THE SCOTCH WHISKY DIRECTORY

PART 1: ABOUT THE DIRECTORY

INTRODUCTION: ABOUT THE DIRECTORY

WHAT THE DIRECTORY IS FOR

The main purpose of the Directory is to tell you enough about Scotch whiskies to enable you to make an informed choice when you buy a whisky. The Directory is a guide to flavour. Its purpose is to tell you how the different whiskies taste, and to do so in such a way that, beginning with whiskies you know and enjoy, you can go on to identify other whiskies whose flavours are likely to please you. You should also be able to use the Directory to develop your palate for whisky, by progressing gradually from one set of flavours to another.

It is the business of the Directory to do the legwork of comparative tasting for you. The Directory provides a list of the principal branded Scotch whiskies and tells you what each of them tastes like. The whiskies have been tasted by four of the most expert tasters in the Scotch whisky. The Directory's judgements on flavour can therefore claim to be the most objective of any ever published in respect of Scotch whisky.

That said, it is not the purpose of the Directory to tell you what is good whisky and what is not. The best whisky for you is the whisky which tastes best to you. The Directory tells you the findings of four guys who are undoubted experts in the hope that you, the reader, will be able to use their expertise to enhance your enjoyment.

HOW THE DIRECTORY IS ARRANGED

Part 1: Information

Part 1 of the Directory tells you what you need to know in order to get the best out of the second part, which is the Whisky List.

Chapter 1 is a brief introduction to Scotch whiskies. It assumes some knowledge of the subject and therefore does not deal with it at length. It touches mainly on those aspects which are relevant to the flavour of whisky.

Chapter 2 expands on some of the remarks above: it is about branding: it tells you some things you need to know about if you are to relate what you are told by advertisers to the reality you find in the bottle. Its aim in doing so is to assist you to achieve independence of judgment in matters to do with Scotch whisky.

Chapter 3 lists the principal Scotch whisky brands along with the companies which own them. The list for convenience is by company and it shows as far as possible the relationships between the companies. The brands belonging to each company which appear in the Directory are highlighted. Given the huge number of brands, and the fact that any given proprietor may bottle the same whisky under several brand names, it would be pointless and tedious to try to include every brand. If you wish to know about a brand which is not featured in the Directory, try others of its owner's brands: the chances are that one of them will be the same whisky. Unfortunately, it would be asking too much of brand owners to expect them to list the contents of each brand, or to tell us which brands have the same stuff in them.

From Chapter 4 onward, we treat of the things you need to know in order to evaluate a whisky: the origins of flavour and the principal flavours which you are likely to discover in a Scotch whisky. Chapter 5 tells you about the tasters and about the tasting. The results of the tastings were collated and are presented in Part 2 as Flavour Profiles. Chapter 6 tells you how to read the Profiles, as well as suggesting how you may use them to develop and extend your taste for whisky.

Part 2: Evaluation

The Whisky List sets out all of the main Scotch whisky brands. The basic idea is pretty simple: if you wish to know about a given whisky, you look it up in the Directory. There you will find some basic particulars: the label, the type of whisky, the owner of the brand and a Flavour Profile which will show at a glance how the whisky tastes. Whiskies are listed in the Directory in alphabetical order by brand name. Where a brand has several expressions, the original bottling is listed first, followed by aged bottlings in date order and then by variants of other sorts.

There is little point in having a list to which people may refer if it is not complete. The reader wants to be able to look up whisky brands with a reasonable assurance of finding them in the Directory. That presents a problem at the outset, for the number of bottlings of genuine Scotch whisky around the world is very large indeed and to include them all would make the Directory unacceptably large and expensive. So the Directory has used a criterion of significance in choosing which whiskies to include and which to omit.

Grain Whiskies

By far the greatest part of grain whisky production is for use in blended whiskies. Very few single grain whiskies are bottled and at all widely available. All of those which are available, are included in the Directory.

Malt Whiskies

Most Scotch malt whisky is used for blending: even today, single malts make up little more than 5% of total Scotch whisky sales by volume. The rest goes into blends. The blender wants consistency in his malts, so he ensures that the malt distilleries in his control produce a uniform product. He demands the same of any supplier. As a result, uniformity is the goal of all but a handful of distilleries. They mostly use the same yeast strains for brewing, their stills come from the same coppersmith, they use techniques which are indistinguishable from those of their neighbours, they get their casks from the same supplier. The result is that - pace malt buffs around the globe - there are many malts which differ little, one from the other. The Directory sees no point in including lots of malt whiskies which taste pretty similar and have no marks of distinction of any other sort. So where a malt whisky does not have a proprietary bottling and is not significantly different from many others, the Directory does not include it.

Proprietary Bottlings

The Directory seeks to include all standard proprietary bottlings of malt whiskies. However, there have to be some exceptions. The last ten years have seen the emergence of a new and lucrative specialist malt whisky market. The response of the distillers to this has for the most part been unedifying. Malts have appeared as nature never intended; casks of all sorts and ages have been unearthed (sometimes literally) and their contents bottled by the proprietors of the distillery. Bottling runs are frequently short, as is the life of the label. Where the Directory considers that such things are significant, it includes them. Where it does not, it does not. For advice about them, do as you would with a private bottler: try established whiskies from the same stable first. Once you know these, try the specials. Then ask yourself whether the (invariably more expensive) special bottling is an improvement. Some are, some most certainly are not.

Private Bottlings

The number of privately-bottled malts is very large and most of the bottling runs are very short indeed. Even if the Directory were to include them all, the exercise would be futile since stocks of the whiskies listed would be exhausted by the time the Directory was published. A number of the more prominent private bottlers have been invited to submit whiskies for inclusion in the Directory The reader who seeks advice from the Directory on a privately-bottled whisky is advised to look for reports on whiskies from the same bottler, from which he or she may infer something about the type and quality of others of the bottler's whiskies. Chapter 3 lists all of the owners whose products are represented in the Directory.

Whiskies in Duty-Free

You will find lots of whisky offered in airport duty-free which you will see nowhere else. The Directory has does not try to cover special labels for duty-free, on the good ground that nobody who is seriously interested in whisky is going to buy a bottle they have never heard of, just because it has a gaudy label and seems relatively cheap

Blended Whiskies

Blended whiskies take up by far the greater part of the Directory. That's only fair: they are drunk by the greatest number of people. In approaching blended whiskies, the Directory uses the same criterion of significance which it applies to malts. Significance among blends is not easy to define. Obviously, the brands which sell in the largest numbers are highly significant, and all of these are included. There are however reasons other than numbers for including a brand of blended whisky. Some brands are historically important; others because of their flavour, their history, or their market position.

The Directory asked each of the blenders to supply for tasting a representative selection of their blends. Most have complied, so the blends listed can on the whole be taken as typical.

HOW TO USE THE DIRECTORY

The main use for the Directory will be the most obvious one: If you wish to know what a whisky tastes like, you look up its Flavour Profile in the Directory. If you wish to find out the flavour of a whisky not in the Directory, look it up in the Whisky List, in which whiskies are listed alphabetically by brand name. If the whisky does not appear in the Whisky List, you should look it up in the Index. There you will find a page reference which will tell you the name of the brand owner or bottler, which you may look up in Chapter 3.

Chapter 3 lists all of the owners of all of the principal brands. If your whisky is a blend from one of the larger firms, it will appear together with a number of other blends, all of which are produced by or for the brand owner. Most distillers and bottlers actually produce only a small number whiskies, bottling the same whisky under different brand names. Those included in the Directory are highlighted. Try others of the same category from the same owner: the chances are that your whisky is identical to one of them. If it differs, it won't be by much.

If your whisky is a malt, there is a greater likelihood of variation. The Directory covers all of the more important malts, but does not attempt to include every malt whisky. Remember that over 80% of the flavour of a malt comes from the cask in which it is matured. Remember also that only a few malts get star treatment as regards casks: the great majority are put into refill casks of no distinction whose ability to impart serious flavour are very limited, so there are a great many malts which don't differ much, one from another. You may find a great malt which is not in the Directory, but only if you are lucky enough to come upon the product of a really fine cask. Such things are so individual that no Directory could hope to include them and such things don't last long, so make the most of it and don't bother with a mere book.