2013 August What Makes Lady of the Glen Special
Lady of the Glen Whisky is just Whisky.
By that I mean that my Whisky is amongst the least modified and most natural.
Every Lady of the Glen Whisky has three features which separate it from the mainstream,
Non Chill filtered
Cask Strength
Single cask
What do these features actually mean?
Non- chill filtered
Chill filtering was a process originally conceived for the American market. It is a purely cosmetic feature which makes looking at the dram more appealing. Essentially it is a process which removes the tiny particles that float in Whisky and create cloudiness – by chill filtering Whisky the cloudiness is removed. Some may argue that this process has no impact on flavour but I refuse to believe that removing particles cannot impact flavour – in the same way that removing some colours from a painting would not impact the overall work of art. For that reason Lady of the Glen is not chill-filtered.
Cask strength
Every Whisky has water added to it but essentially cask strength has a little less. When the Whisky is getting bottled from the cask it will typically have water added to it in order to reduce the alcohol content. However, cask strength whisky will have less water added.
Why do this…choice. It allows the consumer more choice to dilute the whisky to their own palate and although the price of cask strength Whisky is typically higher it is not dissimilar from a concentrate in that if you are adding water you can stretch your Whisky into more drams.
Single cask
Single cask Whisky is where the Whisky is aged in only one cask. So where some distilleries or brands are able remove their Whisky from one cask and then place it in a different cask in order to expose that Whisky to new wood and hopefully enrich it with new flavours, single cask Whisky is held in the same cask until it is bottled. I believe that single cask allows the Whisky to bloom unadulterated and that is why I like it.
Independent bottling
The beauty of the Whisky industry is in the variety of it. Blends make up the greatest share of Whisky, accounting for 90% of the Whisky enjoyed throughout the world (http://www.scotlandwhisky.com/about/how). In my opinion the popularity of blends is not necessarily a good thing. For example Balblair is a fantastic Whisky, but only 25% of what that distillery generates gets released as single malt, the rest will get used as part of a blend and to an extent we lose that. The Invergordon distillery no longer sells single grain whisky – around 50% of their casks are traded to other distilleries and the rest is kept for blending purposes.
Grain is big victim to blends dominance. There are only seven grain distilleries in Scotland (including the Invergordon distillery) and their grain Whisky make up a vital component of a blend (60%-80%). Unlike malt Whisky, grain Whisky continues to improve while it ages in the cask. Unfortunately, the vast majority is not able to age and that which is aged is used in blends. However, Lady of the Glen acquired a 24 year old cask of the vanilla gold which is something I’m really proud of.
If you scratch at the surface you can see through the ownership of distilleries how certain Whiskies are being held back or stored just for blends. It’s not a conspiracy it’s a fact and it’s the price of the industry’s success.
Through Lady of the Glen I have attempted to get some Whisky which would typically have been blended away and sell it as a rare wee gift. The bespoke bag and unique design have helped to illustrate the rarity which a Lady of the Glen bottle encapsulates.
In other news Lady of the Glen is now on Pinterest and I have setup up a new google views page. Please check them out and let me know what you think.
I was also very proud to be the Nativespace website of the week last week. I would like to thank John Hamlin and Mike David Smith who helped to create a wonderful website.
All the best,