Malt Tasting Club

G'day FELLOW MALTSTERS,

Firstly, I apologise for the lateness of this Round-up as June was a big month, following on from the epic May.

National Malt tasting Comp. - Earls of zetland scoop the pool

For those of you who have been away or out of contact and don't know the latest news, the Club Teams in the National Malt Tasting Competition did the Club proud. We ended up with five members across three teams and we managed to fill the first three placings, Paul Rasmussen was a clear winner with Bronte Milde losing to me in a taste-off. Paul and I won the teams as well. Bob Perry came equal fifth.

Macallan Millennium bottling

If you put you name down for a Macallan and haven't paid the Treasurer please make yourself known at the coming meeting. We have a small number of bottles still available for purchase and if you want one, you'd better be quick.

June 27^th "United Distillers Rare Malts OP Trio" - Report Card

We have to try something from across the Irish Sea, just to remind ourselves why we like scotch so much

Regards

Treasurer

Earls of Zetland Malt Tasting Club

22 July 2001

Next Meeting:

"Trio of Irish Single Malt Whiskies"

As a Club we focus on Scotch Single malts (quite properly as they are the pinnacle of the single malt world) however we aren't exclusionists to the extent that we disdain the offerings from other nations. Indeed have been known to sample product from Japan, New Zealand, Tasmania and Ireland. As a club we owe it to ourselves to explore other potentially greener fields, but with the notion in the back of our minds that we are unlikely to find anything to knock single malt scotch off its pedestal.

Ireland is well known for pot still whiskies which are different from blended scotch in the sense that scotch is a mixture of malt whisky made in pot-stills from 100% malted barley and grain whisky made from 10% malted barley and a mixture of unmalted grains (usually barley but not exclusively) distilled in column stills. Your standard Irish whisky (such as Jamesons or Paddys or Powers) is made from a mixture of malted and unmalted barley, but all distilled in the same stills. Thus Irish Single malts are made in the same pot-stills as the standard Irish Whiskies but from 100% malted barley. In this way, the production process is almost identical to that for single malt scotch. There are differences in that the Irish pot stills are much larger (commonly 5-10 times bigger than scotch spirit stills, ie 10-30,000 litres) and like the standard Irish whisky and some lowland scotches they tend to be triple distilled. However, the range of product on the market has exploded recently. Since Cooleys (largely as an outcome of anti-trust, pro-competition legal decisions) commenced operations they have led the charge for Irish Single Malts.

Of the three on the agenda for July, both Tyrconnell and Connemara are results of the Cooley experiment. Despite the attempts on the Tyrconnell label to make you believe otherwise, both are made at the same distillery (Riverstown, Dundalk, County Louth) in the same stills. However, they are made from very different malt stock. Tyrconnell is a truly traditional Irish (100% unpeated barley, triple-distilled and then matured in 100% American oak). If you think the Connemara tastes a lot like scotch, then you're right as Connemara gets a treatment that is more recognisable as island or Islay, made from peated Scottish barley and only double distilled, then matured in bourbon oak.

The Bushmills is made in a distillery in County Antrim, (about 40 mile north of Louth and across the border in Northern Ireland) in the oldest licensed distillery in the world. Bushmills is much closer to Tyrconnell in flavour profile and at 10 years of age is comfortably more aged than Tyrconnell. Both Bushmills and Tyrconnell are representative of the traditional Irish style and the Connemara is much closer to Ledaig orClynelish than other Irish.

Come along and check them out. They are worthy of a detour on the Single Malt Journey of Discovery.