AW: Are we finished with "finishes"?

[Horst Luening]

Could it be, that Finishing was triggered not by marketing or experts but by
just the lack of enough single malt whisky of particular distilleries?

Several distilleries stopped selling bulk whisky to the blenders around the
year 2000, when they saw better margins and rising markets in single malt.

But what to do with the 'light' matured malts? Most often you are not able
to sell them as singles.

A manager of a very, very famous distillery told me, that they were just
selecting the light matured malts from its stocks to produce finished
whiskies. Otherwise the shortage of its brands would have lasted longer.

I am with you, if you say that you will never get a good whisky after
finishing from a bad cask.

But if a whisky is not matured much (old cask, reused two times) then you
may pop it up by using a strong second cask.

What do you say to mixing up the content of sherry casks and bourbon
barrels - like the Balvenie 10yo - in comparison to the Balvenie 12yo, which
was matured in finishing style?

I think it depends on the finishing process itself. DOne well you will end
up in good whisky.

Regards,
Horst

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