12 • FEATURE: GRAIN
Loch Lomond is very
diff erent from North British, while Cameronbridge is very light
Alan Wolstenholme, formerly of the
now-silent Caledonian grain distillery, agrees, although he believes the diff erences are probably less than they were. “Caledonian, where I worked in the seventies, had a reputation for having a slightly butterscotch nose. Carsbridge and Port Dundas were considered to be heavier with a bit more sulphur,” he says. After distillation, the two spirits
share the same fate. Both are fi lled into second-hand oak casks and left to mature in some cold, damp warehouse in Scotland for at least three years. “To get good grain whisky, cask management is even more important, because you are looking at 80-90% of the character coming from the wood,” says Society ambassador Georgie Bell. Which begs the question whether grain
whiskies get the wood they deserve, or whether they are condemned to age in the cast-off s from malt whisky maturation. “Absolutely not,” says Beveridge. “As a company, we are wary of too much wood infl uence in our malts and are huge advocates of letting the distillery character come through. To achieve a gentle maturation, the casks are often conditioned with grain whisky.” In other words, grain is more likely to slumber in fi rst-fi ll barrels than malt. When Alastair Day began to reconstruct
THE SCOTCH MALT WHISKY SOCIETY
the Tweedale Blend – a whisky created by his great grandfather that had been out of production for 70 years – he was bowled over by the quality of grain whiskies. “I’d always dismissed them in the past, but started to realise that there are some very good ones out there.” He was also struck by how varied they
can be. “Loch Lomond is very diff erent from North British, while Cameronbridge is very light.” As for a personal favourite, he says “anything that has been long in a sherry cask would be up there. At the fi rst blending master class I went to at the Society, I tried the 19 year-old G1.7: Flamed Christmas pudding. It was absolutely fantastic.” Like Wolstenholme, he believes the time has come for a grain revival. “Obviously, malts are what everybody aspires to, but the question is how many more fi nishes can people come up with? I had a Glengoyne in a Swedish oak cask and thought - ‘yes, it’s genuinely interesting, but where is it going to go?’ Where will the innovation
come from in Scotch whisky? I think there is a huge opportunity for grain.” In its rules of production, Scotch whisky
is famously constrained, particularly with single malts where the only grain permitted is malted barley. Within those constraints, distillers have played just about every riff going, but beneath the surface you can sometimes sense a feeling of pent-up frustration. There is obviously a desire and a need for new expressions, but you can only push the envelope so far. Which is why grain whisky off ers a wonderful vent for all those creative juices, especially when it comes to playing with diff erent grains. Scottish distillers
BROOM TUBE
See Dave Broom’s verdict on a Society grain whisky at
youtube.com/ SMWSsilverscreen
favour wheat for their grain whisky, while their American cousins prefer maize (or corn) – a choice that is “driven by the lowest cost of
starch on the market,” says Wolstenholme. Around 10% of malted barley is always used
to help convert the starch into soluble sugars in the mash, but again that is about maximising yields rather than improving quality. Bill Owens, president
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