On Christmas Eve, my son Evan and I had other things on our mind while others were battling the crowds to buy last minute gifts. Our destination was Calgary’s Kensington Wine Market and the goal, strangely enough, was not wine (though I actually did purchase a bottle of French Malbec for our evening dinner) but whisky.
Whisky offerings from the Scotch Malt Whisky Society (SMWS), that is. This fall, Evan and I became members of the society (the membership is in his name — I just get to shop with him and his membership card) that buys casks of single malt whisky from Scottish distillers, finishes it by aging the liquid in its own way, then bottles and sells the final product to members around the world.
Scotch whisky is an endlessly fascinating subject and to understand it one must become something of a sleuth. A glance at a liquor store shelf that carries a good selection reveals that scotch whisky is quite different from other liquors. While many of the bottles bear the names of the distillery, others are sold by companies that purchase casks, then add their own special touches to make it unique before putting it out on the market under their own label. Often those special touches include a final aging in oak barrels that have been used for other purposes.
Scotch whisky is typically aged in used bourbon barrels, but more and more makers are turning to sherry and wine casks. Glenmorangie makes one of my favourite whiskies, Nectar d’Or, which spends years in Sauterne casks before being bottled. The result is oh-so-smooth and just slightly sweet, characteristics imparted by the French dessert wine.
Our mission at the Kensington Wine Market (which the amazing Andrew Ferguson has made into one of the country’s premier scotch whisky sellers) was to choose a bottle from the selection of whiskies produced by the SWMS. Ferguson worked for years to bring the SMWS to Canada and his store is the only one in Canada that carries its products. We peered into the glass case (only SMWS members can buy the bottles) and told Ferguson which ones interested me (smoky and peaty is generally my preference). He disappeared and came back with a couple of samples.
The SMWS doesn’t put the name of the distiller on its bottles, so each label has a prominent code number that identifies the single cask that it came from. My choice was 28.23, which turns out to have been made by Tullabardine in the Perthshire Highlands, north of Edinburgh and Glasgow. The number 28 means the whisky is from Tullabardine and the number 23 indicates it comes from the 23rd SMWS bottling of a Tullabardine product. The bottle’s label is highlighted with the title “Attention-grabbing spicy wood” and the description of the contents says, “The nose has hay, sawdust, floral notes, pepper and nuts (macadamia, almond, hazelnuts); water brings toffee and scented wood. The palate delivers toffee, raisings, chocolate-coated Brazils, treacle and loads of spicy wood—chewing on sticks, licking a cask (without the splinters!).”
My bottle of 28.23 is one of 607 produced, and one of only a dozen that made their way to Canada — about 150 were shipped to the US. (“You just got the last bottle,” Ferguson said.) It was aged for 21 years in a sherry “butt”, an oak cask of a particular size and it has 57.5 per cent alcohol. Most scotch whiskies have a high alcohol content and are diluted with water to bring the alcohol level down to the more common 40 per cent.
With our membership in SMWS, we received four small bottles of different whiskies, and we are saving those for a toast or two when Evan’s younger brother Ryan moves back to Calgary next month. Membership has other privileges, too, including the right to visit, with guests, tasting rooms in places like Edinburgh, London and Paris. Sadly, while we will be visiting London and Paris in the spring, the membership card, as I mentioned, is in Evan’s name.
I will settle for the chance to make purchases in his company, and to toast Ryan’s move to Calgary with tastes from our membership pack. We will raise our glasses, saying, “Slainte (pronounced slahncha). May ye ne'er want a frien', or a dram to gi'e him!”
Lorne Eckersley is the publisher of the Creston Valley Advance.