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I'll Drink to That! What is your favorite beverage to have with a cigar? Juice? Cola? Beer? Port? Single Malt Scotch? This room is for the discussion of beverages, especially alcoholic beverages that go well with cigars!

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Old 01-23-2018, 08:45 AM   #1
TommyBB
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Diageo trying to change whisky?

Got this from the Wall Street Journal.

If You're a Purist About Scotch Whisky You Might Find This Hard To Swallow.
headline.
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Old 01-23-2018, 09:43 AM   #2
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Here is a link that doesn't require a WSJ subscription.

http://www.foxbusiness.com/features/...o-swallow.html
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Old 01-23-2018, 09:44 AM   #3
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My personal take on this initiative by Diageo...

Diageo owns more Scotch malt whisky distilleries than anyone else (not to mention being the world's largest spirits company), and tends to flex its muscles periodically in order to bolster its bottom line. Its proposition regarding marketing infused drinks containing whisky under the guise of a new category of 'whisky' is both crafty as well as deceptive, and is doomed to fail. One would think that the corporation had learned its lesson with the Cardhu (pure malt) fiasco. Apparently not.

Cask finishing is now a firmly entrenched phenomenon in the production of Scotch malt whisky - like it or not. Some cask finished whiskies are stupendous, while others (I feel) serve only to hide the intrinsic characteristics of the distillery make or, as is sometimes the case, introduce a lack of flavour cohesiveness, which I like to term the 'yin-yang effect'. I personally don't see any great issues with finishing a Scotch malt whisky in ex-Tequila casks. It would simply represent another variation on a theme, which already encompasses a tremendously wide variety of ex-wine and ex-liquor casks. In this specific instance, the SWA should show a little more common sense and flexibility.

The SWA can sometimes act in a patently ridiculous manner as it seeks to 'protect' the Scotch whisky industry - witness the Glen Breton debacle, where the SWA took Glenora Distillery, located in Nova Scotia, to court over the latter's use of the term 'Glen' on its whisky bottles. The SWA argued that consumers might be duped into mistaking bottles of Glen Breton for Scotch whisky because of the term 'Glen' intimating a Scottish source (and this despite the fact that the label clearly stated 'Canadian malt whisky') - as though that word were somehow exclusively Scottish in nature! The SWA finally lost the case. Then there was the SWA's taking Compass Box (a company that is responsible for some outstanding Scotch whiskies) to task for inserting additional French oak staves into the casks used to age its The Spice Tree blended malt Scotch whisky. Compass Box came out on the short end of that one, and ended up having to revise its 'recipe' by instead inserting French oak heads onto the ends of its barrels.

All of which is to say that we have an industry on the one hand that's constantly attempting to expand the boundaries of possibility - not always to the benefit of the consumer, admittedly - in order to maximize market share and profitability. On the other hand, we have an association charged with the task of maintaining a degree of historical continuity and quality that doesn't always strike the right balance in its decisions.

Diageo should immediately abandon its 'infused whisky' proposition. If it wants to market that sort of beverage, let it make it clear to consumers that the beverage is NOT whisky.

And the SWA should allow Diageo (or anyone else) to utilize ex-Tequila barrels for the finishing of Scotch whiskies.
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Last edited by jazznut; 01-23-2018 at 09:46 AM.
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Old 01-23-2018, 12:28 PM   #4
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with beer consumption peaked, I am thinking Diageo probably thinks it has an opportunity and is doing anything it can to wedge itself into new markets. This smells like something for millennials.

But this is a bad idea...
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Old 01-23-2018, 01:56 PM   #5
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As a Scotsman, it will come as a surprise to nobody that I'm a huge fan of whisky. It has been my main drink of choice for manys a year. I certainly don't have a problem with any malt whisky being aged in tequila (or any other spirit) barrels. Provided that the whisky is actually malt whisky,the age is shown and the barrels they are aged in clearly marked then I'm all up for extending the range on offer.

Personally I'm not a fan of adding a lot of extra flavour to a whisky (to be quite honest I don't think it needs extra flavourings) but I don't think that others should be stopped. All of these things will live or die based on sales and not my personal taste buds.
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Old 01-23-2018, 03:48 PM   #6
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Old 01-23-2018, 05:36 PM   #7
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By the way, Diageo has decided to pour millions of £s into reopening the Brora (northern Highland, and the original Clynelish operation until Diageo built a newer Clynelish nextdoor) and Port Ellen (Islay) distilleries. Given that the increasingly rare releases from both these closed sites have been fetching astronomical amounts both at retail and on the auction market, is it any wonder that Diageo would want to invest in resurrecting these operations in order to cash in on their cachet? On the other hand, I have had some phenomenal Broras and Port Ellens.
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