An All-Points-Bulletin of Brilliance- A Day With Compass Box

The word Artisan is often applied to many gifted craftsmen and women across a variety of creative arts. From woodwork to pottery, the term conjurers up an image of a master at work, developing and honing the object of their attentions into something truly extraordinary.

Well a little while back, we got to hang out for the day with a true 'Artisan' of the whisky world. Mr John Glaser, the creative force behind Compass Box has been honing the art of great whisky making for the past decade - and this year sees the company trying out even more exciting, revolutionary ideas and recipes, wonderfully balanced with an unlikely sense of English eccentricity.

We say 'unlikely', as John (as many of you are already aware) is an American living in London, but take a visit to Compass Box's (fairly) recent HQ in the heart of London's leafy Chiswick and you'll be greeted by an office which fits somewhere between the zen tranquility of an LA beach house and one of Terry Gilliam's Monty Python animations.

Everything about Compass Box HQ screams (sorry, persuasively whispers) creativity; from the calming Jazz playing in the background, to the mantra-like inscription on one of the walls -

'Above All, Share & Enjoy' - an air of simplicity, which is perhaps lost on the large number of more corporate players.

John essentially started Compass Box from his apartment kitchen table (above a hairdressers) with a desire to create "something outside of single malts", focusing on one distinct mission statement; To become a boutique blending company using better casks, achieving a house style, whilst applying an artisan's approach.

And it seems to be working. From, as John puts it "traveling around with a ruck sack full of whisky" Compass Box has achieved considerable successes in not only the UK, but with exports to over 25 countries worldwide. Not bad for a team of just three people eh...

So what was the 'Eureka Moment' when it all clicked into place?

John explains that "It was the discovery of using first fill bourbon casks, which led to a richer, softer whisky- I wanted to take quality aged whiskies and then develop them even further in quality oak. Compass Box isn't particularly about single malts" he continues, " it's about us starting with one lead whisky and then complimenting it with perhaps two or three more."

So do you see this as a blending skill?

"Actually, I think it's probably the antithesis of blending" he laughs. "Blends are more like a symphony orchestra, with no particular lead flavour, whereas we're probably more like a Jazz quartet- certain things tend to stand out, with their own character."

John cites Clynelish as one of the important tools in the company's arsenal of flavour, the distillery which sits at the heart of his sensational Oak Cross bottling, along with Teaninich and Dalliuane. His creative touch is perhaps most apparent with this marriage of whiskies, which uses oak casks developed by a small mill in France, that produces some of the highest quality cooperage oak in the world. John continues that "It was our work with this mill that led us to experimenting with secondary maturation of malt whiskies in casks fitted with new French oak heads. This is something no one else in Scotland does."

This innovative technique gives the whiskies much greater character and complexity, before they are married for up to a year in further oak.

Here's our notes on this excellent bottling:

Compass Box - Oak Cross- 43%

Nose: Superb sweet, fruity aromas, reminiscent of Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit chewing gum. Soft cereal notes, buttery vanilla, a hint of waxiness and toasted grain. Superbly balanced between the three main component distilleries (Clynelish, Dailuaine & Teaninich)

Palate: Very rich and mouth filling- barley sugar, a hint of grapefruit, crystalised ginger and Demerara sugar. In essence, rich, buttery and sweet. Absolutely sensational.

Finish: Lingering notes of sweetness, watermelon juice and really clean barley.

Overall: A brilliantly put together whisky, which serves as a refreshing aperitif, especially in the barmy British summertime. We'd recommend this as the starting point into the many great Compass Box whiskies.

John gave us a quick demonstration into the (quite frankly) disturbing effects of adding caramel colouring into whisky (Compass Box of course use none of the dreaded stuff in their whiskies) and it surprised us just how small an amount was needed to effectively take something like a lightweight 4th fill whisky up to a rich and deeply coloured 'Faux Fill'. The results aren't just noticeable on the eye either, take it from us!

We also got to try two of the other standouts from the Compass Box collection, Peat Monster (the company's best seller) and Spice Tree which again demonstrates just how forward thinking John and his team are.

Spice Tree is perhaps the company's most controversial bottling, because of its innovative production techniques. In 2006, they were almost forced to stop making it- absurdly, the SWA decided that secondary maturation of the whisky using casks with 'inserted inner French Oak staves' was not appropriate, on the grounds that it had never been done before, despite being a technique used by winemakers for the last 30 years. But effectively being dubbed an 'Illegal Whisky' can have its advantages and the bottling quickly became the stuff of legend, selling incredibly well and creating a huge demand for more.

And thankfully, more has been created, this time developing a new (and apparently legitimate) technique of using casks with differently toasted french oak cask heads, to obtain the rich spicy profile of the original Spice Tree. The label is also suitably avant garde- apparently the creative brief was to produce something resembling the LSD infused thoughts of Bjork... already a big thumbs up from us...!

Compass Box - Spice Tree - 46%

Nose: Wave upon wave of sweet Demerara sugar, fruity and dry vintage Cognac notes, heather honey and sliced green apple, maybe even a hint of fresh melon thrown in for good measure.

Palate: A lovely coating mouthfeel, with an initial spiciness, cinnamon, nutmeg and fruity, juicy green apples coming to the fore. With a little water, the palate starts to explode with a dizzying array of sweetness- some raspberry jam, a dusting of icing sugar and a lovely rich oaky base. Another triumph in the balancing stakes.

Finish: The fruit lingers on, with absolutely no dryness creeping in, giving a very satisfying fresh but complex, spicy aftertaste.

Overall: Spice Tree achieves all the objectives of well matured whisky, ie depth, lightness, sweetness and richness but delivers it in such an unusual and exciting way, your mouth eagerly looks forward to the next sip long before you've finished the first. It just has a real air of innovation about it, or to put it into Monty Python terms... And Now For Something Completely Different! It's certainly two fingers up to the pen-pushing bureaucrats and long may that continue.

As we leave John, Chris and Gregg to more experimentation, it is patently obvious that the whisky industry needs more mavericks like Compass Box. In a world where lighter spirits are grabbing the headlines with their youthful attraction, whisky almost needs to work twice as hard to compete for the same attention in the contemporary market place. It is worrying that the policy makers have a tendency to frown on innovations such as Spice Tree, but as Compass Box have proven, when you create something which is unique, perception challenging and... just downright drinkable, the results speak for themselves.

If you'd like to get more information on Compass Box and their range of great whiskies, check out

www.compassboxwhisky.com

A Walk In The Park....

Another hot London day and another hot new whisky launch are always fondly welcomed here at Caskstrength.net. Almost a year since announcing the inaugural 'Orcadian Vintages', Highland Park have unveiled details of their 3rd bottling in the series... and the good news is it's a cracker.

This afternoon, we joined the irrepressible Gerry Tosh at the Albannach bar in London's Trafalgar Square for a sneak preview of this monumental release. Gerry bought us up to speed on the history behind the previous Orcadian Vintages (reviewed here) pointing out the wonderful quirks which made both the 1964 and 1968 bottlings so very different from each other.
Apparently in 1964, the Orkney winds weren't as powerful when gusting over the barren coastline and as a result, the peat smoke had a greater opportunity to have its wickedly smoky way with the maltings. However, Gerry pointed out that it was a very different story in 1968, with regular gales playing havoc with peating levels, blowing the smoke skywards from the kilns, thus producing a less pronounced smokiness in the malt.
Surely this will become a whisky-based pub quiz question classic in the future... (if such a thing were ever to exist...)

Anyway, the 1970 Orcadian Vintage sits somewhere in between the previous releases, balancing the rich fruity sweetness from the sherry casks with a delicate swathe of peated goodness. The basis for this bottling comes from a vatting of 7 casks, a mixture of butts and refill sherry hoggies.

Here's what we thought when the cork was finally removed from the ominous black bottle !

Highland Park - 1970 Orcadian Vintage - 48% - 1,800 bottles

Nose: An initial cask mustiness greets the nostrils and you're drawn into a beguiling mix of vintage wine notes, drying oak and a slightly sticky-sweet port aroma. As the whisky hits the air, the mustiness disappears and you're presented with classic Highland Park- sweet heather honey, slightly jammy notes (plum and cherry), hints of scented wax and a faint whiff of fragrant peat smoke. It's brilliantly balanced and another indication of just how good the older stock has been maturing. Sublime stuff.

Palate: Sponge cake notes hit the palate first, followed by mint humbugs, cherry brandy, golden syrup, soft malty cereal notes and again, a little whisper of that smoke. It coats the whole mouth and totally demands your attention. Give this time (at least 30 minutes) and it will reward you ten-fold with further rich fruit notes and even sweeter honey developing on the palate. Pretty good then? You bet.

Finish: Waxy, with lingering black cherry notes and an oaky dryness, but absolutely no bitterness whatsoever.

Overall: The first 2 releases of the Orcadian Vintage series were real eye openers, not only because of the quality of cask selection, but also as an exercise in how a distillery has, for decades, managed to create and maintain a perfectly balanced house style. This new bottling sits comfortably next to the 18yo as well as its older brothers and perfectly highlights just how rich the seam of great whisky making runs deeply within Highland Park. Long may that continue.

Spoilt for Choice?

The final tranche of Diageo's Managers' Choice bottlings has just been released, which includes several big names, including Clynelish and the much anticipated bottling of Lagavulin, as well as some of the other less well known bottlings. Tasting notes of the entire batch can now be found on our new Caskstrength Warehouse site and below we've featured a cross section of our thoughts on some of the riders and runners...

Clynelish – Managers’ Choice – 1997 / 2009 – First Fill Bourbon American Oak – cask 4341 - 216 bottles – 58.5% vol

Nose: Ahhhh... Clynelish! Welcome to our noses. Beautiful aroma of lavender, vanilla and parma violets. Clynelish and Rosebank have, for us the two of the finest, most fragrant noses within Scottish whisky and you can see why Clynelish is the choice for the smart blender. If grain is the hard tackling midfielder, the ball winner, then Clynelish is the creative, luxury player. The one you come to watch. The one who sells the shirts. Really, really good.

Palate: Waxy, slightly bitter and loads cream. Holding the palate it develops loads of lovely berry flavours: summer fruits yogurt! With water: Swimming pool notes come through and the berries are reduced.

Finish: Very “bourbon-like” with oak and red jam. Not too far from the Four Roses Single Barrel. With water: As with the palate, the gentle medicinal notes.

Overall: This is a cracking dram but for me, needs to be taken straight.

Auchroisk – Managers Choice - 1999 – bottled March 2009 - 642 bottles - Sherry Hogshead - cask 11323 - 60.6% vol

Nose: Immediate Caramac notes, some definite spiritiness, malted milk biscuits, condensed milk and dessicated coconut.

Palate: Very thin mouthfeel, almost disappears in the mouth instantly. Some crème caramel notes and hints of Toffee Crisp bars. With water, the caramel notes are more pronounced, but that’s about it.

Finish: Sweet and fairly short, with a slight malty note entering on the death.

Overall: The nose gives you hope that this will be a stunner, but it falls apart way too quickly and you’re left thinking about what you’re going to try next. Disappointing.

Lagavulin- Managers Choice – 1993 – bottled February 2009 – 612 bottles – European Bodega Sherry Oak - cask 4477 – 54.7% vol

Nose: Soft medicinal notes, with carbolic soap and earthy/dry undertones. Slightly vegetate, with some salted potato crisps. A hint of plastcine and some gentle wood smoke rounds out a very pleasant nose indeed.

Palate: Crunchie bars, soft peat smoke and a slight mossy/musty note. The salted crisps make a return and some lighter white chocolate sweetness rounds out the palate.

Finish: The sweetness lingers with the classic Lagavulin carbolic medicinal notes and a drying woody note on the death.

Overall: A decent enough bottling, but in our opinion this goes to highlight just how good the regular 16yo bottling is when placed side-by-side. Also worth checking out the Feis Ile bottlings from the same distillation date, (1993) which again probably have the edge here.

Knockando – Managers’ Choice – 1996 / 2009 – Spanish Sherry Oak – Cask No 800790 – 612 Bottles – 58.5% Vol

Nose: A classic sherry whisky – robust dry/fruity aromas, tannic notes and slightly bitter undertones. The wood has dominated the whisky, but has not beaten it completely into submission.

Palate: Very dry mouthfeel, some fruity richness and twigs. The sherry influence is, er, heavy and somewhere under all this make up is a fairly honeyed whisky with some lovely delicate notes of green apple and fresh mint. With water: much improved and the true flavours of this distillery come to the fore.

Finish: long and warming with heavy polished wood and some mint. With water: as with the palate.

Overall: Spain is, along with France, one of the biggest markets for Knockando as a single malt and we wonder if this had an influence on the decision making behind this choice of bottling. The sherry is very pronounced but fortunately hasn't killed off the distillery character and is certainly worth a try if you're keen on big, fruity beasts.

So there we have it- alongside the Talisker, the Clynelish shines through as probably the best of the Managers' Choice bottlings.

'Daig This Out.....

In the last few weeks, there's been a lot of open discussion about the perceived 'age' of whisky in relation to its actual quality.  We've been open about where we stand on the matter, as have a number of other blogs  and whisky writers, not to mention the banter between certain distilleries.

It just so happens then, that we were recently sent a whisky that pretty much widens the debate even more so. A whisky that, whilst being in its infancy, displays all the hallmarks of a much older whisky, with a certain refined wisdom, maturity and panache to boot.  How is this possible??

Berry's Own Selection - Ledaig - distilled 2005 - Cask number: 900008 - 62.7% 

Colour:  We don't usually give much stead to the colour of a whisky, but this is a 5 year old...! In that short time (in a clearly very active sherry butt) it has taken on a wonderful rich gold/copper colour and looks totally glorious.

Nose: Mint humbugs, bonfire toffee, some earthy/soil like peat smoke, oaty Flapjacks and some juicy currants. Oh my.  Absolutely wonderful.

Palate: Powerful at first, but then straight into some sweetness, heather honey, crystalised ginger and creamy caramel.  It shares lots of similarities with homemade tablet and your mouth gets coated with a rich oiliness.  With water, it brings even more waves of refinement,  the honey become slightly waxier, the mint humbugs of the nose more chewy and the flapjacks (returned to the palate) even more buttery. With water and reduced in strength, I defy anyone to pick out blind that this is a five year old whisky...

Finish:  The peat lingers and the sweetness keeps on giving for a fabulously pleasant experience.  

Overall:  Doug and Ed over at Berry's can be extremely proud of this bottling.  Not only have they entered their well-honed oar into the age Vs quality debate, they've smashed it open.  This whisky is rich, thick and pretty revolutionary.   With vintage whiskies, one looks for a balance of maturity and freshness. With younger whiskies you're hoping to find a hint of where it may be heading in the future.  This one is already light years ahead. 

Live and Glenivet

A wise man once told me that "single cask" is the whisky equivalent of a bootleg record in music.

How true this can be.

Around about 15 years ago, I fell in love with punk music. The Clash and The Sex Pistols became demi-gods in my world and so I would take regular trips from Oxford to London to visit Camden Market, the best place in town to buy t-shirts, badges, second hand clothes and, of course, bootleg CD’s. It wasn’t so much the recordings that were fascinating (especially with the DIY punk ethic, where most of the musicians could barely play their instrument) but, on live bootlegs or studio out-takes, it was the chat between songs that caught the ear.

There was a desire to connect with the (wo)men behind the music. You wanted intimate banter between the lead singer and the front row of the audience. You wanted words from the producer to the lead guitarist, or comments from the drummer to his engineer. It was all about discovery of the core personalities within the group. Something that was often produced out of many studio albums.

Rough and ready rock ‘n’ roll is what you want!

Usually, these bootlegs are tape recordings done by fans at shows which have made their way, via a Russian pressing plant, on to a 12” picture disc or CD. Housed in “unofficial” covers, with “unofficial” artwork, the very sense of uniqueness radiates from the sleeve. But every now and then, often to support a major release or sometimes as b-side, an artists' record label sticks something out which shows this side of their act. The Who Live At Leeds is a classic example. Made to look like a bootleg with rough and ready artwork, this was a revelation when it hit the shops in 1985.

In front of me I have two whiskies from the same distillery, The Glenlivet. One is a new release from the Scotch Malt Whisky Society. The other is an official release, The Nadurra.

As always with the SMWS, their bottling are the most “bootleg” on the market. Even though they recently “cleaned up” their bottles which now look a lot more on-brand than their previous, artisanal, handfilled-looking relatives, there is still no distillery name, but plenty of information.

The Nadurra, on the other hand comes very much baring the hallmarks of a distillery released bottle. However, the contents of this is a little different from your usual ‘Livet, being released at natural cask strength and matured in 100% ex-American Oak, unlike the other standard releases of The Glenlivet, which all have key elements of European Oak in. This is the “official bootleg”, if you will. Plenty of distillery character, but raw and ready. Rock ‘n Roll!

Let’s take a look at the two and see if one is The Who Live At Leeds and the other is Oasis Live By The Sea...

The Glenlivet - SMWS - 2.78 Kissed By Sweet Promises – 21 Years Old – 512 Bottles – Refill Sherry Butt – 58.4% Vol

Before we start, a word on the colour (which we don’t usually do). This is 5 years older than the Nadurra and has been in an ex-sherry cask, but the colour is lighter! It may be that this is in a 2^nd or 3^rd refill sherry butt, the bottle doesn’t make it clear. However, the sherry influence is minimal, at least in the colour...

Nose: Initially a big nose prickle followed by lots of fresh wood (pine) and then a huge hit of plum, much like the Hibiki 12 Year Old. It’s very floral for a Glenlivet and there is a touch of oomph provided by a liquorice tone. Very well rounded, if not a little strong.

Palate: Bread and butter pudding, with some spiced custard over the top and a glass of light red wine! Here the sherry shows itself with some subtle red fruits and works it way around using spices to give itself some energy. With water: the apple pie really comes to life here, with the breadiness of the pastry standing out.

Finish: Like a heavy white wine, with a little bitterness, cloves and some more of that liquorice. With water: spicer and fruitier.

Overall: A very pleasant dram if not a touch overpowering at first. Needs water to highlight the subtle flavours which make this bottling well worth hunting out.

The Glenlivet – Nadurra – 16 Years Old – Batch 11091 – 100% ex-American Oak – 54.2% Vol

Nose: A much gentler note on the nose than the SMWS bottling, there are elements of deeper wood, vanillas, orange and lavender. An touch of horseradish sauce in there too.

Palate: Initially there are violets and heather, later honey comes through and some lightly spiced apple pie. With water: the vanilla is highlighted and with ice cream notes coming through. Almost like Neil’s cranachan with his whisky-cream...!

Finish: Sweet and long with elements of ginger and candyfloss. With water: retains the spices, but the vanillas balance it out nicely.

Overall: Not what you would expect from The Glenlivet, but this really does a fantastic job of showing off true, delicate yet robust distillery character without the need to add “complexity” from sherry casking. All they need to do now is add a new make to the range and you’ll be able to see a real journey from grain to glass via wood in your very own home!

Both of these whiskies are crackers. If you want true, usual bootleg-style fun, then go for the SMWS. You wouldn’t know it was sherried from the colour, but the palate holds some real surprises. If you want something a little more original, but still with that feeling that you’ve unearthed something other people haven’t, go for the Nadurra. Be warned, however. It’s Glenlivet, but how we know it...

As will now be the norm with our postings, you can download these tasting notes as a handy little pdf file at the Cask Strength Warehouse.