Are we finished with "finishes"?

[djrussobik at AOL.COM]

What bothers me is the appearance (inferred from what I see on retail shelves and tasting tables) that the producers are "falling all over themselves" to come up with, bottle and sell, the most "original" (exotic, unusual, outlandish) kinds of cask-finishes -- as if the "name" (type of casks used, novelty of) is more important than the flavour of the resulting product.  Of course, once they come up with an idea, and implement it (finish some whisky) they are unlikely to "waste" (dump, vat away into a blend or large malt-run) the result, both for financial reasons (it's probably expensive to obtain many of these exotic/novel casks) and face-saving reasons ("gee, that wasn't such a great idea, boss!").  So it invariably gets bottled if its not putrid.
 
It seems like more of a "wrong emphasis" to me:  Not "how do I make the finest/tastiest whisky?" but "how to I draw the most attention to myself [our brand] by doing something new and 'noteworthy'?".  Sooner or later they'll figure out some process that squeeks through a loophole in the SWA guidelines that results in brightly coloured whisky, just to be "exciting" and "trendy" (designer caramel colouring?, impregnated casks pre-charring?)...mark my words!  Make mine flourescent blue, please!  ;)
 
To me, finish-EMPHASIZING releases have been more likely than other new expressions to be disapppointing.  If it's just plain "good", not much reason then to sell it as "XXXXX finished/casked whisky from YYYY" as opposed to just "NNN year-old whisky from YYYY" or just "whisky from YYYY".  Let the whisky talk!  :)
 
My 2 cents/pence...
 
 Slainte!
    Dave
 
 
-----Original Message-----
From: maltmaniacsdavin at GMAIL.COM
To: DJRussoBik at AOL.COM
Sent: Fri, 10 Nov 2006 8:01 PM
Subject: Re: Are we finished with "finishes"?


Hi All, 
 
Just a few random thoughts stimulated by this discussion: 
 
I agree with John and others; if the whisky tastes great who cares if 
it is finished or not. 
 
At Bruichladdich this summer I tasted an already exquisite malt that I 
was told was bound for brief enhancing in a wine cask before bottling, 
so finishing is used for more than just covering up flaws. 
 
A flight of finished Edradours I tasted blind a few years ago were 
really good. I would not have guessed they were from Edradour, and 
whatever flavours came from the wine casks were really nicely 
integrated. I enjoyed them and was glad to have tasted them. 
 
We can't fault Arran for doing whatever they have to to maintain 
short-term cash flow while they wait for their whisky to mature. The 
recently released 10yo is really quite nice which tells us that Arran 
will be quite a fine whisky in a few more years and we'll be glad they 
did what they had to to stay alive. 
 
If we want to go back to 'traditional' whisky, we'll have to figure 
out when whisky was traditional. Was it before they started using 
bourbon casks, for instance? At one time it was all wine casks, 
mostly sherry, madeira, and so on. 
 
Certainly there are some really clumsy finishes out there, but there 
are also some really enjoyable ones as well. Also, some specific ones 
have changed a lot over the years. 
 
My two cents . . . 
 
Davin 
 
 
On 11/10/06, Maltman999 at aol.com <Maltman999 at aol.com> wrote: 
> 
> My thoughts on finishes is pretty simple: 
> 
> I'[m okay with it if the whisky tastes good. After all, that's the ultimate 
> goal, right? But to put out a slew of finishes just to get more expressions 
> out on the market quickly or to create a diversion to mask the fact that you 
> are struggling with a gap in production ultimately does no good for the 
> consumer or producer. 
> 
> John 
> 
> John Hansell 
> Publisher & Editor 
> Malt Advocate magazine 
> 3416 Oak Hill Rd. 
> Emmaus, PA 18049 
> www.maltadvocate.com 
> (610) 967-1083 (Phone) 
> (610) 965-2995 (Fax) 
> 
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