28 • FEATURE: A TO Z GUIDE P N is for… NOSES
The fi nely tuned noses of the Society’s Tasting Panel have sniff ed and savoured their way through thousands of samples of single cask, single malt whiskies in the hunt to track down the very best malts for our members. Each Tasting Panel consists of, typically, fi ve or six people, a group which is led by trusted independent experts and supported by Society staff . The weekly Tasting Panels, which take place at our
Members’ Rooms in Edinburgh, and occasionally in London, tend to last around two-and-a-half hours. Seven whiskies are sampled, with each Panellist scoring the whiskies and, ultimately, giving them a pass or fail. The discussions are lively and passionate aff airs, with each personality bringing a diff erent descriptive style to their verdicts. But make no mistake, it is a serious business – it is not unusual for most of the samples to be rejected because they are not deemed to be of suffi cient quality. Only the most exceptional malts make it into our bottles.
NEVER AGAIN! Sometimes, we like to experiment and try things for fun.
And sometimes things don’t quite pan out as planned. The Last Drop bottling in 2003 springs to mind… the idea was to put the small amounts of whisky left over from the many hundreds of samples that had been tasted over the years to good use. Rather than pour all this whisky away, it was combined and fi nished in a port cask. The experiment hasn’t been repeated since so, in hindsight, perhaps it was not such a great idea.
O M is for… MEMBERS
One of the most remarkable things about the Society is the sheer eclecticism of its membership. From fi lm-makers to hot air balloonists, and gemologists to senior judges, the Society is a true melting pot of backgrounds, cultures, ages and interests, all brought together by a love of whisky. Vaults barman Dean Marinello said: “The members make the Society special, without a doubt. How many other places can you think of where you can just go up to a stranger and start talking away?”
THE SCOTCH MALT WHISKY SOCIETY
is for… PHOTOGRAPHY
We absolutely adore great photos and there have some been some cracking images in the magazine over the years. We’re not quite sure why, but animals seem to pop up sporadically – from Badger the Bruichcladdich dog and some hungry cows munching on a trough full of draff, to Barley the Bladnoch cat. But, above all, stylishly shot photographs are always given pride of place. Our hats are offi cially doffed to our regular snappers Mike Wilkinson and Peter Sandground, whose work has taken them all over Scotland, including assignments that have involved climbing Munros, shooting from the back of motorbikes and standing in freezing rivers, and given Unfi ltered a truly distinctive look.
is for…
OUTTURN Although most casks conform to standard sizes, the
amount of mature whisky one can expect from cask to cask (the outturn) varies by hundreds of bottles. Assuming there have been no leaks, age is the single most important factor in determining outturn. Wood (especially oak) is a porous material, whose
interaction with the spirit and the surrounding air is key to the maturation process. Through natural evaporation, a cask of Scotch malt whisky will typically lose around two per cent of its liquid volume each year. For whiskies distilled in hot climates, the loss is even greater. This means we
never know for sure
how much we’ll get from a cask until we bottle it.
M IS
ALSO FOR MIGHTY MINIS
OUR 10CL ‘MIGHTY
MINIATURES’ ARE A SCALED- DOWN VERSION OF OUR
STANDARD SOCIETY
BOTTLES. THEY ARE INCLUDED IN THE
WELCOME PACK.
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