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Very nice analysis of the "boom." Anyone who regularly buys single malt Scotch has observed the strong upward movement of bottle prices in the last few years. W

by zedpm 12y ago

Very nice analysis of the "boom." Anyone who regularly buys single malt Scotch has observed the strong upward movement of bottle prices in the last few years. With the growing visibility of world whisk(e)y, I'll be interested to see if the Japanese and other producers help moderate the price of Scotch or if they join in the upward trend. On a somewhat related note, it's interesting to see how small and simple some of these world-famous distilleries are. I visited Islay last summer and toured Ardbeg, Laphroaig, Lagavulin, Kilchoman, Bowmore, Bruichladdich, and a few others. Bowmore is definitely the Walmart of the bunch, while Kilchoman was more like a mom-and-pop operation.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
tptacek 12y ago
We were in the Highlands and Speyside this summer and did some tours as well. It's worth knowing that most of the famous distilleries roll up to one of a couple mega-corps --- Diageo, Ricard, Suntory. Lots of those distilleries are small operations. It's the same in the US: the best known, best regarded bourbons are almost uniformly owned by giant companies. There's an interesting comparison between the tours at, say, Aberlour (a mega-corp-owned large-scale distillery) and Benromach (an independent small-scale distillery). I'd rather tour the small operations. But honestly, I'd (mostly) rather drink the products of the larger ones. (A warning: I'm more inclined to nerd out and even less qualified to hold forth on this topic than I am on criminal law or cryptography. Sorry!)
- bmj 12y ago
  I recently came across a blog post[0] that examined where U.S. whisk(e)ys were actually produced. Turns out many of the top-shelf brands aren't actually produced in the manner which they are marketed. My impression, at least among bourbons, is that there are several brands that, while owned by mega-corps, still control their production in a mom-and-pop manner. [0] http://recenteats.blogspot.com/p/the-complete-list-of-american-whiskey.html http://recenteats.blogspot.com/p/the-complete-list-of-americ...
  - tptacek 12y ago
    The best known top-shelf brands that fit that description are Pappy, WhistlePig, and Black Maple Hill. They're good products, but they're all bottlings of someone else's spirit. The term for that kind of brand is "NDP". NDP practices are most notorious in American rye, where the majority of products come from a single ex-Seagrams distillery in Indiana called MGPI. Templeton is an NDP infamous for carefully concealing the fact that they're reselling commodity rye spirit. Chuck Cowdery, whose blog is well worth a read, calls them a "Potempkin Distillery". But there are a lot of top-shelf brands that don't fit that description at all. The Buffalo Trace antiques --- Thomas Handy, for instance --- are genuine serious products. Of course, they trace back to Sazerac, which is a pretty big company; just look at all the stuff Barton Brands (also owned by Sazerac) sells.
    - bmj 12y ago
      I heard Templeton was one of the most egregious of the bunch, but didn't realize Pappy was similar. These days, it seems worth it to spend my money at a local distillery (Wigle Whiskey), where they go from grains to finished product in the same facility.
      - tptacek 12y ago
        Pappy and Templeton are both NDPs, but Pappy is a "good" NDP, and Templeton is a poster child for evil NDPs. Among other details: Templeton resells MGPI rye, to which they add flavorant, while Pappy is a special label and aging of KBD bourbon. That said: don't pay good money for Pappy. It's hugely overrated. A $25 bottle of Willett will give you a substantially similar spirit (also KBD), and one I like better than Pappy. Unfortunately: the local, small operations tend to produce inferior products. Whiskey is a very difficult business to get good at. Among other things, it seems to be the case that you need to use gigantic barrels to produce top-quality whiskey, which favors companies that have a direct pipeline to large numbers of consumers. Chuck Cowdery has a pretty good list of cheap bourbons you can't go wrong with, including Very Old Barton, Old Forester, Jim Beam Black Label, and Old Grand-Dad. I've been working my way through his cheap bourbon list and it's been pretty great.
- drsim 12y ago
  Busloads of tourists rolled into Talisker (Diageo) on the August day we visited. We sat in the Talisker 'experience' while waiting for our time slot. After an hour we were ready and got taken around by a suited guide with gilded lapel badge. She took us through the usual history, distillation process and then to the tasting: a nice range of their ages and brands. A slick, well-packaged distillery. A few days later we arrived on Mull and toured the Tobermory Distillery. Small and cute just like the town. The tweeded master distiller had so many stories, transporting us back through its varied history. That history sure made the dram taste great. Looking forward to making it onto Islay next time. Slàinte!
  - zedpm 12y ago
    Islay is amazing. If you make it there, consider staying at The Bowmore House[0]. Andrew and Alison are wonderful hosts, the breakfasts are marvelous, and the rooms are great too. [0] http://www.thebowmorehouse.co.uk/ http://www.thebowmorehouse.co.uk/
    - arethuza 12y ago
      If you go to Islay, it might be worth going to Jura that has it's own distillery, interesting scenery (if you like fantastically rough coastlines and raised beaches), the house where Orwell wrote 1984 and at the north end between Jura and Scarba the infamous Gulf of Corryvreckan with its whirlpool: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Corryvreckan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Corryvreckan
  - tptacek 12y ago
    Tobermory, of course, being owned by Distell, itself a pretty big spirits firm. :) The big difference I noticed between big and small distilleries was automation. A large-scale distillery still has a blinged-out spirit safe, but the LCD screen showing the stats on the stills is more important, because it's what's making all the decisions. The Benromach people were doing all that stuff by hand and eyeball. On the other hand: I'll probably drink 4 bottles of Balvenie for ever 1 bottle of Benromach I drink. I'll let you know when I manage to finish the first bottle of Benromach I bought. It's good stuff, but the big distilleries can produce stuff that's better.
- arethuza 12y ago
  Some of the production facilities used in the whisky industry are rather "industrial" - there are a few large industrial malting facilities that supply malt to large number of distilleries including some of the more upmarket brands. NB When I was a student in the 1980s I used to work in the summers at one of the large industrial maltings.
  - tptacek 12y ago
    I don't know how I feel about this. Balvenie famously does their own maltings, but then Balvenie is one of the largest Scotch brands in the world. On the other hand, you look at the smaller distilleries and realize that there's no way they can be doing that kind of work themselves, and you wonder how much impact doing ones own malting has on the final product, as opposed to designing a mash bill, controlling yeast, making cuts, and (most importantly) selecting and aging in barrels.
    - arethuza 12y ago
      I remember the chemist who ran the lab at the maltings joking about the "romance" of "throwing another peat on the fire" when it reality the analysis was all done very carefully and scientifically with gas chromatography being used to control peat levels. [NB The automated titration machine they used as a reference for nitrogen levels was quite scary - all flames and concentrated acids being squirted about.]
- mikecb 12y ago
  I had a different experience on the bourbon trail. Both the tour and tasting at heaven hill were so-so, but both the tour and product at Willett, around the corner, were awesome.
dageshi 12y ago
I think interest in other Spirits particularly Rum may begin to suck in those who would previously have stuck with Scotch.
- jschwartzi 12y ago
  Why do you say that? There are some significant differences between many single-malt scotches and a rum.
  - 3am 12y ago
    Well, as someone that drinks both, there's also a lot in common. Obviously the peating & the resulting tie to the terroir is a little less important, but there are Solera process rums that are top tier spirits for 10-20% of the cost corresponding quality single malt scotches. Obviously a scotch drinker is going to want to stick to scotch, but there are very fine examples of other distilled beverages (rum, cognac/armanac, bourbon, anejo tequila/mescal) that are going to be as complicated on the palate for fractions of the price. At some point people will switch. The reason I haven't, honestly, is that there are still "bargains" in middle market scotch... it's not clear that intrinsic quality is driving market, as opposed to scarcity or marketing. EDIT: sorry, got back to this thread a bit late. I echo the other commenter on the Ron Zacapa 23 or Centennario. That was specifically what I had in mind, and is a great launching point for exploring them. https://www.masterofmalt.com/samples/ https://www.masterofmalt.com/samples/ will let you get 30ml samples for a modest markup and is a great way to try a lot w/o ruining your finances or liver. Astonishingly high end single malts available that way, too (I have no incentive to promote them whatsoever)
    - jschwartzi 12y ago
      I'll have to hunt down a Solera-process rum then. Can you recommend a particular brand? As for cognac, bourbon and tequila, I can definitely see your point there.
      - dagw 12y ago
3am 12y ago
I certainly think the Japanese single malts are already giving them a run for their money. Hard to say, "already" when they've been making good product for a century or so... but this year was a pretty good reminder: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/11/05/japan-beats-scotland-to-win-worlds-best-whiskey-title/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/11/05... Although, I don't know about moderating prices. Finding a bottle of the Yamazaki has not been easy (particularly at a reasonable price). EDIT: the Diageo special release pricing has gotten almost insulting. EDIT: yup, tpacek, couldn't agree more. The Robert Parker of Whisky, to be taken with a grain of salt... but I'd say it's at least correlated with quality and an indicator of where the market is headed.
- tptacek 12y ago
  If you buy into the whole Jim Murray ranking thing. The fact is, everything at the top of his list is amazing (and Japan has consistently produced top-quality single malt), but the distribution of scores is pretty arbitrary. The problem, of course, is that the rest of the market tends to treat Murray's ratings as objective fact, so, for instance, when he declared Thomas Handy the best whiskey in the world a few years back, bottles became impossible to find. So maybe it's a blessing that Scotland has been demoted. :)

by zedpm 12y ago

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

tptacek 12y ago

We were in the Highlands and Speyside this summer and did some tours as well. It's worth knowing that most of the famous distilleries roll up to one of a couple mega-corps --- Diageo, Ricard, Suntory. Lots of those distilleries are small operations. It's the same in the US: the best known, best regarded bourbons are almost uniformly owned by giant companies. There's an interesting comparison between the tours at, say, Aberlour (a mega-corp-owned large-scale distillery) and Benromach (an independent small-scale distillery). I'd rather tour the small operations. But honestly, I'd (mostly) rather drink the products of the larger ones. (A warning: I'm more inclined to nerd out and even less qualified to hold forth on this topic than I am on criminal law or cryptography. Sorry!)

bmj 12y ago
I recently came across a blog post[0] that examined where U.S. whisk(e)ys were actually produced. Turns out many of the top-shelf brands aren't actually produced in the manner which they are marketed. My impression, at least among bourbons, is that there are several brands that, while owned by mega-corps, still control their production in a mom-and-pop manner. [0] http://recenteats.blogspot.com/p/the-complete-list-of-american-whiskey.html http://recenteats.blogspot.com/p/the-complete-list-of-americ...
- tptacek 12y ago
  The best known top-shelf brands that fit that description are Pappy, WhistlePig, and Black Maple Hill. They're good products, but they're all bottlings of someone else's spirit. The term for that kind of brand is "NDP". NDP practices are most notorious in American rye, where the majority of products come from a single ex-Seagrams distillery in Indiana called MGPI. Templeton is an NDP infamous for carefully concealing the fact that they're reselling commodity rye spirit. Chuck Cowdery, whose blog is well worth a read, calls them a "Potempkin Distillery". But there are a lot of top-shelf brands that don't fit that description at all. The Buffalo Trace antiques --- Thomas Handy, for instance --- are genuine serious products. Of course, they trace back to Sazerac, which is a pretty big company; just look at all the stuff Barton Brands (also owned by Sazerac) sells.
  - bmj 12y ago
    I heard Templeton was one of the most egregious of the bunch, but didn't realize Pappy was similar. These days, it seems worth it to spend my money at a local distillery (Wigle Whiskey), where they go from grains to finished product in the same facility.
    - tptacek 12y ago
      Pappy and Templeton are both NDPs, but Pappy is a "good" NDP, and Templeton is a poster child for evil NDPs. Among other details: Templeton resells MGPI rye, to which they add flavorant, while Pappy is a special label and aging of KBD bourbon. That said: don't pay good money for Pappy. It's hugely overrated. A $25 bottle of Willett will give you a substantially similar spirit (also KBD), and one I like better than Pappy. Unfortunately: the local, small operations tend to produce inferior products. Whiskey is a very difficult business to get good at. Among other things, it seems to be the case that you need to use gigantic barrels to produce top-quality whiskey, which favors companies that have a direct pipeline to large numbers of consumers. Chuck Cowdery has a pretty good list of cheap bourbons you can't go wrong with, including Very Old Barton, Old Forester, Jim Beam Black Label, and Old Grand-Dad. I've been working my way through his cheap bourbon list and it's been pretty great.
drsim 12y ago
Busloads of tourists rolled into Talisker (Diageo) on the August day we visited. We sat in the Talisker 'experience' while waiting for our time slot. After an hour we were ready and got taken around by a suited guide with gilded lapel badge. She took us through the usual history, distillation process and then to the tasting: a nice range of their ages and brands. A slick, well-packaged distillery. A few days later we arrived on Mull and toured the Tobermory Distillery. Small and cute just like the town. The tweeded master distiller had so many stories, transporting us back through its varied history. That history sure made the dram taste great. Looking forward to making it onto Islay next time. Slàinte!
- zedpm 12y ago
  Islay is amazing. If you make it there, consider staying at The Bowmore House[0]. Andrew and Alison are wonderful hosts, the breakfasts are marvelous, and the rooms are great too. [0] http://www.thebowmorehouse.co.uk/ http://www.thebowmorehouse.co.uk/
  - arethuza 12y ago
    If you go to Islay, it might be worth going to Jura that has it's own distillery, interesting scenery (if you like fantastically rough coastlines and raised beaches), the house where Orwell wrote 1984 and at the north end between Jura and Scarba the infamous Gulf of Corryvreckan with its whirlpool: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Corryvreckan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Corryvreckan
- tptacek 12y ago
  Tobermory, of course, being owned by Distell, itself a pretty big spirits firm. :) The big difference I noticed between big and small distilleries was automation. A large-scale distillery still has a blinged-out spirit safe, but the LCD screen showing the stats on the stills is more important, because it's what's making all the decisions. The Benromach people were doing all that stuff by hand and eyeball. On the other hand: I'll probably drink 4 bottles of Balvenie for ever 1 bottle of Benromach I drink. I'll let you know when I manage to finish the first bottle of Benromach I bought. It's good stuff, but the big distilleries can produce stuff that's better.
arethuza 12y ago
Some of the production facilities used in the whisky industry are rather "industrial" - there are a few large industrial malting facilities that supply malt to large number of distilleries including some of the more upmarket brands. NB When I was a student in the 1980s I used to work in the summers at one of the large industrial maltings.
- tptacek 12y ago
  I don't know how I feel about this. Balvenie famously does their own maltings, but then Balvenie is one of the largest Scotch brands in the world. On the other hand, you look at the smaller distilleries and realize that there's no way they can be doing that kind of work themselves, and you wonder how much impact doing ones own malting has on the final product, as opposed to designing a mash bill, controlling yeast, making cuts, and (most importantly) selecting and aging in barrels.
  - arethuza 12y ago
    I remember the chemist who ran the lab at the maltings joking about the "romance" of "throwing another peat on the fire" when it reality the analysis was all done very carefully and scientifically with gas chromatography being used to control peat levels. [NB The automated titration machine they used as a reference for nitrogen levels was quite scary - all flames and concentrated acids being squirted about.]
mikecb 12y ago
I had a different experience on the bourbon trail. Both the tour and tasting at heaven hill were so-so, but both the tour and product at Willett, around the corner, were awesome.

dageshi 12y ago

I think interest in other Spirits particularly Rum may begin to suck in those who would previously have stuck with Scotch.

jschwartzi 12y ago
Why do you say that? There are some significant differences between many single-malt scotches and a rum.
- 3am 12y ago
  Well, as someone that drinks both, there's also a lot in common. Obviously the peating & the resulting tie to the terroir is a little less important, but there are Solera process rums that are top tier spirits for 10-20% of the cost corresponding quality single malt scotches. Obviously a scotch drinker is going to want to stick to scotch, but there are very fine examples of other distilled beverages (rum, cognac/armanac, bourbon, anejo tequila/mescal) that are going to be as complicated on the palate for fractions of the price. At some point people will switch. The reason I haven't, honestly, is that there are still "bargains" in middle market scotch... it's not clear that intrinsic quality is driving market, as opposed to scarcity or marketing. EDIT: sorry, got back to this thread a bit late. I echo the other commenter on the Ron Zacapa 23 or Centennario. That was specifically what I had in mind, and is a great launching point for exploring them. https://www.masterofmalt.com/samples/ https://www.masterofmalt.com/samples/ will let you get 30ml samples for a modest markup and is a great way to try a lot w/o ruining your finances or liver. Astonishingly high end single malts available that way, too (I have no incentive to promote them whatsoever)
  - jschwartzi 12y ago
    I'll have to hunt down a Solera-process rum then. Can you recommend a particular brand? As for cognac, bourbon and tequila, I can definitely see your point there.
    - dagw 12y ago

3am 12y ago

I certainly think the Japanese single malts are already giving them a run for their money. Hard to say, "already" when they've been making good product for a century or so... but this year was a pretty good reminder: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/11/05/japan-beats-scotland-to-win-worlds-best-whiskey-title/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/11/05... Although, I don't know about moderating prices. Finding a bottle of the Yamazaki has not been easy (particularly at a reasonable price). EDIT: the Diageo special release pricing has gotten almost insulting. EDIT: yup, tpacek, couldn't agree more. The Robert Parker of Whisky, to be taken with a grain of salt... but I'd say it's at least correlated with quality and an indicator of where the market is headed.

tptacek 12y ago
If you buy into the whole Jim Murray ranking thing. The fact is, everything at the top of his list is amazing (and Japan has consistently produced top-quality single malt), but the distribution of scores is pretty arbitrary. The problem, of course, is that the rest of the market tends to treat Murray's ratings as objective fact, so, for instance, when he declared Thomas Handy the best whiskey in the world a few years back, bottles became impossible to find. So maybe it's a blessing that Scotland has been demoted. :)