The Scotch Blog

St. Andrew's Day

I actually don't have a short list of favorite whiskies, but if I did, Laphroaig would be on it.

And they seem to be developing quite a sense of humor. Is it new owner Fortune/Jim Beam, or was it always there bubbling just below the surface? Maybe Bruichladdich's quirky sense of humor is coming down island.

Who knows, but they make some damn fine whisky. Heck, there's nothing from Islay that I don't like (nice double negative, huh?), but Laphroaig just holds a special place in my heart.

And being the good Scots that they are, Laphroaig has set up a web site to help celebrate St. Andrew's day, which is observed on November 30th (tomorrow).

The site is educational but also quite witty - the entire site consists of a depiction of St Andrew in a stained-glass window, with a bag of golf clubs and a bottle of Laphroaig.

If you didn't know, (I know not all of you readers are lucky enough to be Scottish ;)), Saint Andrew is the Patron Saint of Scotland, and he's a pretty big deal there - as a matter of fact, the flag of Scotland is the called the "Cross of St. Andrew."

The funny thing is that St. Andrew never set foot on Scottish soil.

St. Andrew is said to have been responsible for spreading the Christian religion though Asia Minor and Greece. It is said that St. Andrew was put to death by the Romans in Greece by being nailed to a diagonally shaped cross - the shape of this cross is said to be the basis for the Cross of St. Andrew.

Legend suggests that a monk called Rule (eventually St. Rule) was warned in a dream that St. Andrew's remains were to be moved by the Emperor Constantine and Rule was directed by an angel to take whatever remains he could to the "ends of the earth" for safe-keeping. Rule removed a tooth, an arm bone, a kneecap and some fingers from St. Andrew's tomb and took them as far away as he could: Scotland. Quite amusing that Scotland was considered the ends of the Earth.

Anyway, you can learn more about Golf, St. Andrew, the Thistle, and more importantly Laphroaig when you visit the site.

The Irish may have St. Patrick's day, But the Scottish have St. Andrew's Day (November 30th), Robert Burns' Night (January 25th), Hogmanay (New Year's), and a few sundry and other holidays. All present a good enough excuse to drink your favorite Scotch.

Aberlour Founder's Day

Going to be in Scotland on November 22nd?

Then you may want to attend the Aberlour Founder's Day Dinner being held at the distillery in honor of James Fleming - "a special event that celebrates both the man and the whisky he created."

Each course will feature a different expression of Aberlour Single Malt, specifically selected to match the food. The infallible combination of imaginative cuisine and fine malt whisky will ensure that everyone who attends the dinner is in for a night to remember. The presiding spirit of James Fleming will do the rest.

Neil MacDonald of Aberlour tells me:

22nd November 2005 will mark 125 years to the day when the Aberlour Distillery started operating - construction began the previous year, hence our foundation date of 1879. To celebrate we are holding a dinner at the Distillery to which will be invited key people connected to the Distillery. I thought it would be a good opportunity for any Companions of Aberlour who wished to join our celebration.

Places are limited but if anyone is interested they should contact me as soon as possible! No price is set yet but it will be very reasonable!

This is a chance to participate in a once in a lifetime event.

There are a limited number of tickets available for this very special occasion. For details, contact Neil MacDonald at neil.macdonald@chivas.com but your first task is to go to the Club Bar section of Aberlour's web site and sign up.

And if, like me, you can't be at Aberlour, you can certainly raise a toast to James on November 22nd.

Better yet, come up with a great toast to James Fleming and there could be a handsome reward in your future. Post your toast at Aberlour's Visitor's Book by November 22nd and they'll be giving away a pair of specially designed Riedel whisky glasses for each of the six best entries.

Shape of the Bottle Update

I had one more theory on the Shape of the Whisky Bottle pop in from the bottling expert at the Easy Drinking Whisky Company via Dave "Robbo" Robertson.

Here are our considered thoughts from our bottling expert.

To be honest, it is a tradition, now widely associated with "traditional" Scotch Whisky design. It probably has resonance in the "bulbous" shape of the pot still. In fact it makes the bottle slightly more difficult to make, not easier, because of the transition of radii. There is a slight advantage in the design in that it allows a little more empty space in the neck (which we call vacuity) thereby allowing a slighly higher fill up the neck, which will look more attractive under the capsule. Not all bottles have a bulb...in fact we have deliberately tried to be different with some of our designs, but a straight neck does look more austere, and more modern I think, and the bulb is softer and more gentle to the eye. Therefore it is more appropriate for older malt whiskies. There is a limit to what you can actually do with a neck!!

Regards,
Mike.

Thanks Mike & Robbo!

The shape of the bottle

I received an interesting question from a reader:

Dear Kevin/Scotchblog,

I have a simple curiousity about the bottle designs of the various single malts. Particularly, why do most have a similar shape in the neck area with a slight 'bulb'? Is this just a design that developed into a bottle trend or is does it have a technical/scientific reason? Any light you could shed would be helpful. Thank you.

Sincerely,
Scott

I've never come across any mention or discussion of the particular shape of the traditional whisky bottle in any book, so I thought maybe, I'd missed something...

So, I thought I'd ask some of the experts to see if they knew of any concrete reasons for this. Several experts simply said "Beats me." But some others thought they'd take a whack...

Mark Reynier, Managing Director, Bruichladdich Distillery

It was an old  bottle design that has become standardised for mass production. Probably, in the past with hand blowing, the neck bulge had something to do with  glass strength in the neck of the bottle and for receiving a standardised cork stopper. Today they are produced in moulds.

KME - Bruichladdich does not use the "bulb" - their bottle is very much like the original whisky bottles (see Macallan photo below)

Dr. David Wishart, Author, Whisky Classified gives us this great history of the bottle as well:

The origin of the glass bottle is as a serving vessel, used by the upper classes and by merchants from the mid-18th century. Whisky (and wine) was supplied in a cask or stoneware jar, and was decanted into a clear glass vessel (the decanter, the job being performed by a "bottler", hence the title "butler"). When supplied by a merchant it would be stoppered for transit, with a deposit refundable when returned. Clear glass was taxed at 11 times that of black or green glass, and was therefore the preserve of the wealthy.

The first whisky bottles were re-used wine bottles, e.g. Macallan. They took off in the whisky boom of the 1890s when whisky began being sold by the case for export. They started to be mass produced by glass factories after a glass-blowing machine was invented by Arnall and Howard Ashley in 1887. The bottles were cast in moulds, which presumably followed the style of the decanters used by the upper classes.

The advantage of the sealed bottle for export was that it could be properly stoppered and sealed, thereby reducing the scope for dilution or replacement by unscrupulous intermediaries. During US prohibition, Captain William McCoy, a smuggler based in the Bahamas, supplied such good quality Scotch compared to the illicit bootlegged US alternative, that patrons of Chicago speakeasys dubbed his sealed bottles the "Real McCoy".

As to the shape of the neck, I can only speculate that it evolved from the decanter in a bulbous form for easy and safe gripping by the butler, and has remained that way ever since.

Dominic Roskrow, Editor, Whisky Magazine

I really don’t have a clue beyond to say that if you look at early bottle making, the long neck style seemed to develop out of that early glass-firing process. So you’d assume it was the easiest way of making a pouring bottle - so it’s been imitated as much through tradition as anything else. And of course there are a growing number of different bottle shapes now – suggesting that the science isn’t so important.
Really not sure though...

Dave Robbo Robertson, Easy Drinking Whisky Company

Here are our considered thoughts from our bottling expert.

To be honest, it is a tradition, now widely associated with "traditional" Scotch Whisky design. It probably has resonance in the "bulbous" shape of the pot still. In fact it makes the bottle slightly more difficult to make, not easier, because of the transition of radii. There is a slight advantage in the design in that it allows a little more empty space in the neck (which we call vacuity) thereby allowing a slighly higher fill up the neck, which will look more attractive under the capsule. Not all bottles have a bulb...in fact we have deliberately tried to be different with some of our designs, but a straight neck does look more austere, and more modern I think, and the bulb is softer and more gentle to the eye. Therefore it is more appropriate for older malt whiskies. There is a limit to what you can actually do with a neck!!

Regards,
Mike.

Kevin Erskine, The Scotch Blog

My own SWAG of a guess is that it is a combination of being an easy to hold handle AND having some design function to maximize airflow. I also have a suspicion that the bell shape, mimicked by today's whisky taster glasses, gathers the aroma of the whisky to give you that first great whiff after opening a bottle.

Well there you have it - if there is any real reason for the "bulb" it's been lost over the ages.

Today it's likely just a matter of tradition as many distilleries use the bulbous neck (with wide variations), while just as many do not.

I'd like to thank the experts for taking time out of their day to ponder this question.

And thanks for asking a great question, Scott.

---------------------------------------------------------------

One of my favorite bulbous neck bottles is used by Balvenie.

Some distillers use the bulbous neck (Glenfarclas, Laphroaig, Talisker)

While some do not (Glenfiddich, Bruichladdich, Oban)

One of the earliest known whisky bottle, an 1841 Macallan. Just a reused wine bottle - no bulbous neck.

What's old is new again

A brief history lesson

Distillation may have been discovered in Syria and used in the making of ladies' eye shadow, called al-kohl.

Arak, a clear, colorless distilled spirit, made from grapes and anise, followed the discovery. Arak was, in essence, distilled wine. The art of making "burnt wine" spread, along with the Islamic faith, across the Middle East and Mediterranean.

One popular theory holds that Christian Crusaders learned the art of distillation and returned to Britain. Early Christian monks traveled, bringing Catholicism and the secret of distillation to the British isles - where barley replaced grapes.

Arak (from Arabic "araq" meaning "sweat") is still consumed in the Middle East and is closely related to the Greek Ouzo and to the French Pastis. It is served with meals or as an aperitif, and mixed with water, which makes it opaque (as with other anise-flavored liqueurs).

In 1703, in A Description of the Western Islands of Scotland Martin Martin (yup, that was his name) describes "Trestarig," a long forgotten whisky from the Hebrides Islands, a chain of islands 30 miles off the North West coast of Scotland, approximately 120 miles in length:

"The air is temperately cold and moist, and for the corrective, the natives use a dose of Trestarig," which is described as aquavitae three times distilled - as opposed to the standard double distillation of most scotch whisky.

Interestingly, Trestarig is pronounced "trace-arak," and "treas" is Gaelic for "triple."

Another theory contends that the Vikings were the responsible party. It is known that they voyaged to Turkey and the Black Sea via the large rivers of central Europe and may have brought the knowledge of triple-distilled Arak to the Hebrides before the Christians.

That's interesting and all, but so what...

Well, this all brings us to Bruichladdich's announcement today of a new distillation of Trestarig - the first triple-distilled spirit in the Western Isles for many centuries. Currently only the lowland distillery Auchentoshan, produces a triple-distilled scotch whisky.

According to innovative Master Distiller Jim McEwan:

This is without doubt the very best new spirit I have ever tasted, coming into spirit at 88% alcohol after a 7 hour spirit run - the longest I have ever witnessed. The elusive "middle cut" was made between 86% to 81.5%. This is a rock show of a malt.

CEO Mark Reynier adds:

We like to do things differently at Bruichladdich - and if it means going back in time for inspiration, so be it.

Bruichladdich has distilled and casked 12,000 liters of Trestarig, at 84.5% alcohol by volume.

I asked Mark how long they plan to age the Trestarig, what the price would be, and would we get some here in North America. His response:

Don't know how long or how much, but would expect a fair proportion to make it to the states.

So it will be at least three years before this will be ready for sale. But you heard it here first.

Happy 200th Johnnie

In case you didn't know, today is the 200th birthday of one Johnnie Walker.
Yes THAT Johnnie Walker. Born July 25th, 1805.

Years later, Johnnie Walker is the top selling scotch whisky in the world.
We celebrated his birthday yesterday with cake and Rusty Nails.

Here's his story from the Johnnie Walker site:

Johnnie Walker
1805 - 1857

This is the man who started it all, and whose modest beginnings clearly fostered an ambitious nature.

John was born a farmer's son, but when his father died he seized the opportunity to leave the land and set himself up in business in the nearby town. At the age of 15 he was already the proprietor of a small grocery shop in Kilmarnock, the start of what would later become an international business empire

Defining Steps in John Walker's life
- In 1820,at the age of 15, John opened a grocery business in Kilmarnock
- John applies tea blending principles to whisky with great success
- Walker's Highland Whiskies are created and launched to much acclaim
- The business prospers and John's reputation as an expert blender spreads throughout the West of Scotland
- 1852 Kilmarnock flood devastates the town and threatens to destroy John's business, but with the strength of his reputation and the loyalty of his consumers, John rebuilds his business
- John dies in 1857 and leadership passes to his son Alexander.

John Walker as whisky's saviour?

Some say that if John Walker and others like him had not started blending malt and grain whisky, the drink itself may never have become as popular as it has.

200 years ago, single malts were not appreciated the way they are now - they were too oily and heavy for many people's tastes. Without the introduction of the smoother and more balanced blend, whisky might never have left the remote highlands and islands of Scotland - and what a tragedy that would have been.