Glenfiddich Whisky Appreciation Club tasting

I haven’t written about whisky on these pages for a while now. I haven’t been drinking any, either. But recently I entered an email draw that required me to name the aged Glenfiddich variants. I don’t drink Glenfiddich unless someone buys one for me but I found the answers on the tubular interweb, and so was invited to attend their whisky tasting.

Whisky drinkers are a mixed bag these days, now that single malt has become so fashionable. The average age of the group loitering suspiciously in the Wellesley Street Glengarry’s at closing time on Wednesday evening was lower than it would have been 20 years ago (assuming there were whisky tastings then); probably by about 30 years. Yes, there were a couple of women. But there were also some reassuring Scottish accents, one or two red-nosed old men wearing hearing aids and the odd businessman; possibly CIOs I’d have bumped into elsewhere doing my day-job. Strangers eyed each other apprehensively before we entered the tasting room, rather as you might outside your first appearance at Alcoholics Anonymous. But as we were ushered into the back-room, the whisky was so heavy on the air that ties were instantly loosened, hands were shaken and introductions made.

“Hello. I’m Chris and I’m a Lagavulin drinker.” That there was no applause may have been due to it being a Glenfiddich event.

The source of the heady aroma of whisky in the room was unavoidable: five good-sized drams waiting on a paper placemat in front of each of the 35 participants. I staked my claim. Host Gilles Merry greeted everyone individually, and it’s been a long time since I’ve seen anyone do that at their presentation. The caterers had put on mounds of baguette with good cheese and some bottled beers (Steinlager) as palate-cleansers, so we were set for a pleasant evening.

Of the whiskies on offer, the 21-year-old made the biggest impact on me and, judging by their comments, on most of those around me. I’ve never been of the “I’m getting oak, I’m getting butterscotch…” school. I’m a whisky drinker of the “I’m getting plastered” persuasion, and so it was with great pleasure that I found myself able to isolate both banana and toffee aromas rising from my glass. However, whether I’d have been able to attribute them as such without reading the tasting notes on my placemat is another matter. This is the whisky Glenfiddich once sold packaged in a Wedgwood Jasperware decanter, although these days they’re experimenting with conditioning it in Cuban rum casks. And tropically tasty it is, too.

As I’ve said, I’m not a Glenfiddich drinker if I’m buying, but if I was going to buy one the 12-year-old would suit me just fine. It has, as the tasting notes say, a hint of peatiness and that’s what I’m after. I have a weakness for the Islay malts, although I once sampled a wonderful Cadenhead Glenfarclas (Highlands) whisky that was aged in reused sherry casks. Which got me thinking about something Gilles Merry told us…

Although he was most complimentary about other single malt brands, it was clear Mr Merry was here to promote Glenfiddich, and so the evening had the inevitable hint of the sales pitch about it. Mention of The Macallan came with the proviso that the makers of the “Rolls-Royce of single malts” — who have traditionally prided themselves on conditioning all of their whisky in sherry casks — have been struggling to source enough casks because hardly anyone drinks sherry any more.

Wikipedia says it’s the use of stainless steel shipping containers that have reduced the supply of wooden sherry casks. I’m not sure what they mean by that. But have a think: how many people do you know who still drink sherry now that your Great Aunt Agnes has snuffed it? Well, to be fair, my lovely girlfriend doesn’t mind a drop, so that could be the source of one cask right there. If the Macallan people just hang around for another 40 or 50 years or so.

Right now, the Macallan distillery builds its own casks, leases them to the sherry cellars in Spain then has them shipped back to Scotland.

I’ll pause here for a moment to allow you to absorb my italics.

Mr Merry tells us that Glenfiddich does much the same, except that not only does it build its own casks, it has actually bought its own forests in Spain to provide enough timber for them.

Glenfiddich even has its own cooperage. Once the butts it leases to the Oloroso sherry industry have been used to condition sherry they are broken down into their staves and hoops, numbered and shipped to Glenfiddich’s Dufftown distillery where they’re reassembled, charred and refinished then reused up to four times before finally being burned for fuel.

I got talking to a fellow-taster who was brought up in Glasgow and has been living in New Zealand for over 30 years. When he was young, he told me, single malt was simply out of the price range of most Scottish families. When I was young, back in the 1970s and 1980s in Wales, single malt whisky drinkers could largely be categorised as stuffy, snobbish old men. It was not, by any stretch, a fashionable drink.

There are plenty of reasons for single malt’s current popularity; not least, the enormous US and Japanese markets. But distilling whisky is an accountant’s nightmare: no revenue for at least 12 years; the barrels cost a small-fortune and have to be used by someone else before you can put your whisky in them; and to add injury to your bottom line subtractions, the angels’ share accounts for losses of up to 4 percent alcohol by volume every year. So I don’t begrudge the successful distilleries their hard-earned, long awaited profits.

But it occurs to me that, as well as subsidising the sherry industry by building casks for them, the rich whisky distillers could perhaps be helping the sherry industry out, on a “you fill our barrels, now we’re going to help you to sell what’s in them” basis. Australia produces some award-winning sherries, but apparently hardly anybody buys them any more, either.

My question, then, is why isn’t the whisky industry feathering its own nest by helping sherry to market itself as “the next vodka” or whatever, and thereby securing itself a constant supply of sherry casks without threatening its existing revenue stream? Because let’s face it: single malt drinkers aren’t going to switch over to sherry.

Personally, I can’t stand the stuff.