pear drops. There are some pleasant but tiny touches of wax and minerals along with pollen, lilies, lychee sorbet, gin, some resinous camphor notes and tea. Opens up quite nicely after some time, it’s not as distinctive as the 5yo by any means but it is a very pleasant nose in its own right. Notes of truffle oil, sour dough, a little chilli pepper and white chocolate.

Palate: Quite pleasantly spicy, medium dry and a little fruity with some very pleasant, savoury notes of brown bread, branston pickle oddly enough and good cheese Gouda perhaps? Not cheesy in a bad way mind you. Quite a big and rich Glen Ord, more herbal liqueur notes, a character that seems to be a Glen Ord signature. Notes of Kummel, soda bread, yeast, white fruits, apple peelings, flints and some pleasant mineral qualities. Very tasty stuff.

Finish: Long, bready, savoury, biscuity and delicately fruity with garden fruits, white flowers and some more soft vanilla sweetness.

Comments: Its a very good kind of modern whisky as far as I’m concerned, one that still retains quite a few more aromatic, old style qualities. Very drinkable again.

Score: 84/100