Are we finished with "finishes"?

[Kraaijeveld A.R.]

My personal view is very simple: if a finished whisky (whatever cask is used) adds to my enjoyment of whisky, I'm all for it. If it doesn't, I don't care, but maybe someone else will really enjoy it. Don't forget that maturing whisky in wood was once novel and that lots of casks were used that had previously contained various other beverages. A Madeira-casked whisky is not something that was invented in the last decade or so.

As a biologist, I see a Darwinian process: finished whiskies which are really good will survive, the mediocre ones will live briefly and then go extinct.

As to a tomato-cask whisky, there is one (well, almost): a vatted malt matured in ex-tabasco casks and bottled by the SMWS as a cooking sauce. It is virtually undrinkable, but it does add a great splash to smoked salmon!


Cheers, Lex




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Fly, you greatest fool
Why can't you say what they want you to
Why can't you do what they taught you
And show what they wanted of you      
       
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Dr Alex R Kraaijeveld
School of Biological Sciences
University of Southampton
Bassett Crescent East
Southampton
SO16 7PX
tel: (+44)-(0)23-80593436
fax: (+44)-(0)23-80594459
http://www.sbs.soton.ac.uk/staff/ark/ark.php

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-----Original Message-----
From: MALTS-L at RZ.UNI-KARLSRUHE.DE [mailto:MALTS-L at RZ.UNI-KARLSRUHE.DE] On Behalf Of Philip Storry
Sent: 07 November 2006 21:35
To: MALTS-L at LISTS.UNI-KARLSRUHE.DE
Subject: Re: Are we finished with "finishes"?

Hello Rob,

Tuesday, November 7, 2006, 19:21:13, you wrote:

RS> Is it just me personally who had it with whisky finishes or ...?

It's probably not just you, but at the risk of drawing incredible flak
I have to say I'm still happy with finishes.

RS> In the past there were sometimes some great whisky finishes. Nothing wrong,
RS> some good excitement in tastes. Followed by a lot of so called
RS> "marketing-finishes", nowadays called "enhanced". Interesting for sales,
RS> only in the beginning, but don't taste them. Interested consumers are left
RS> with a "Is that all"?

Yes, we've all been there. I've had the same disappointment with
non-finished whiskies too, though.

RS> I feel that nowadays consumers/customers seems to go back to whisky in its
RS> origin. Whenever a new normal release comes on the market, which tastes like
RS> old fashioned whisky, you see the traditional consumers come back for it.

Define "original whisky". ;-)

Are we talking something you'd buy from Glenlivet circa 1960, the cask
strength neat stuff you could buy by the octave or anker in 1860, or
something that we could buy in a 70cl bottle in the 1990's?

(Sorry, but I'm being obtuse for a reason, which will become clear
later. *grins*)

RS> And so called finishes are left aside, just a one-off.

Here's what I see - a finish is a nice marketing touch, and makes for
a noticable difference in your range of whiskies. They're an
interesting diversion from the normal distillery experience, and as
such are fine.

Overusing finishes can be both enlightening and a disappointment. Each
finish not only adds its own flavours, but spotlights a different set
of flavours in the whisky that it is complementing.

Of course, just like all whisky, some finishes fail to do this. Some
whisky is just vile. Vat it, blend it, finish it, strip paint with it
- no matter what you do, it's still bad whisky. :-)

RS> Is it just coincidental that old time whisky drinkers/lovers from the past
RS> tend to dive into the older bottlings? That they even appreciate
RS> old-fashioned blends more the the currents malts?

Never underestimate the power of yesterday's nostalgia. (Which was so
much better than today's nostalgia, don't you think?)
;-)

RS> I always wondered why the old-fashioned whiskies weren't finished, in the
RS> real meaning of that word, if they were that good. And I wonder, am I the
RS> only one with these thoughts?

Because in the very old days, it was sold to a very different market.
That market frequently put ice in the whisky. Or soda. Or worse.


On this list, many people might define "original whisky" as cask
strength, non-chill filtered, natural coloured and no other fooling
around. Just stick a clean hanky in the funnel and fill the bottle
from the cask, please... ;-)

Yet that market is somewhat more limited than the mass market. Real
"original" whisky tends to come in single-cask form only, with few brave
distilleries giving us a cask-strength untampered with releases.

I'd lament that fact far more than the loss of bottled, watered down,
dulled-by-chill-filtration-and-coloured whisky. Original whisky - that
is to say whisky without finishes - is frequently dulled beyond
boredom by its bottlers, in the name of uniformity. Because the mass
market wants the same bottle of Glengiftbottle this year that it
bought last year.

Say what you like about finishes, but I do think that historically
they created an interest in the more unusual, less uniform or
traditional whiskies. Finishes created room for exploration of whisky
in the mass market in the same way that single-cask bottlings from
independent bottlers created new opportunities in the niche
connoisseurs' market.

It's purely my opinion, but I think that the success of finishes from
big distilleries made the industry look for other niche-market
products, without having to go down the (unviable for them) single
cask road.

Without finishes, I'm not so sure we'd have drams like Aberlour's
A'bunadh, or Ardbeg's Uigeadail. Finishes showed that the niche-market
taste for a more unusual or fuller flavour could scale to the large
production runs that big distilleries want to do. :-)

RS> But then, I really appreciate the new Clynelish Distillers Edition. I hope
RS> that this one isn't finished to fast...

And, as I said, sometimes a finish is good. Sometimes, a finish brings
out the best in a whisky. I'm looking at an excellent 13yo Ben Nevis
that was finished in port, for instance. Or thinking of a lovely
Springbank that was finished in a rum cask.


-- 
Kind regards,
 Philip                            mailto:phil at philipstorry.net

(No whisky was chill-filtered by the author during the writing of this
message.)

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