This week, we’re getting into the chemistry of the cask, exploring how oak, heat and time build the flavours we find in our whisky. Plus, a cracking Three Ships 9YO single cask, your latest Fellowship Pour submissions, and a cask chemistry quiz for those who like their whisky geekery with a scientific twist.
Vanillin, oak lactones and tannins — the compounds behind the vanilla, coconut and drying finish we all reach for in tasting notes, and where they come from.
A flavour wheel has hung on my office wall for over a decade, so this week it gave me a subject. Where the whisky flavour wheel came from, why there’s more than one of them now, and how to actually use one. Plus Metanoia’s second travel retail release, a port-finished 10 year old from Boplaas, and the Fellowship Pour.
Port Dundas: the lost Glasgow distillery that started Barnard’s tour. Plus a Port Dundas in the glass, two pours from the community, and the latest from the Fellowship.
Four Roses decoded: what OBSF, OESK and OESO actually mean. Plus Kilchoman Sanaig Cask Strength, yeast and whisky production, and the latest from the Fellowship.
While trawling the local retailers for new releases, I saw four different Four Roses bottles on a site. Three of them had a four-letter code printed on them: OBSF, OESK, OESO, and the fourth had none. My curiosity piqued, I did what any whisky geek would do: bought one of each and then dived into … Read more