Glen Garioch is one of the oldest single malt whisky producers in Scotland. After some difficult spells in its history, the most easterly distillery in Scotland has entered an exciting new phase.

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Glen Garioch Highland single malt whiskies. Discover rare releases and old vintages on our marketplace. 

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Glen Garioch

When it comes to whisky, the conversation has long been dominated by maturation – on how long the liquid spends slumbering in which cask, on how big the cask is and what it held before, whether a Sherry butt, wine barrique, first-fill Bourbon barrel or the fashionable mizunara. Recently, there’s been an increased focus on the base product, with producers such as Waterford’s Mark Reynier championing single-site, single-barley, terroir-driven whiskies (and rums, with his Renegade project). But, somehow, there’s a tendency to skip on by the magic that happens in between: distillation.  While grain whisky is column distilled, malt whisky is almost exclusively distilled in copper pot stills – indeed, it’s a legal requisite for Scotch whisky. Crafting these copper beauties is an art – and one that depends on a handful of specialists. Kentucky has Vendome, Germany has Kothe and CARL, Italy has Frilli and Scotland has Forsyths. The equipment these coppersmiths produce lays the foundation the DNA of its new-make.  To the untrained eye, these onion-shaped pieces of kit look almost identical, but the size and shape is distinct to each distillery – defining its style. As distilleries expand and increase production, they don’t buy a bigger still – but commission exact replicas of their existing still(s), with every dent and dimple carefully recreated. Macallan, famously, replaced all its stills when building its new state-of-the-art distillery in 2018, asking Forsyths to create 36 stills that were identical to those it had previously used.  Although there have been attempts to use other metals, copper has long been favoured for distilling – originally for its pliability, making it easy to work and shape. But by the early 20th century, it was apparent that copper had other benefits – stripping the spirit of impurities. As the vapour rises through the still, it reacts with the copper, capturing sulphur, cyanides, carbonates and acids, meaning the liquid that is eventually collected is purer. Coppersmiths play on this purifying effect to create a range of stills, for the longer the vapour spends in contact with the copper, the lighter the spirit you’ll produce. Take Glenmorangie’s tall, 17-feet-high stills which produce a very light spirit, and compare them to the small, squat stills and typically heavy spirit of the Macallan. Of course it’s not quite as simple as that. As well as the ratio of copper to liquid, the speed of distillation, the shape of the still, the size of the neck, the level of reflux, the angle of the lyne arm and venting of stills all have an impact.  Rothes-based Forsyths has been hammering copper into shape for Scotland’s leading distillers for over 150 years. Richard Forsyth OBE (who has now passed management of the business to his son, Richard Jr) was the third generation of his family to run the coppersmiths. The frank, self-effacing Scot remembers working in his father’s workshop aged 15, “I knew this is what I wanted to do… I found it fascinating.” And after 55 years, his eye still twinkles when he talks about the arch of a still’s swan neck, the art of wielding a planishing hammer and the characters that make the industry so interesting.   He joined the family business in 1967 – at what happened to be a pivotal moment for the industry. During the Second World War, the whisky business ground to a halt – and with it the need for stills. In the 1950s and ’60s, however, the industry grew rapidly – too rapidly, it turned out. What was a golden era turned into a whisky lake, with many distilleries soon mothballed. Forsyths – for whom 99% of its business was servicing the whisky industry – had to find something else to pay the bills, and it was up to Richard to find that something else. They branched out first into paper, then stainless steel and – by the late 1990s – oil and gas. Although coppersmithing remained the foundation and heart of the business, these other disciplines became the main money-makers until the early 2010s, when whisky’s current boomtime set in. Today, Forsyths maintains over half of the pot stills in Scotland. For a wash still (distilleries that double-distil have wash and spirits stills, first distilling the wash into “low wines” and then distilling the “low wines” into new-make spirit), the head, neck and condenser wears out in eight to 10 years, while the pot itself may last 25. Add to that developing new stills for the thriving industry – as well as their expansion into rum, Bourbon and tequila – and the company’s not short of work.   Although there is clear resistance to change with an industry that is entrenched in tradition, things have shifted, slowly but surely, over the years. And there have been two significant changes over the last century that have transformed the Scotch whisky world: the firing of stills and the nature of condensers.  When shell-and-tube condensers were invented in the 1880s, as an alternative to old-fashioned worm tubs, it took time for producers to be persuaded. Although shell-and-tube condensers are significantly more efficient and take up much less space, they are completely different – with the copper surface area at least 20 times larger, something which has a key impact on the spirit. To this day some producers (15 to be exact – including Craigellachie, Mortlach, Glen Elgin and Springbank, the latter only for their wash still) retain their worm tubs, valuing the heavier, richer, more complex (and in some instances, even meaty, savoury) spirit character.   Traditionally stills were direct-fired – heated by flames fed by peat, coal or gas. “It’s dirty, messy, difficult to handle – and to control,” Forsyth tells me. A push for safety and efficiency saw producers switch to using steam in the 1970s. But some argue that this shift wasn’t for the better. Fire created a less consistent heat, with hot spots that would burn the wash and promote Maillard reactions (the same reaction that takes place when you brown meat, or during the bottle-ageing of Champagne or other traditional-method sparkling wine) – adding nutty, roasted notes that build complexity, or so proponents would argue. Glenfarclas is known for having briefly dallied with steam before returning to direct-firing, along with the likes of Macallan, Glenfiddich and Springbank.  As the whiskies of this pre-modernisation era – Scotch’s so-called “golden age” – become increasingly coveted, distilleries (both new and old) are looking to recreate these practices. Along with traditional floor maltings, producers like Glen Garioch (owned by Suntory) and Dunphail are investing in direct-firing. (Although, with worm tubs no longer produced, new distilleries have little choice regarding shell-and-tube condensers.)  However they are fired, given their custom nature, copper pot stills don’t come cheap. Much of the work continues to be done by hand, hammering to strengthen and finish the copper. Stills can range from 5,000 to 50,000 litres in capacity, but an average 15,000-litre still and its condenser will require between 1,800 and 2,000 manhours, and set you back around £250,000. And that price has only increased recently, thanks to rising energy and material costs – with a copper shortage proving challenging for Forsyths, a business that is the UK’s second-biggest buyer of the metal.  With the distinct nature of stills and their impact on spirit, plenty of new producers will ask for copies of a particular distillery’s stills – wishing to emanate their style of spirit. Forsyth tells me how one Japanese customer requested a pair each of Macallan, Glenlivet and Glenrothes stills. While of course there are many problems with this imitation game, there’s also no guarantee – as Forsyth tells me – that the same equipment will have the same results, especially when not run with the same wash, in the same way, by the same people. And, of course, a company like Forsyths isn’t going to give away Macallan’s proprietary designs, for example. As such, they’ll recreate something similar, but ensure it’s tweaked so no two distilleries have exactly the same design.   But how much impact do stills really have on the final spirit? Despite his half-century in the trade, Forsyth is quick to suggest, “I don’t think a lowly coppersmith can talk too much about that.” He’s clear that you need good equipment to make good spirit, but it’s one factor in amongst everything else – the barley, water and fermentation times, for example. And how a still is used is as important as its shape or size, with both the speed of distillation and the all-important cuts – dividing the heart from the foreshots and feints. Forsyth firmly believes that good wood is “the single biggest effect in a bottle eight, 10 or 12 years later”. There’s little use having a good base spirit if it’s ruined by a decade in bad oak – but good oak also can’t salvage bad spirit.  Forsyth has seen it all during his 55 years in the whisky business – and has been forced to be as malleable as the metal his family has worked for generations to survive the booms and busts. Despite the challenges, the coppersmith is as enchanted by his trade as when he first picked up a hammer in his father’s workshop. The industry will doubtless continue to ebb and flow, but with a spirit that takes decades to produce, the pace of change is reassuringly gentle. “It almost goes as slow as the running of the spirit,” Forsyth says whimsically. The still room remains the beating heart of distilleries – the basis of a producer’s fingerprint, all thanks to the careful hammering of the artful coppersmith.  Browse all current Scotch whisky listings or read more about spirits  

There’s something romantic about the bulbous sheen of a copper pot still. These behemoths glimmer with the promise of fine spirit – but it’s rare that we talk about what happens within. Sophie Thorpe sat down with Richard Forsyth OBE of Scotland’s leading coppersmiths, Forsyths, to find out more 

Cult coppersmiths Forsyths on the art of crafting copper pot stills for the biggest names in Scotch whisky – and how they define a distillery’s spirit style

How copper pot stills define whisky styles

Copper craft: the art of the still

There are myriad fascinating twists and turns in Scotch whisky’s long and storied past. From dizzying boom times to disastrous downturns, the distilling landscape – and the major players within it – has been redrawn countless times. 
There's one era, however, that is legendary – whisky's "golden age". Between the 1950s and '80s, some of the industry's most nuanced single malts were crafted. These are now widely regarded as the greatest ever released, which is reflected in the eyewatering secondary market prices – should they ever appear on the auction block. 
These perfectly imperfect, characterful and wonderfully unique liquids, produced at distilleries that no longer exist, or exist in a very different way today, will never be bottled again – making them real unicorns for whisky collectors. 
To understand what makes them so special, it is important to first appreciate just how little liquid exists from this time. The single malt whisky market was unfathomably small before and during this period and entirely dwarfed by blends. A mere fraction of a distiller’s finest liquid would be bottled as a single malt. These minuscule quantities were also made via practices that are now lost in the annals of history, making them more desirable for collectors. 
For context, Scotch whisky was largely made as it always had been until the 1950s, drawing on traditional methods that had been passed down for centuries. Distillers would use their sight, smell and taste to determine when a liquid was ready to cask, and later, bottle. Whisky-making took mastery and patience – something producers could ill afford when demands on the industry intensified and there was a concerted push to produce more for less during the 1970s. While many producers made these changes around the same time, they didn’t all happen at once, creating a wonderfully varied time capsule of whiskies. 
The 1960s – when some of these great bottlings were produced – was sandwiched in between two vastly different decades. Production in the ‘50s was steady but small. By the 1970s, however, distillers – both large and small – were forced to increase their output by almost double, and names that had fallen silent were reawakened once more as global demand for Scotch whisky grew. 
Sadly, by the mid-1970s, the tide started to turn. The bountiful supply of whisky was not met by demand, resulting in a devastating whisky loch in the 1980s and some of the most difficult years the Scotch whisky industry has ever endured. Swathes of distilleries were forced to close, including the now-legendary Port Ellen and Brora – both of which shut their doors in 1983. This depression continued well into the 1990s with a further 20 casualties (of these, only three ever reopened), before the pendulum finally swung back in the early 2000s when the seemingly unquenchable thirst for single malt whiskies, that is still in full force today, began. 
From the 1950s onwards, holders of the increasingly frayed purse strings sought to reduce inefficiencies in the traditional, labour-intensive practice of whisky-making – which defined the golden age. With the introduction of modern, more mechanised, safer processes, it was a new dawn for Scotch whisky.  During this period in history, every single stage of whisky production was “streamlined”. The money men closed floor maltings, introduced distillers’ yeast, reduced fermentation times, installed semi-lauter tuns, made the switch to indirect-fired stills, replaced worm tubs with shell-and-tube condensers, and introduced ex-Bourbon barrels. By the end of the 1970s, you could almost count on one hand the number of distillers who retained traditional methods. 
It’s important to remember that tweaking one of these processes can alter the entire flavour profile of a whisky – just ask Glenfarclas who reverted back to direct-firing their stills after their new-make spirit lost its characteristically heavy and oily profile during their ill-fated flirtation with steam in 1981. And yet, in many instances, producers permanently changed many of these processes. Traditional practices and know-how that varied slightly at every distillery began to be outsourced as they turned to professional maltsters and installed modern, industrial-scale equipment that increased efficiencies and consistency but in some cases compromised the craft and character of the final spirit profile. 
“Every distillery has its own story and evolution of style,” whisky authority Serge Valentin explains, “their own ups and its downs.” 
Valentin was ahead of his time when he started collecting single malt Scotch, almost exclusively from Old Clynelish and Brora. He couldn’t possibly have predicted what his passion project of buying as many different bottlings as he could “simply because they were [his] favourites”  would become. 
Both Clynelish and Brora – as it would be known – produced heavily peated malt during the late 1960s and early ’70s. Bottlings from this time until 1983, when Brora became a victim of the whisky loch and fell silent, have become highly collectable in recent years. Old Clynelish bottlings, (Valentin’s favourites), which are robustly distinctive with aromas of scented wax and heather, are astonishingly rare and modern collectors clamber over one another to get their hands on these golden-age gems for many times the price Valentin would have paid. 
Stephen Rankin has been fortunate to sample whiskies from one of the most remarkable single malt libraries in the world at Gordon & MacPhail. His team is able to pull out liquids from what he calls “pre-evolutions within distilleries” thanks to his family’s foresight to buy barrels from cash-strapped producers who were selling their stocks for survival. The Elgin-based independent bottler had the luxury and fortitude to bide their time and store casks that would otherwise have been bottled young or blended. He has a particular affection for single malts from what was Milton Distillery, known since 1951 as Strathisla, which he describes as a “great example of a whisky that has the flavours of this past era.” 
Independent bottlers like Gordon & MacPhail played a vital role in bringing many of these now-legendary whiskies into the world. One man in particular, Silvano Samaroli, was responsible for bottling single malts that are now widely regarded as some of the greatest ever released.  
Rome-based Samaroli released his first Scotch whisky series in 1968 in the form of the now-iconic, dumpy Cadenhead bottlings – making him the first independent Scotch whisky bottler outside the United Kingdom. Today, Samaroli’s Bowmore, Glen Garioch, and  Springbank releases are held in especially high regard and his  Laphroaig single malts from 1967 and 1970 are in a league of their own. 
“The late 1960s to the ’80s is definitely one of the most remarkable periods,” Samaroli’s Daniele Liberati says, “largely due to the appearance of certain expressions for the first time.”  
“We started to propose different bottlings, moving away from the classic blends and official distillery releases,” Liberati adds. These included single-cask expressions, numbered bottlings and cask-strength releases, all of which are commonplace today but were revolutionary at the time.
 
In recent years, a handful of new distillers have turned to old whisky-making practices in an attempt to recapture some of its magic. Fledgling Speyside distiller Dunphail, for instance, has faithfully – and at great cost – installed traditional floor maltings, direct-fired stills and wooden, open washbacks where fermentation times are considerably longer than the industry average, to produce a fruit-forward, oily, medium-bodied Speyside whisky. Today, however, these traditional methods are always adopted in conjunction with modern practices in order to achieve all the desirable characteristics of yore in a more efficient way.   While there is the temptation to look back on this era with a rose-tinted view, as there are undeniably some exceptional bottlings from this time, it is wrong to believe that all whisky produced in the golden age was of the same standard. Whisky-making 40 to 50 years ago was imperfect, there was very little consistency in quality and for one good cask, a distiller would likely have 10 or 20 bad ones that never saw the light of day.  It’s also important to appreciate that many of these modernisations were vital to guarantee the safety of distillery workers as several stages in production were unstable. These advancements have also resulted in unprecedented consistency. While nuance and singularity might have been sacrificed, it’s now incredibly hard to find a bad dram.   As times evolve – as they inevitably do – it’s highly unlikely whisky from Scotland’s golden age will ever not be considered precious.    Browse all Scotch whisky or read more Editorial

Some of the most exceptional single malts ever released were produced in an era affectionately known as “the golden age”. Bottlings from this time are painfully scarce and have gained near-mythic status among whisky enthusiasts. Holly Motion explores why whiskies from this age are so precious

Exploring the golden age of malt whisky and its most coveted bottlings that are widely considered some of the greatest single malts ever released.

The golden age of malt whisky

The golden age of whisky

It’s not often words fail me. But finding the right words to describe Dr Bill Lumsden to those who haven’t had the great fortune of meeting him has rendered me a little dumbstruck. Many have dubbed him the “Willy Wonka of the whisky world” for his creativity, jaunty style and flair. His latest project, a purpose-built home for innovation named the Lighthouse, where Lumsden can innovate to his heart’s content and create all manner of whacky and category-bending whiskies, somewhat perpetuates this narrative of the eccentric whisky-maker. But, I’d argue, the good doctor is far more than this. He is, first and foremost, an incredibly accomplished scientist. His work at Glenmorangie and Ardbeg over the past 26 years – maintaining the iconic distillery characters and launching innumerable products for each – is nothing short of sensational. He is a workhorse, as well as, it would seem, a bit of a clothes horse. “I’m a bit of a shopaholic,” he tells me with glee. “I love buying clothes.” This isn’t the sort of confession I expected when sitting down with the Director of Distilling, Whisky Creation & Whisky Stocks in November last year. “If something’s in fashion, I wouldn’t be caught dead in it because other people are wearing it,” Lumsden continues. “So I tend to wear things which have been out of fashion for many years or are yet to be in fashion – and it’s just a little facet of my personality, unfortunately.” This, while slightly unexpected, actually makes a great deal of sense when you cast an eye over his professional life. Lumsden has always been the trendsetter rather than the disciple. And he’s quick to assert that his avant-garde attitude extends beyond apparel. “I have absolutely no interest whatsoever in what’s in fashion and what’s not in fashion [in the whisky industry]”, he says. “When I’m doing something it really is all to do with will I like the taste at the end of the day? Will it complement that character of the Glenmorangie or the Ardbeg spirit?”. Since joining Glenmorangie in 1995, Lumsden has been charged with “maintaining and hopefully slightly improving the spirit character” and innovating. While once his role was divided equally between these two tasks, new product development and innovation now take up the majority of his time. “It’s got to the stage now where the demand for new products is almost impossible to keep up with,” he says matter-of-factly. While this might be fatigue-inducing for some, this constant pressure to innovate exhilarates the inquisitive doctor. “I’m a scientist by training,” he explains. “It’s in my blood to experiment, and I’ve always been a curious individual who gets bored very easily and likes to try new experiences, in every aspect of my life. So the move to Glenmorangie was heaven-sent for me from that perspective,” he says with unfettered glee. The decision to build Lumsden’s Wonka-esque Lighthouse was driven to a certain extent by necessity, he tells me. “The Ardbeg and particularly Glenmorangie distilleries have been running absolutely flat-out for the last 12-15 years,” he says. “For me to interrupt the production cycle to get access to the distillery for three to four weeks of a year, where I wanted to try some radically different things was proving increasingly difficult. And also some of the things I wanted to do, I just simply hadn’t been able to do that with the existing distillery plant. “So the Lighthouse has been established to allow me to experiment but while maintaining the volumes that are required for future bottlings and also to try things that I simply can’t do in the main distillery.” These things range from the smallest alteration in primary production to radical innovations, and everything in between. “Some of the time it can be a very, very simple change,” Lumsden tells me. “It can be something as simple as offering one of your expressions in a natural, cask-strength form, for example, and other times it can be something dramatically different, where you’re actually using completely new materials. I am continuing to experiment with just about anything you can think of.” For the past 10 years, this experimentation has largely focused on different aspects of production. “We’re about to see some products coming out for both the Glenmorangie and the Ardbeg brand where I’ve been playing around more with primary production – it’s been great fun,” he teases. The challenge with this approach, he says, is two-fold. “You’ve got a very long lead time until your product comes to market,” he explains. “Sometimes you’re talking 10 years’ maturation.” At the very least. If you’re experimenting with barley varieties, or looking at fermentation profiles, you have an even lengthier wait. Secondly, by the very nature of these experiments, the difference between spirits is most emphasised in the new-make. “For example, using the barley varieties, it’s not giving you black and white differences,” Lumsden explains. “It’s more shades of grey, and you really pick that up in the new spirit. “But after many years of maturation, you risk losing these differences. So you have to choose your cask type accordingly to try and make sure that you still have the point of difference coming through.” Lumsden says Glenmorangie is launching a product in 2022 that is an experiment he’s always wanted to carry out. “I did this many, many years ago. I can’t say any more about it at this stage, but I will probably bottle this [whisky] slightly younger than my original target, which was 12 years, because I don’t want to continue to minimise the difference in character, if that makes sense?”  In addition to maintaining the two distillery’s very distinct characteristics, and inventing all manner of whiskies, Lumsden sits on a number of prestigious judging panels. In this capacity, he tastes hundreds upon hundreds of whiskies and sees first-hand the changes in the industry and trends that are being adopted – good and bad. He says there has been a “real divergence” in recent years. “Some of the whiskies I taste have become much more characterful and I’m delighted to see whiskies that are non-chill filtered,” he says hopefully. On the controversial subject of chill filtration, the process whereby distillers remove esters and fatty acids to prevent the liquid clouding at low temperatures, Lumsden ardently believes less is more. He does, however, acknowledge its place in markets where drinkers might not understand that cloudiness is caused by oils coming out of suspension rather than a fault. But, he believes, producers are taking its use to the extreme. If Ardbeg and Glenmorangie whiskies are chill-filtered, it is only ever done so “very gently”, because Lumsden feels that lipids – fatty acids from the base barley that would otherwise be removed by full chill filtration – add texture and character to the spirit. Sadly, he rues, this is not true for others who are “very brutally” applying this technique to hasten up processes, and character is lost as a consequence. Corner-cutting exercises like this, speeding up distillation methods and reusing barrels too many times are becoming all too common, he says. When it comes to producing or judging a perfect whisky, Lumsden says he’s after complex harmony. “I’m looking for the flavours to be nicely integrated together and not having any one aspect dominate,” he says. “That’s what I think good quality whisky, particularly Scotch whisky, should be". “The final thing I’ll look for is the length and character of the aftertaste of the whisky,” he explains. “Because I really don’t like to see a whisky just completely fade – it shouldn’t do that. It’s a richly flavoured product and it should linger on the palate for a while.” Whether he’s sitting on a judging panel or looking out from his monstrously tall Roald Dahl-esque Lighthouse, Lumsden’s vantage point, you sense, will always be forward-facing and progressive. It is for others to catch up or catch onto the trend. Browse Ardbeg and Glenmorangie whiskies or read more Editorial 

Glenmorangie and Ardbeg are two Scotch whisky brands famed for quality and innovation. Behind every bottle is the heart and mind of one man: Dr Bill Lumsden. He talks to Holly Motion about what it takes to be at the distilling vanguard for decades

Dr Bill Lumsden, the man behind some of Glenmorangie and Ardbeg’s greatest single malts, talks about consistency and creativity in Scotch whisky

Dr Bill Lumsden talks about whisky innovation 

Dr Bill Lumsden: the eternal inventor

L’en primeur è il sistema di acquisto di vino giovane e non finito, essenzialmente come “futures”. I vini vengono venduti mentre sono ancora in affinamento in botte e spediti, una volta imbottigliati, agli appassionati di tutto il mondo. Bordeaux ha pionierizzato il sistema, e rimane importante nella regione, sebbene l’en primeur si sia ormai diffuso e vini da Borgogna, Rodano, Italia, USA, Australia e oltre siano ora venduti in questo modo. Ma come è iniziato? Sebbene i consumatori acquistino il vino en primeur solo dagli anni ’80, il vino è stato venduto “non finito” ai mercanti per secoli. Tradizionalmente il vino non veniva imbottigliato o venduto dagli châteaux; una volta messo in botte, veniva trasferito ai négociants che lo avrebbero affinato nei loro magazzini nel quartiere dei Chartrons a Bordeaux, e sarebbero stati responsabili della sua vendita e distribuzione – un’attività poco decorosa che non si addiceva ai nobili proprietari dei castelli. Il vino veniva poi imbottigliato a Bordeaux oppure spedito in botte verso mercati come il Regno Unito, per essere lì imbottigliato e venduto ai consumatori. Sebbene oggi Bordeaux possa sembrare lucida e raffinata, con i suoi grandi château, i prati curatissimi e le cantine immacolate, l’industria vinicola della regione non è sempre stata così prospera. A metà Ottocento arrivò la peronospora che devastò gran parte dei vigneti europei, seguita dall’arrivo della fillossera, che uccise le viti e costrinse i produttori a reimpiantare. Quando i viticoltori si ripresero dagli attacchi di Madre Natura, sopraggiunsero la Prima e la Seconda guerra mondiale, portando ulteriori difficoltà economiche. I produttori avevano bisogno di modi per finanziare la loro attività, mentre i mercanti erano sempre alla ricerca di un modo per assicurarsi scorte e il miglior prezzo possibile. Mentre i produttori faticavano, ricorsero alla vendita dell’uva quando era ancora sulla pianta, “sur souche”, concordando un prezzo basato sulla vendemmia precedente e scommettendo sulla qualità finale del raccolto. Le vendite sur souche continuarono fino agli anni ’60 – per poi diminuire quando i produttori rimasero scottati dai 1961, a bassa resa, eccellenti e tristemente sottovalutati. Quando i tempi erano particolarmente duri, gli château – anche gli indirizzi più leggendari – si impegnavano a vendere il loro raccolto fino a 10 anni a un prezzo fisso a un mercante, legandosi a un “abonnement”, garantendosi un livello di reddito base, ma rinunciando a potenziali profitti se o quando i prezzi fossero saliti. Fino a questo punto, le vendite anticipate di vino (o uva) erano avvenute solo ai négociants di Bordeaux, ma la crisi petrolifera del 1973 provocò un cambiamento. Il crollo successivo lasciò produttori, négociants e ogni livello del commercio del vino in disperato bisogno di fondi. Avendo faticato a vendere l’annata 1972, gli château non avevano i soldi per investire nella produzione delle difficili annate ’73 e ’74. La stagione di crescita del 1975 arrivò con condizioni più favorevoli e i vini mostrarono potenziale; campioni furono spediti a Londra perché gli acquirenti potessero assaggiare e vendere. L’en primeur decollò davvero, però, con l’annata 1982 di Bordeaux. Robert Parker aveva iniziato a scrivere la sua newsletter nel 1978, introducendo al mondo il suo sistema di valutazione del vino in 100 punti. Si pronunciò presto con un deciso endorsement dei 1982 e incoraggiando i consumatori a comprarli; quando altri erano meno convinti. Molti, specialmente negli Stati Uniti, colsero l’occasione per acquistare i vini en primeur – e furono puntualmente ricompensati, con l’annata ora considerata leggendaria. La vendita anticipata dei vini alleviò i problemi di flusso di cassa per produttori e négociants, mentre mercanti e consumatori beneficiarono della possibilità di assicurarsi scorte di vini a un prezzo favorevole. Con la crescita delle vendite en primeur, le proprietà divennero aziende molto più redditizie, in grado di reinvestire nei loro vigneti e nelle cantine. Allo stesso tempo, la proprietà delle tenute stava cambiando. Nel 1981, le tasse di successione raddoppiarono, rendendo più difficile per le famiglie mantenere gli château e le aziende – dalle assicurazioni ai beni di lusso e tutto il resto iniziarono ad acquistare proprietà. Sebbene alcune corporation si concentrassero sulla quantità piuttosto che sulla qualità, molte arrivarono con le risorse finanziarie necessarie per spingere la qualità in avanti. Gli anni ’90 videro molte tenute introdurre i secondi vini, consentendo di elevare ulteriormente la qualità del loro Grand Vin, e l’influenza di Parker continuò a crescere. Tutti questi elementi si combinarono per vedere Bordeaux e i suoi vini evolversi rapidamente – dando ancora più motivo per assicurarsi subito una nuova annata. Per i consumatori, l’en primeur offriva un modo per assicurarsi i vini più ricercati ai prezzi migliori. Nelle annate di vertice, i vini offrivano anche ritorni significativi – e ne seguì la speculazione. Il mercato del vino si espanse, con nuovo interesse da parte di acquirenti giapponesi e cinesi. Il mercato esplose quando Hong Kong abolì la tassa sul vino nel 2008. La frenesia aumentò e i prezzi salirono – con le annate più quotate 2009 e 2010 che raggiunsero nuovi, gonfiati massimi. L’en primeur non offriva più il ritorno sicuro di un tempo. La bolla scoppiò. Château, mercanti e collezionisti rimasero tutti scottati, e ora c’è una maggiore consapevolezza della potenziale inflazione del mercato. Questa coscienza e comprensione ha stabilizzato il mercato e reso l’en primeur nuovamente rilevante, fortunatamente senza la speculazione delle annate precedenti. Nel 2012, Ch. Latour annunciò l’abbandono del sistema en primeur – decidendo invece di offrire i vini solo quando pronti da bere, con il 2011 come ultima annata offerta come futures. Fu un colpo significativo per l’en primeur vedere un Premier Cru abbandonare il sistema, ma sebbene si temesse che questo passo potesse aprire le chiuse, nessun altro ha ancora seguito il Premier Cru. Oggi, l’en primeur rimane significativo per Bordeaux. In aprile di ogni anno, il commercio mondiale del vino converge su Bordeaux per assaggiare l’ultima annata (vendemmiata l’anno precedente). Organizzata dall’Union des Grands Crus de Bordeaux, la settimana dei “Primeurs” è una macchina pubblicitaria impressionante, che concentra l’attenzione sulla regione – e mentre i riflettori potrebbero essere puntati sulle proprietà di vertice, c’è un chiaro effetto alone su tutta la regione. C’è stata una tendenza per le tenute a trattenere un po’ più di scorte, alcune delle quali possono essere offerte ex-château in un secondo momento, ma la maggior parte dei Cru Classés vende ancora tra il 70 e il 90% dell’intera produzione en primeur. I benefici per Bordeaux e i suoi château sono evidenti, ma cosa c’è per chi vuole comprare il vino? Molti dei motivi per acquistare en primeur sono immutati. Non ci sono garanzie che si realizzi un ritorno finanziario con l’en primeur, ma inevitabilmente i vini diventano più rari col passare del tempo; quando i vini entrano nella loro finestra di beva, diventano più desiderabili (e spesso aumentano di valore) e, con il tempo, diventano più scarsi, man mano che le bottiglie vengono stappate e l’offerta finita di una specifica annata si riduce. In tal senso, l’en primeur può offrire un modo utile per assicurarsi scorte di vini, in particolare quelli di piccole proprietà molto ricercate che possono essere quasi impossibili da ottenere dopo l’uscita. Acquistare en primeur offre anche una provenienza impeccabile. Il vino si muoverà dalla tenuta al luogo in cui conservate il vostro vino, e poi una sola volta quando verrà prelevato per il consumo, garantendo condizioni ottimali di maturazione e mantenendo il massimo valore qualora decideste di vendere piuttosto che bere. Un ulteriore lusso dell’acquisto en primeur è la possibilità di acquistare qualsiasi formato; non essendo ancora imbottigliato, potete acquistare mezze bottiglie, magnum, jeroboam, imperiali o qualsiasi altra dimensione desideriate con facilità. Anche se i punteggi dei critici influenzano certamente ancora la vendita dei vini, nessuna singola voce ha il potere che Robert Parker aveva ai suoi tempi d’oro. Oggi, ci sono più critici che mai – con singoli autori che si staccano da pubblicazioni più grandi come il Wine Advocate per creare la propria piattaforma, ciascuno con i propri gusti, offrendo prospettive diverse sull’annata – dando, si può dire, ai consumatori più informazioni che mai. Non sorprende che altre regioni abbiano adottato il sistema, con la Borgogna in particolare che ha abbracciato l’en primeur. Le opportunità indubbiamente restano – come dimostra un’annata come il 2019, venduta nel pieno del 2020 e della pandemia di Covid-19. Di fronte a un mercato incerto, i produttori abbassarono i prezzi e i consumatori si precipitarono ad acquistare i vini di Bordeaux. L’annata si rivelò spettacolare, con gli acquirenti giustamente ricompensati per aver investito nei vini. Quando un’annata è buona e il prezzo è giusto, non c’è davvero nulla come il palpabile fermento e l’eccitazione che la stagione dei Primeurs porta nel mondo del vino. Scoprite di più sull’en primeur, compreso come funziona, o sfogliate tutti i vini attualmente disponibili en primeur

Ogni anno, le principali regioni vinicole pregiate offrono i loro vini en primeur, o come "wine futures", ma non è sempre stato così. Sophie Thorpe approfondisce le origini e la storia del sistema, e il suo significato per gli amanti del vino di oggi.

En primeur is the system of buying wine futures: we delve into its origins, history and what it means today for chateaux, negociants merchants and wine-lovers

What is en primeur? Explaining wine futures

Cos'è l'en primeur: le origini dei futures sul vino

There is a lyricism to the way Roberto Bava speaks. Beyond his unmistakeable Italian accent, his sentences rise and fall. Every word is a piece of music in and of itself, which is sometimes broken by an infectious burst of laughter. He drops his h’s and finds syllables where ordinarily there are none. It’s not hard to picture him holding court at the head of the table at the Vermouth di Torino Institute, or working the room at events with people, he says, who openly express their  dislike of vermouth. “You have this reaction against it because you remember your grandmother used to offer you an oxidised thing,” Bava tells me. Once they taste a vermouth that has been well-made and well-kept, it’s a whole different ball game. “You discover a totally different product,” he says. Introducing vermouth to an entirely new audience, or a familiar audience in a different way, clearly brings joy to Bava. He talks of an event the night before we speak when he offered vermouth to the guests. After a couple of sips, they stopped drinking wine and switched to vermouth for the rest of the dinner. “It was phenomenal,” he says with unabashed glee. “People are now tasting it and saying, ‘Oooh, this is goooood.’” Bava, and the three or four generations (he forgets which) of his family who have worked in the industry before him, have lived through vermouth’s highs and lows. After heady days in the 20th century when it was consumed neat as a welcome drink or “nice company to your book and solitude”, vermouth fell out of favour in the “hard decades” of the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s. “As a category, it was a little bypassed,” Bava tells me. Vermouth simply couldn’t compete with the marketing budgets of other products and they stormed to the fore, leaving the fortified wine “a little lost”. It wasn’t until the cocktail renaissance in the 1990s and the meteoric rise of the Negroni many years later (in the early 2000s) that the pendulum swung back in vermouth’s favour. “Vermouth is a good drink,” Bava says lyrically, “but it is also an instrument to make better other drinks.” When asked which cocktails of the many that are made with vermouth – think the Martini, Negroni, Manhattan, Adonis – has done the most for the category, the Vermouth di Torino Institute president says in a flash: “the Negroni”. He then adds in his melodic way: “As an Italian, and being a Negronista, it’s gotta be a Negroni.” Bava does then concede that it slightly depends on the country. In America, for example, he says, the Manhattan is king – even if people don’t necessarily realise vermouth is in it. Another reason vermouth has risen to prominence, according to Bava, is the improved quality and introduction of a Geographical Indication (GI) for Vermouth di Torino three years ago – something he refers to as a “little miracle”. In short, this means the vermouth must be made with at least one Italian wine, wormwood must be the predominant flavour and the wormwood used must be grown in Piedmont. The final liquid must be between 16% and 22% alcohol. For a GI, this is broader than others and allows many producers in the Piedmont region to use “Vermouth di Torino” on their bottles. Bava was instrumental in getting this classification for the region in 2019 and was rightly given the role of president at the Vermouth di Torino Institute. In three short years, Bava says the GI is paying dividends and making a real difference to the style and quality of Vermouth di Torino. “Vermouth was produced all over the world,” he explains, “sometimes losing a little of the identity”. It wasn’t until the GI was approved that vermouth producers from Turin, like Bava, could really communicate that a vermouth from Poland or Argentina wasn’t the genuine article. For that, you need to go to its birthplace of Torino, Italy. “Vermouth di Torino has been a benchmark for the whole category – and will be, for sure,” Bava adds energetically. “This [label] makes an important guarantee to the consumer because you know what is in the bottle. You know there is control, you know someone has checked, made an analysis, you know the ingredients, and this is not a generic product, it is a specific product and a protected product.” He makes the inevitable, and important, comparison with the wine world. “You can produce wine all over the world, but if you do wine in Barolo it’s specific. You can do table wine in France anywhere but if you go in Pauillac, of course, you have something else. So this is what’s gonna happen,” he explains. To date, 99% of Turin's producers have joined the fold to champion and protect the region’s appellation, including some of the biggest and smallest names. At present, Vermouth di Torino is the only vermouth GI recognised and protected in the category but Bava teases that there could well be more in time. With vermouth from its birthplace now protected and a much better understanding of how it should be kept – in the fridge once open and stored out of direct sunlight – it’s hard not to see its fanbase continuing to grow, especially as it ticks the low-alcohol box for a more mindful, younger consumer base. “The consumption is going to grow. It takes us some time. I’ve been working already 10 years,” he laughs. But Bava is certainly bullish now all the producers are working as one. With Bava spreading the word, in his enchanting and charismatic way, you can certainly see an appreciation for vermouth continuing apace. Explore all spirits or read more Editorial 

Vermouth has fallen in and out of vogue many times throughout its history. Buoyed by a new geographical classification and ever-growing classic cocktail appreciation, the future looks brighter than ever. 

Cocchi Vermouth's Roberto Bava on the Italian drink's history, its new protected status and the classic cocktail renaissance

Vermouth's bright future 

Vermouth: the Italian job   

Colin Scott should be one year into his retirement. After 47 years at Chivas Brothers, 31 of which were spent as the Master Blender, he should be enjoying a well-earned rest. Instead, the ebullient Scott is lighting up the screens of the FINE+RARE team as he talks about a certain 50-year-old blended whisky he has created for remarkable spirits curators The Last Drop Distillers.   “It’s just fantastic to come to The Last Drop and find these nuggets of gold and all these wonderful casks of very precious liquid that have phenomenal complexity and flavour,” Scott says with unabashed glee.   Despite his near-50 years in the whisky industry, this is only the second 50-year-old blend Scott has had a hand in producing. Well-aged whisky was, until relatively recently, only a small part of Chivas’ business.   “By the time we’d filled a cask and it had matured to 12 years, most of that went into Chivas 12. Once it reached 21 years old, we put it all into Royal Salute. So, there was very little maturing. But of course, as time goes on, the stocks have been held back and the super-premium part of the inventory has grown.”   Scott joined Chivas Brothers in 1973 and became their fifth Master Blender in 1989. But he would have to wait a further 13 years before a 50-year-old whisky project presented itself. The result was The Royal Salute 50 Year Old, released in 2002 – a dual commemorative bottling for Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation and Royal Salute’s 50th anniversary.   Today he’s talking about his latest 50-year-old creation, The Last Drop’s 22nd release and first in-house whisky: a 50-year-old blended Scotch. After a whole three months as a man of leisure, the “retiree” joined the Sazerac-owned company as their first Master Blender in autumn 2020.   “When I joined in September last year, it was really the beginning of finding out what all these nuggets were within the inventory. Sorting through the very special and remarkable casks and finding out a little bit about what they were and what they did and how we could bring them together.”  Scott explains that everything in the blend started out as either a single malt or a single grain whisky, distilled at different distilleries around Scotland over 50 years ago. “At various stages along the way, blends have been made but then of course the balance has been put into cask and stored away for further maturation. So, what we have is a mixture of some of these malts and grains, all with their own unique characters and flavours, that we bring together at the last moment.”   Tasting the blended whisky alongside Scott is like being escorted on a journey back through time – to an age when a lot of distilleries were doing their own maltings and adding peat to the kiln to get a little smoky flavour.   “To me, blending is all about taking the flavours and then balancing them,” he says. “What you have here on the nose is a tsunami of flavour. But, when you taste it, nothing actually lingers and stays on top.”   Scott encourages tasters to add water to remove the aggression of the alcohol and maximise the release of the aromas and characters. When he is tasting more than 50 samples around a nosing table, this trick is vital to reduce all the whiskies to 20% alcohol and allow the flavours to present themselves.   In the case of The Last Drop 50 Year Old, its mellowness, richness and depth means you don’t necessarily need to cut the 48% dram.    “When we blend, we don’t add something, sniff it and then add a bit more of that. What we do is actually write down the whole formula in its entirety. We then pilot blend it. When we add the last addition, it will change the balance of everything you have already. So, you don’t know the final answer until you add that last part of the formula. And then once you’ve got them all together you can evaluate what you have actually created.”  For Scott, the act of blending and evaluating is an entirely personal thing. “All whisky – grains, blends – are fantastic. They are all different and they all bring their own song to the party. The only reason one is better than other is your own personal experience.”   Scott, for instance, isn’t “a fan” of the smoky Islays. “I don’t think they’re bad,” he adds. “It’s all about personal taste. There’s not a bad whisky in the world.”  The Master Blender talks at length about whiskies having different personality traits that require nurturing and, ultimately, respect.   “If you take a single malt as distillate at birth – that has a flavour package. It’s like you when you’re born – you have a character. If you put that new distillate into a cask, over the years this distillate will react with the oak in the cask and take influences and nuances which will then promote other flavours in the new spirit.  “So as time goes on, the volume actually goes down, the strength goes down, but that flavour package actually intensifies and intensifies and multiplies and multiplies.”   When it comes to age, there is some debate about how old you can go. For Scott, the 50-year-old is undoubtedly a rare beast, but he doesn’t see any reason why you can’t go older and rarer if the whisky has been sufficiently nurtured.   “If the angels didn’t interfere, in a quality cask, you could take it to 60-, 70-, 80 years,” he says. “If you’ve got quality casks, you don’t get that wood influence. You get a little touch of the oak but what you have at the end of the day is this small amount of highly intense, complex flavoured whisky that started as the new distillate and just grew with all the different influences from the oak and the cask whether it is Sherry or Bourbon.”  While there have been scientific advancements during Scott’s career, he says there are still a great many unknowns about the maturation and flavour process, and you get the impression this only adds to the allure for him.   “Because it’s nature, we don’t actually know what’s going on,” he adds. “It’s massively complex and the technical people still don’t know the number of components in Scotch whisky. I think they’re up to about 800 now. When I started there were about 200.”   Regardless, you sense Scott will continue to do what he does best: respect, nurture and blend remarkable liquids – retirement be damned.   Browse all Last Drop listings or read more Editorial 

As he approaches his 50th year in the industry, Colin Scott tells Holly Motion about the allure of well-aged whisky and plundering The Last Drop’s remarkable spirits inventory 

The Last Drop Distiller's Colin Scott on the allure of well-aged whisky and his new role plundering the independent bottler's archives.

Bewitching blended whisky

The bewitching blend

America’s native spirit has never been in greater demand. After years in the doldrums with production at record lows of 500,000 barrels per year, Bourbon is experiencing one of the greatest Cinderella stories in the modern spirits industry era. At last count, the number of barrels maturing in the United States had swelled to 10.3 million per year, which is a whopping 436% increase since 1999.   The reasons for the pendulum swinging back in Bourbon’s favour are multiple. The introduction of the first single-barrel Bourbon from the mid-1980s, coupled with the classic cocktail revival in the late ’90s to early ’00s, started to pique interest. Within a few short years, the Old Fashioned cocktail and brands like Blanton’s and Pappy Van Winkle were appearing front and centre in some of the biggest TV shows and films in America. Drinkers and the wider whiskey world were starting to wake up to the fact that Bourbon was a seriously good spirit. Producers couldn’t fill barrels fast enough. There was new dawn for high-priced, collectable American whiskey – and bottlings were soon like gold dust.   “Right now, in Kentucky, if I go to a liquor store, I can’t find our products on the shelves,” Drew Mayville tells me. “They are all gone. People have bought them or they don’t even make it to the shelf.”  Mayville has worked in the alcohol industry for over four decades, for the first 23 years at Seagram’s (before “it was put up for sale and my bubble burst”) and for the past 18 years at Sazerac, which produces some of the most coveted Bourbons on the market (think Pappy’s, Blanton’s, E H Taylor and Eagle Rare) at its Buffalo Trace distillery in Kentucky.   “People think [the Bourbon boom] happened overnight but it didn’t,” the Master Blender and Director of Quality says.   “I would say about 10 or 15 years ago it started to make its cycle back to favour,” he adds. “Even Pappy Van Winkle, which is one of the most sought-after Bourbons that we make, didn’t happen overnight.”   Mayville has witnessed the cyclical nature of drinking trends throughout his career and seen the various booms and busts in the United States as tastes moved from dark spirits to white spirits and back again. He believes one of the reasons Bourbon is so popular right now is largely down to its approachability.   “American whiskey tends to be very palatable,” Mayville explains in his Canadian drawl. “Scotch is more of a learned taste; lots of people drink Scotch around the world because they are so used to it.  “Part of the reason that Bourbon is very palatable is the corn. It provides a lot of that sweet fruitiness,” Mayville adds.   In order to be called Bourbon, the spirit needs to be made from at least 51% corn. The second grain in 95% of Bourbon produced is rye, which gives it a spiciness. The other 5% of Bourbon has wheat in place of rye – these wheated Bourbons are softer, as the fruit notes from the corn are accentuated by the addition of wheat. (Straight rye whiskey is also made from corn and rye, but with the rye dominating, meaning it can’t be classed as Bourbon.)   Contrary to popular belief, Bourbon can be made anywhere in the United States but 95% of Bourbon is produced in Kentucky. Bourbon must be distilled no higher than 160 proof (80% alcohol) and matured in newly charred oak barrels.   Despite its current popularity, Bourbon does have a long distilling tradition; it was first produced in Kentucky in the 1780s when distillers discovered charring barrels mellowed corn whiskey. After a strong start, Bourbon struggled during the two World Wars and was heavily affected by the temperance movement and Prohibition in the United States. Sales recovered by the middle of the century and American whiskey entered something of a golden age in the 1950s.  Unfortunately, this prosperous period was short-lived when drinkers once again turned their backs on brown spirits in favour of white spirits in the 1960s and early ’70s, kickstarting the vodka revolution that has only recently started to wane. This about-turn resulted in the first American whiskey surplus – known as a lake in world whiskey and loch in Scotland. Producers were left with gallons upon gallons of surplus whiskey and inevitable closures followed.   “We kinda skipped a generation and now we’re going back that way,” Mayville says stoically.  Now, with sales more buoyant than ever, there is a rush to ramp up production – fast. Sazerac is in the process of spending an eye-watering $1.2 billion on the Buffalo Trace distillery in Frankfort, Kentucky. A new column still, cookers and boilers are all being installed to double capacity. New, 60,000-barrel warehouses – the largest in Kentucky – are also being built every four or five months, at a cost of circa $30 million. This is scale on an unprecedented level.   Buffalo Trace is not alone in this endeavour. Producers of Old Forester and Woodford Reserve Brown-Forman are increasing their distillery space, and the makers of Four Roses have spent more than $50 million on expansion. Global spirits behemoth Diageo has also invested a reported $115 million on a new distillery and four warehouses with a total capacity of 330,000 barrels for its Bulleit Bourbon and other, as yet unannounced American whiskey brands.  “We’ve been making more and more every single year but it’s just never enough,” Mayville tells me.   “It’s a lot of money and it’s a big risk because if people don’t buy the product in 10 years from now, you’re going to have a lake of whiskey,” Mayville adds with knowing caution.   It’s hard to imagine the current Bourbon boom going bust when producers are showing such confidence in the category and bottlings such as Pappy Van Winkle Family Reserve can sell on the secondary market for upwards $20,000, but there are no guarantees.   For Mayville, this change in fortunes is a real boon but his real focus is on the quality of the liquid and innovation at the stills – the sales figures are somebody else’s concern.    “The part that really excites someone who has been around as long as I have is doing new things and innovation,” he says with glee. Much to this industry veteran’s delight, this creativity is championed at the very top of his organisation.   “We can go away, do experimentations, spend money, and not even tell anyone – and it’s actually encouraged,” he says, still clearly unable to believe his good fortune.  Mayville says the American drinks market is great at keeping him honest, always expecting something that wows and excites them.  “We’re always, always trying to innovate, embrace that change, and try and make better products,” he adds.“ We run so many different experiments, trying to make better whiskeys. It’s hard to list them because there are so many. There are thousands of barrels ageing right now that are experiments.”   One of his most recent experiments was the Colonel EH Taylor 4 Grain, which was named one of the best whiskeys in the world in 2017 by Jim Murray in his Whisky Bible.    “You can’t predict exactly what’s going to happen,” the Master Blender says humbly. “We’re doing so many experiments – another one could well be one of the best whiskeys in the world.”   With creative genius like Mayville at the helm of some of these distilleries, continually striving for quality, it’s hard to see the Bourbon gold rush ending any time soon. One thing that is for sure, though, is whiskey lovers and collectors will continue to scramble for what little Bourbon there is on the market until distillers can mine their liquid gold. Browse all American whiskey or read more Editorial 

After some very challenging years, American whiskey producers feel like they’ve struck gold. Demand for Bourbon is at an all-time high and distillers can’t pump out enough liquid to meet a seemingly unquenchable thirst. Holly Motion investigates the Bourbon boom 

Exploring the reasons for the current Bourbon boom in the United States with Buffalo Trace’s Drew Mayville, who produces Pappy Van Winkle, Blanton’s and more

Exploring the Bourbon whiskey boom

Gold rush: the Bourbon boom

Ian Chang is one of the most well-respected and accomplished whisky makers in the modern era. After 16 incredible years at Kavalan, in which he and the distillery went from unknowns to untouchables, Chang is embarking on a new adventure. This time he is turning his sights to one of the most exciting whisky-producing regions in the world: Japan. You’d forgive Chang for being egotistic. Over the past decade and a half, the Taiwan-native has received countless awards and accolades for his Kavalan single malts and is fawned over by whisky lovers and the press. And yet, even through his medical mask – there are still Coronavirus restrictions in Japan when we speak via Zoom – on a slightly pixelated screen, you can feel a genuine warmth and kindness emanating from the Master Blender. He is fiercely intelligent, good-humoured and modest. When it was announced in 2020 that Chang would be leaving Kavalan, the news was met with surprise and intrigue. Why was he leaving? Where might he work next? Would he stay in Taiwan? “The reason why I left Kavalan is because I wanted to change to a different environment,” Chang tells me from his new office in Japan. “Before this project, I only had experience in Taiwan,” Chang explains. “Producing whisky in a hot climate, which means that age statement whisky can virtually not be produced due to very high angel share.” Chang says he immediately signed onto the new distillery project spearheaded by Karuizawa locals Koji and Yoshie Shimaoka. While some details are already in the public domain about Komoro, located near the fabled original Karuizawa distillery site, this is the first time Chang has spoken at such length about his intentions for the new Japanese whisky distillery. “In Japan, in Karuizawa, they have a very similar climate to Scotland, so our plan is to produce whisky with age statement,” he tells me with glee. The first Komoro age statement will be a 12-year-old, followed by a 16- and 20-year-old. Thereafter, the age statements will increase in five-year increments, Chang says. There will be some non-age statement bottlings before the whisky reaches the 12-year mark. “So hopefully I can see my very first 40-year-old whisky,” he says with a soft chuckle, “If I’m still alive – fingers crossed.” Chang joined the whisky industry as a novice (or “from zero” as he calls it) in 2005. After graduating with a degree in food technology, he applied on a whim to a role at Kavalan’s parent company. Despite his lack of experience, Chang passed the interview stage, which required him to identify flavour notes in whisky, with flying colours. For the first year, while the distillery was being built, Chang voraciously read everything he could on whisky. Then, in 2006, the young whisky-maker-to-be met a man who would change his and the distillery’s destiny: Dr Jim Swan. “That was when the official learning started,” Chang tells me. Dr Swan – who was dubbed the “Einstein of whisky” for his pioneering scientific research and ability to help new distilleries with his unparalleled whisky production and maturation know-how – began by teaching Chang the fundamentals. This education took the best part of three years and covered everything from malting, milling, mashing, fermentation and double distillation. By the time the very first Kavalan Classic Single Malt was released in year three, the team knew they had produced something exceptional, and it didn’t take long for the wider whisky world to start taking a keen interest in Taiwan, Chang and Kavalan’s ground-breaking techniques. Not that Chang would say as much. Ever humble, he continues: “That’s when my focus with Jim Swan switched to blending.” The duo travelled extensively, visiting cask suppliers across Europe and the USA, while Dr Swan taught his protégé everything he knew about whisky from his 40-year career, and, you sense, his learnings from the school of life. When Dr Swan suddenly passed away in 2017 at the age of 75, he left a gaping chasm in the industry and many people’s lives, Chang included. Five years after his mentor’s sudden passing, Chang occasionally uses the present tense when talking about Dr Swan and takes a nano second to compose himself before he continues with his train of thought. The reverence and respect is clear to see. Of all the people Dr Swan taught, directly and indirectly, Chang spent the longest time under his tutelage, and he continually credits him for every success that he has had. For his latest project at Komoro, Chang said he wants to “bring Japanese whisky to the next level” by applying the many techniques he learned from Dr Swan. It’s a brave move in more ways than one. Chang has relocated to the country and doesn’t speak the local dialect, yet – but he is very grateful that his local colleagues are willing to learn and speak English to him. He is also joining a whisky-producing region that is at a very interesting crossroads in its history. It was announced last year that new regulations will come into force in 2024 which stipulate all liquid labelled as “Japanese whisky” must be produced (from fermentation to bottling) in Japan. This undoubtedly wouldn’t have been a problem for Komoro but it does mean several very high-profile competitors are scrambling to change their practices accordingly. Chang doesn’t comment on this but he does say: “To be honest, so far, I think all the major producers, such as Suntory and Nikka don’t really use STR [Shaved, Toasted and Re-Charred casks] at the moment. “So, by introducing Jim’s technologies and also his way of new-make production we are going to enrich the spirit produced in Japan and make a whisky which will be very much more enjoyable for consumers to enjoy globally – this is our aim for the future.” One of Dr Swan’s most famous contributions to the whisky world, and Kavalan specifically, was STR (Shaved, Toasted and Re-Charred casks). The invention was born out of necessity in 2010 when shortages of refill casks began to cripple the industry. Chang says Kavalan was in “serious trouble” because the distillery was a mere four years into production and couldn’t secure any re-fill casks for their new-make spirit. It was then that Dr Swan suggested the team used ex-wine casks instead of the in-demand refill Bourbon. This was highly irregular; ex-wine casks were undesirable because of wine’s organic acids, which would spoil the whisky and make it astringent. Simply, the process of shaving, toasting and re-charring casks removes the unwanted acids, breaks down the lignin structure of the wood to release wood-related compounds (including the desirable vanillin and caramel notes), and imparts a nice, sweet character to the spirit.  When asked what the secret is to producing an exceptional whisky, unsurprisingly Chang’s answer has been heavily influenced by his mentor. For Dr Swan, it was always about layering flavours and textures. “We want to make sure that it’s a rich and complex whisky but at the same time, very balanced without any off notes. To Jim, off notes were a big minus in terms of quality and that is why distillation and fermentation is also very critical in addition to wood policy,” Chang explains. “Because off notes can come from three places: fermentation, from the wood and also from fast distillation, these are the three areas that Jim always paid attention to.” This attention would include visiting cask suppliers regularly and ensuring distillation is slow to promote interaction between the new-make and copper. He would also keep a close eye on fermentation so the temperature increases from the beginning until the end. For Chang, and Dr Swan, there is a science and an art to whisky making and blending. “When it comes to marketing, especially during masterclasses, sometimes you’ve got to tell a little bit of stories so that’s when parts of the art and romance come in,” he says, laughing gently – making him even more endearing. “But to be honest, to be a blender, sometimes you have to use your imagination as well. You have to imagine how a Sherry cask will blend with a peated new-make, for example. “Jim always said, whisky making is a combination of art and science. And I think it’s maybe half, half. I think if you don’t have good imagination, you cannot really be a good blender but if you don’t know the science and just know the romantic side you cannot produce good new-make to begin with, so you have got to combine the two to make sure that the new-make and the wood go very nicely together.” During his 18 years in the industry, Chang has seen a lot of change. With new distilleries opening at a staggering rate and lost icons being brought back to life, there has arguably never been a more exciting time to work in single malt whisky production. Chang agrees and says things are looking “very bright”. So, what does a man like Chang do in his spare time, when he’s not producing remarkable whiskies consumers want to buy? “I watch Netflix,” he says before I can finish asking the question, and then lets out that laugh again. It’s a typically frank and relatable response that comes as a slight shock to us both. Most would – truth or not – say something that made them sound high-brow but not Chang. He continues to say that he’s recently finished the entire box set of 24 (a recommendation by a friend who presumably thought he had a lot of time to kill or difficulty sleeping), a Taiwanese drama, the latest Karate Kid (Cobra Kai) and a series about Japanese history. It’s an eclectic mix and refreshingly honest. As the Komoro project enters its next stage and whisky starts to run from the stills, there will be a lot of pressure on Chang to produce another award-winning single malt but those who know him won’t be concerned. With his formidable knowledge, calm confidence and unwavering integrity, you sense he’s going to do himself – and Dr Jim Swan – proud. Browse all whisky listings or read more Editorial

Ian Chang is the man behind Taiwan’s first and most decorated distillery, Kavalan. For 16 years, this young whisky maker defied expectations and redefined world-class single malts. Holly Motion discovers how he became the best of the very best

The ex-Kavalan Master Blender Ian Chang on how his mentor, the late Dr Jim Swan, taught him how to become one of the world's most well-respected whisky makers

How Kavalan’s Ian Chang became a whisky icon

Ian Chang: the humble student

Highlands

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Glen Garioch

About the producer

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