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Par frédéric neau, mercredi 15 novembre 2006 à 18:21 :: Live Chat ! :: #162 :: rss

John is here ready to answer all your questions !

Let's go!

EDIT : vous ne parlez pas la langue de Shakespeare ? lisez cette traduction automatique (et approximative ;))

Information on OAK CROSS?? Obviously you haven't visited our website recently!!

It's all on the website, www.compassboxwhisky.com, but here are the basics:

I've chosen three malts: Clynelish (which many know I love very much) for fruitiness, Dailuaine for weight and Teanninich for sweetness. I vat the three malts together and then put them back into the casks to marry (our standard practice). However, I put some of the whisky into different casks: our "oak cross" that we developed, which combine refill American oak bodies with new French oak heads. These casks impart a lovely, sweet, spice-laden richness to the whisky.

Then, when we are ready to bottle, I blend a portion of whisky from the oak cross marrying casks with the normal marrying casks, trying to achieve a balance of distillery character and oak richness.

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Commentaires

1. Le mercredi 15 novembre 2006 à 18:28, par Michael St

well

Is it difficult to get cask samples from the distilleries (kind of long distance runner effort)?

I suppose that you're a kind of "mini-competitor" when you ask samples to Diageo's distilleries (mean that they do their own blends).

2. Le mercredi 15 novembre 2006 à 18:30, par John

Hello, Yves!

Without doubt there are differences in the distillery character of grain whiskies. It is driven primarily by the raw materials (do they use primarily wheat or corn, for example) and the design of the still (particularly in regard to the amount of copper contact the spirit gets).

Of course the wood will be an extremely significant driver of quality and the final style of the grain whisky, but even good wood can't completely hide the underlying character of the spirit.

I love the whisky they distilled at Cambus. I have always found it to more gentle, more feminine (if you will) than other grains, with a lovely sweet palate. Cameron Bridge is similar, although not exactly the same, of course. I find North British a bit firmer in style.

Sadly, Cambus was closed in the early 1990s. Years ago I spoke to a former distillery employee and asked him why they closed Cambus, given how good the whisky was. He said it was because it was a small grain distillery, with smaller stills than others. He said that is why the spirit was so good, and that is why they closed it. Sad, really.

3. Le mercredi 15 novembre 2006 à 18:36, par John

Regarding the difficulty of getting samples from distilleries: once you've established a buying relationship with a certain distilling company, getting samples is not hard because it is part of the relationship. They charge for getting samples, so for them, it's a small profit generator, I suppose, depending on how much they charge.

There is a long history of different, "competitive" companies trading or selling stocks back and forth, going back to the 19th century. So the distilling companies don't look at us a competitor, strictly speaking. The companies we work with, for the most part, are quite happy with what we are doing within the industry.

4. Le mercredi 15 novembre 2006 à 18:49, par John

Sacha et oui je parle aussi Francais. Merci Thierry !

A propos de Flamming Heart et du relatif secret de sa composition.

Quand nous avons lancé ce nouveau whisky je voulais garder le secret ! C'était une nouvelle expérience en quelque sorte. L'autre raison est que les distilleries qui composent ce whisky nous ont demander de ne pas mentionner leur nom !

Au final quand on me pose la question j'ai du mal à ne pas répondre et à cacher la vérité. C'est pourquoi nous avons finalement décidé de mettre en ligne sur internet le nom des distilleries à travers le nom de leur village.

Village of Port Askaig = CAOL ILA
Village of Brora = CLYNELISH
Village of Longmorn = GLEN ELGIN

Thierry a écrit cela, pas John !

5. Le mercredi 15 novembre 2006 à 19:04, par fred

hi !

I've heard that the word "vatted" ( www.whisky.fr/glossaire.p... ) is not anymore permitted, and that we now should say "blended malt".

... i've also heard that this change has been made under the pressure of big companies, happy to be allowed to call "malt" their blended whiskies !

what do you think about that ?

6. Le mercredi 15 novembre 2006 à 19:15, par John

Fred, with all due respect, you've got it all wrong!

Let's clarify.

First, the term "vatted" as in "vatted malt" is perfectly acceptable to use now. It has not been outlawed. A vatted malt is a blend of single malts (no grain whisky). This is a term that has been used in Scotland for over 100 years. "Pure malt" is another term for the same thing, also widely used for over 100 years.

However, the Scotch Whisky Association (SWA) have proposed recently to change the labelling laws for Scotch whisky to try to clarify things. Among other things, they propose changing the way vatted malts are labelled. They propose labelling them as "Blended Malt Scotch Whisky".

In my mind, and in the minds of most people around the world whom I've talke about this with, this proposal is a bad idea for companies such as mine, which make their living selling vatted malts. The reason is clear: using the term "blended" in association with malt whisky will lower the perception of quality people have for the whisky. They will be confused about what it means, or they will assume that the whisky is somehow inferior to a single malt due to the use of the word "blended". (As most of you know, a "blended Scotch whisky means a whisky blended from both malt whisky and grain whisky, and in many parts of the world, drinkers perceive blends to always be inferior to malts...or worse!)

I have offered to help the SWA to develop a more constructive term, but to no avail, so far. (SWA: my offer still stands!)

7. Le mercredi 15 novembre 2006 à 19:25, par sacha

merci John (et Thierry) pour cette réponse claire à propos du mystère de Flaming Heart

un clin d'oeil de whiskycircus à propos de ce Flaming Heart:)

www.whiskycircus.com/whis...

Sacha

8. Le mercredi 15 novembre 2006 à 19:30, par John

Sacha,

You are a mad genius!!

I love it!

Everyone must check out Sacha's link!

John

9. Le mercredi 15 novembre 2006 à 19:33, par benoit

Ola John !
Interesting text... Just one question about it :
Do you consider blending as "quality insurance manager" and blending like you do are the same job ? Ensure the consistency of a batch does not seem to require a lot of creativity, to my mind it's mainly about suppressing flaws of a whisky rather than trying to obtain more from it... In other words, "How can I have this by blending that ?" vs "What can I do by blending this ?". Am I wrong ?

10. Le mercredi 15 novembre 2006 à 19:43, par pege

j'ai u, bar avec 100 whiskies, si vous passez par paris

???

11. Le mercredi 15 novembre 2006 à 19:48, par John

Benoit,
Great question.

You are right, I believe, in the sense that quality assurance is not the creative side of a whisky blender's job. But for most companies, especially big companies, it is an extremely important job.

For me, the creative side of what a whisky blender (or whiskymaker, whatever name you want to use) does is in the creation of new whiskies. Being inspired to make a new style, thinking about ways to derive flavours in whisky from the various stages of production, thinking about what component whiskies you might use to create something new. This is the part of my job I love most.

12. Le mercredi 15 novembre 2006 à 19:51, par John

Pege,
Merci pour l'invitation.

Thierry me demande si vous avez la collection complète des Compass Box !

13. Le mercredi 15 novembre 2006 à 20:18, par Gill

Hello John,

Why did you choose the brown glass bottling? Will there be other colors for special bottlings?

And what about your next special releases? I heard there might be magnum bottles, is it true?

And just a last question: why is there no more double single?

Thx and bye,

Gill

14. Le mercredi 15 novembre 2006 à 20:20, par Yves

Hi John

Not sure you're still on line or not

Just a quickie then.

What in your mind makes a great whisky ?
What are the two / three key qualities you look for in a whiskey - noth when you make it and when you drink it, obviously ?

Yve

15. Le mercredi 15 novembre 2006 à 20:26, par John

Gill,
We have split our into two ranges, our core range (ASYLA, PEAT MONSTER and now OAK CROSS) and our Limited Release range. The philosophy behind the Limited Release range is to bottle very small batches of whiskies from extraordinary casks that cannot be replicated on a large scale. (HEDONISN and ELEUTHERA join this range, due to their small batch nature, and FLAMING HEART is a part of this range).

We decided we wanted the Limited Release range to have a slightly different look from the core range, so we chose the dark bottles. No plans for any other colour bottles at present!

And yes, we do plan to begin bottling small batches of magnums of PEAT MONSTER and OAK CROSS next year. Fun at parties!!

As for DOUBLE SINGLE: this is a whisky we made for the Craigellachie Hotel a few years ago. I believe they are now sold out, but we're talking to them about making another version next year!

16. Le mercredi 15 novembre 2006 à 20:32, par John

Yve(s), (Having a few Bushmill(s) tonight as you type??? We're drinking Compa Box here.)

Let's see...what makes a great whisky?

I really think it's very simple: a great whisky is a whisky that calls you back to the glass after you've had your first sip. And it keeps calling you back to the glass, sip after sip.

Seriously. I could talk about the specific types of characters I like to find in whisky and which I think help constitute great whisky. But at the end of the day, it's about whether or not the whisky calls you back--compells you to take another sip. A great whisky is a whisky you just don't want to stop drinking. You just want to have one more sip, one more small glass before you stop.

Does anyone know what I mean??

John

17. Le mercredi 15 novembre 2006 à 20:43, par The Hedonist

I was lucky enough to taste a few individual samples that enter into some of your vattings ? Most of them were amazing.

You never thought bottling some of them as single casks ?

18. Le mercredi 15 novembre 2006 à 20:47, par John

M. Hedonist,

As a guy wrote on the Scotch Blog in America recently, "anyone can bottle a single cask, the real skill in Scotch whisky is demonstrated by the blender."

Yes, we have some beautiful single casks we get and we use in our whiskies. And yes, truth be told, I am sometimes tempted to bottle them, but only for myself, not for sale as a Compass Box whisky. There are plenty of independent bottlers out there bottling single casks!

19. Le mercredi 15 novembre 2006 à 20:49, par The Exchangist

Hello there,

Do you think it is possible to make a very old Compass Box? Will you manage to get such high quality casks?
Old grain is not so expensive but Caol Ila and especially Clynelish will be harder to get, right? So the challenge and the price might be a limit!

Have you tried some collector blends such as Begnoni's? What changed so much that such taste does no longer exist?

And a last question: how did you come to make a vatted grain? What was the point and is it your only try? Have you seen such vattings before?

See you,

The Exchangist

20. Le mercredi 15 novembre 2006 à 20:52, par The Hedonist

A Compass box single cask single grain could easily become a collector. Do not you think ?

A more tricky one !

What is your favourite blend ?

Johnny Walker Black 12 yo
Ballantines 12 yo
Chivas 12 yo
Dewars 12 yo

21. Le mercredi 15 novembre 2006 à 20:56, par sacha

thnks John but it's more easy to blend photo. than single malt Hope to taste this Flaming heart soon.

Bye

Sacha

22. Le mercredi 15 novembre 2006 à 21:04, par John

We have been looking at creating some whiskies from very old casks. We simply have not been able to get our hands on anything that I think would be good enough to bottle as Compass Box.

We may be able to get hold of some very old grain soon, and that will be a lot of fun. I really think that old, old grain whiskies (circa 30 years old) can offer a huge amount of drinking pleasure...as most people have never had one!

Regarding drinking whiskies bottled a long time ago (1950s, 1960s) like the Begnoni's collection, I have had the good fortune over the years to drink old bottles. And I think they prove the point that distilling has changed in the last 30, 40, 50 years. Consistency may be better, but I think arguably we've lost some complexity in some cases.

Why did I make a vatted grain? Because when I make any whisky, I am concerned with combining flavours. The flavours of single casks. So for me, when I first made HEDONISM, I was looking for complementary flavours, and it did not matter if those flavours came from different distilleries.

23. Le mercredi 15 novembre 2006 à 21:07, par John

M. Hedonist,

A single grain...it could happen, from Compass Box, one day. But read my previous two posts and you'll see what my philosophy is and what my standards are like.

Regarding your question about the blends, I'm afraid I'm not familiar with any of those brands.

24. Le mercredi 15 novembre 2006 à 21:08, par John

Sacha,
I hope you get a chance to taste FLAMING HEART soon, too. We've been working our way through a bottle tonight, and everybody seems to love the stuff.

John

25. Le mercredi 15 novembre 2006 à 21:13, par John

Well, folks, time to say good night and head out into the Paris night.

This has been fun.

And if you have any other questions or comments, please post them now. I will check back to the blog tomorrow.

Good evening,
John

26. Le jeudi 16 novembre 2006 à 09:45, par Yves

Thanks John for your time and the very interesting comments

My take on this and advice to anybody who can: get your hands on a bottle of Hedonism when you still can !