Grain grain grain grain grain.

Here’s comes the grain again.

I’m only happy when it grains.

Um… it’s graining men...

So single grain whisky then. If you pay attention to Whisky blogs or anything to do with whisky for long enough even now and again the issue of single grain whisky comes up.

A typical blog post on single grain will proceed thusly;

“Hold up. Wait. What? Single grain whisky? What’s that?!” Followed by an explanation, followed by something about how it’s unfairly seen as a poor cousin to single malt whisky, followed by a review of a single grain and a recommendation to try it and widen your whisky experience.

Although I confess that whenever I see someone covering single grain this whiskysponge article usually comes to mind…http://whiskysponge.com/2014/02/09/people-still-pretending-to-enjoy-grain-whiskies/

I’m not going to give you a definition or explanation of Single Grain because Google. I just wanted to talk about my recent grain whisky experience. My sole experience of grain whisky had been trying a 25+ year old one at the Malt Whisky Society that had tasted like Whethers Originals (in a good way). 

That was until a couple of weeks ago when I took part in the Girvan Patent Still Tweet Taste.

These are my notes;

Girvan New Make Spirit (42% abv)

Unsurprisingly very light on the nose. A bit of vanilla and a bit of cereal. This was the first time I’d ever tried new make grain whisky before. It seems like a little like a decent vodka. Maybe good for cocktail making. Not that it's for sale anyway but it was interesting to taste.

Girvan No. 4 Apps NAS (42% abv)

This was the same stuff aged a few years. There was more vanilla and now a bit more fruity. It had a comforting apple pie and custard smell, with a syrup sponge taste. Fruity but in a more confectionery way, like rosy apples.

At £44 it was quite drinkable but in all honesty I could recommend other whiskies to spend £44 on.

Girvan 25 Year Old (42% abv)

This was one where the sweetness of grain really came into play, combining with the wood to give a more complex nose. My notes on the night said “Smells like a galleon at sea transporting sugar cane from the West Indies... probably” (bear in mind I was 3 drams in by this point).

I got banana, burnt sugar and dark chocolate on the palate. Creme Brulee on to taste – in fact generally desserts were a theme during the tasting.

This was a lovely whisky – certainly this is where I can see people saying grain is the equal of malt but at £270… it’s pretty far down the list of bottles I'd be buying if I had that kind of money burning a hole in my pocket.

Girvan 30 Year Old (42% abv)

For me the winner on the night. An Eton Mess with a little slosh of rum over it. Rich and creamy with berries and some nice warming rum notes. For me it was more subtle than the 25 and more rewarding, nicely balancing the flavours. A bit of lemon sponge in there, just very light and not overpowering.

Again whilst this was the equal of many single malts the £375 price tag is just too prohibitive.

Conclusion

If there is anything one can draw from this it’s that purely from a taste point of view, single grain whisky can be as well regarded as single malt. However it seems that it takes a long time in the barrel for that too happen. And it’s going to set you back a few quid too. 

Otherwise it seems to me that younger single grain can just feel a little too synthetic and sweet. But I'm very glad to have been given such an education in single grain.

Many thanks again to The Whisky Wire and William Grant and Son for arranging the Tweet Tasting

WW

Wemyss Tweet Tasting

Occasionally when I log on to Twitter I’ll find my timeline suddenly flooded with unanchored adjectives and random exclamations of joy from the various whisky-type folk that I follow.  Cries of “Summery!” or a thoughtful  “Smoky, Ashy, Peaty” will pop up. And I before I spot the #TT hashtag I’ll know it’s another Tweet Tasting.

I was a bit bamboozled the first time I saw it but I’m used to it now. As the name suggested a it's a whisky tasting that takes place on live on Twitter.

I got the chance to partake in one a couple of weeks ago (NB – actually a couple of months ago now) and I thought I’d write about it for those interested in how it works. The first thing to note is that, sadly, my participation wasn’t due to my prominence as an influential zeitgeist nailing blogger – but rather because I’d replied to a tweet from Steve at the Whisky Wire about a Wemyss Malt Tweet Tasting.

So after having been picked as one of the lucky 20-odd, I received a lovely little parcel with 4 whiskies from indy bottlers (and soon to be distillers) Wemyss Malts. And when the 15^th May  (see?) came around I got in from work fired up the laptop, poured the drams and waited…

I found it was useful to utilise Tweetdeck for the purpose so that I could have specific feeds set up for the Wemyss Hashtag and also a separate feed for Steve at the Whisky Wire so I could follow his instructions – after all I wanted to make sure I was doing it right on my first go.

We kicked off  with the Lord Elcho Blend. It took a while for the descriptions to start coming in but when they did come it was an avalanche. It was lovely seeing the other descriptions floating past – generally there was agreement about the style but every now and again someone just nailed it. It was a great way to crowdsource (crowbarred modern reference) descriptions. A bit like the 1000 monkeys in a room with typewriters; with that many whisky enthusiasts tasting at the same time some-one was bound to get it dead right.

One concern I did have beforehand was what to do if I didn’t like the samples sent through – on the one hand I usually only review whisky that I’ve bought and so I didn’t want to become a sell-out on the very first freebie that I got. But on the other hand I didn’t want to lose my chance of ever getting a invited to do a tasting again. Thankfully this wasn’t an issue as the whiskies genuinely were very good and interesting (I’ll pop notes below). Speaking of selling out there was a Mortlach in the mix –something that's been a topic of much debate among bloggers (including my own post elsewhere).

I’d never done a social event online before, it was a bit weird sitting alone at the kitchen table supping whisky whilst my wife was in the other room. Anyone watching may have been concerned for the state of the marriage... but in the virtual world it was all very convivial and surprisingly entertaining. It was nice connecting with other people  and I got the sense people were getting a little looser as it went on, there were more interactions as the whisky flowed – and definitely a few more spelling mistakes appearing by whisky number 4 too.

Anyway my thoughts on the 4 whiskies are below. Thanks again to The Whisky Wire and Wemyss Malts.

Lord Elcho – Vanilla on the nose.  Sweet pastry apple pie. Like biting into a toffee apple. Smooth and not too grainy.

Pastille Bouquet (Mortlach) – Fruit pastilles and rhubarb dipped in sugar. Fresh and fruity taste, peardrops. Citrus and pepper.

Merchant’s Mahogany Chest (Glen Scotia) – The best of the night. I had it down as an old stone built church on a rainy day, heavy damp and woody. Rich dried fruit. Subtle flavour. Loved it.

Peat Chimney – Decided this was my Most Likely to Buy. Strong peaty/smoke smell (as you might imagine). Tasted like all the Islays at once.TCP, Iodine and Smoke. Cream and seaside.

WW