Dream casks

What do we know about dreams? I know they can come true (you know you gotta have hope, you know you gotta be strong) and they sometimes can give you a message or perhaps inspiration (Paul McCartney wrote Yesterday based on a dream). They can be nightmares, they can be wet, they can be lucid, but most of all, they can be forgotten, left behind, discarded, lost to us like innocence, a decent wage for a decent days work, or a pair of sunglasses, once so important but now a fleeting memory at best. I have to tell you something, and it's that last night I had a fevered dream, and in that dream I was asked "Why do we know so much about what happens to whisky beforehand, and yet so little about the casks that hold the whisky for the vast vast majority of it's existence?" And it got me thinking. Why is that? I woke up, probably much like Paul did after that Yesterday dream, and decided I would write this blog, just put it all down, much like Paul did when he penned that song, that amazing song. Exactly like that, almost identical, in fact. I am Paul McCartney, essentially, except I don't think a bottle of whisky costs two pounds.

It's a celebration

Enough about Paul, let's talk about Brian. In a recent, and excellent, blog post, Brian looks at washbacks and the information in there is so detailed. Waterford will tell you all about their farms and even farmers, Aberlour take their ingredients from local farms. I've seen bottles from the SMWS that have used different yeast strains, and I can google all the information I want on filling strengths, fermentation times, heights of stills and of course how many times the liquid has been distilled. But casks? It's a cask, they are made of oak, and sometimes that's about as much information as you are going to get. And fair enough, for some whiskies, even 90 pointers, that's all I need to know.

The life of

But what about those special whiskies? It's a 'sherry' cask, it's a refill, it's a second fill bourbon, it's been toasted or charred, is about as detailed the information you are going to get these days. Maybe you can see where the distillery gets their casks, but for the most part, this side of the process isn't really as open as it should be. Am I taking crazy pills here, it's very much about the cask, whisky can spend DECADES in these things. Casks make whisky taste good, it's what makes whisky whisky, it's all about the casks, there I said it. It feels good to say it. It's all about the casks. New make is great for sanitizing your hands or for throwing in the eyes of an attacker, grabbed in a random panic from a shelf of harmful or corrosive substances, but as a drink it's not the best of the best. I'm not saying all the stuff that comes before the casks is not important, of course it is, and I like the taste of well made spirit that hasn't been that affected too much by wood, don't get me wrong, please, but the real magic happens when the cask and the spirit balance, and it's IMHO that (we could argue 50/50) the cask is the most important part. But even if we did agree 50/50, or even, say the spirit is more important, let's say 70/30 for the spirit over the cask (madness) then we simply do not have that information split accordingly in reality. I know too much about the spirit, I don't know enough about the cask.

The most mysterious things in the world

I first had this notion when I started to visit a SMWS bar, trying 'unfashionable' stills with interesting casks, and trying amazing stills with not so interesting casks. It started to dawn on me that perhaps not all casks were equal, and that perhaps the distillate, if not peated, wasn't as important as I thought. I learned that the distillery code was more a 'nice to know ' thing, and the really important factors were the age and cask type. However, still, there wasn't that much information on the casks apart from some very basic descriptors as I mentioned in the previous paragraph. And as to how and where they are stored?

A University, yesterday

So, with all this thinking, I have come up with some categories and provided some thoughts about how much information I can, reasonably, expect about the casks they use. First thing I would like to mention is that of the cooper and their role in these cask things. A lot of casks are made from American oak, because bourbon has to be charred virgin oak innit, so there is a lot of that about. A lot of casks are made from these barrels, shipped as staves and then used in cooperages (be them in Scotland, Spain or somewhere else) to make new casks, and then sold to distilleries who will use them as 'first fill' and then as second fill, third fill etc. Casks like these, because of the sheer number of them, might be more difficult to track individually but I still think we can get more information about them. A distillery could, perhaps, at the very least, tell us the route these casks have taken, or just simply tell us they have come from the Speyside Cooperage. Have a look at this video from Tamdhu for information on their cask processes. A distillery should, IMHO, at least have some kind of video like that regarding their casks, at a minimum, if they want to be considered special. Anyway, those categories

This needs no caption and yet

Blended whisky, NAS single malt at a reasonable price 💔

I don't need to know that much about the casks here, I expect them to be refill that held whisky from the same distillery before. They can even have finishes, and of course more information would be great, but I'm not expecting it here. Casks are oak, whisky has been in them three years, I already know this much and any more information would be a bonus.

Single Malt/Grain or Malt blend with age statement 💥

This category would include standard single malts, something like Aberlour for instance, so lets look at that. First of all, there are seven sections under the 'Our Craft' section, only one of them is for maturation, and even one is about tasting. The website states that it's generally been aged in first fill American oak (from 'traditional distilleries' in America) and ex-Oloroso sherry casks from the Jerez region of Spain before being blended and bottled. How much more information could we expect? I would like to see, at the least, information on which coopers they use, their warehouse, stacking methods and perhaps more information on their suppliers in Jerez and those 'traditional distilleries' in America.

Special Edition, collectable, could be NAS, but you have marked this as special somehow and it's expensive 😹

Oh, so this is collectable is it? How interesting. Now, tell me why it's special, and tell me all about the casks please. Love the packaging, that's great, but you need to cough up a little more, a little more information about those casks. That's all I am saying, you could be anything, NAS, 30 years old, anything, but your peacock tail feathers are out, and I'm calling out those feathers I'm calling them out! Let's give an example here

Redbreast Dream Cask 2021, Oloroso Sherry Edition - Whiskylifestyle

This is interesting as this whisky has been made from four different types of casks, four individual casks actually, and yet I still think there should be more information on them. The information is too basic IMHO. Which port, where from? What kind of oloroso, where in Spain? There could, and should, be much more information on these casks. Still, this is getting there, but still, it falls short. I'm paying more money, I want more information.

Cask Strength 💪

I've decided to put this in it's own category from Single Casks, because not all single casks are cask strength (Decadent drinks for example) and not all cask strengths are single cask (Glenfarclas 105 for example). The clue is in the name here, you are bottling this at cask strength, so tell me about the casks! Cask strength means you are not adding water after disgorging the cask, it's pure, and therefore I want to know much more about the cask this pure nectar has come from please. I do usually associate single cask with cask strength, so the below will mostly also apply to Cask Strength as well. However, perhaps, with the Glenfarclas 105 as the example, given the quantities involved, I wouldn't expect single cask level details. More information about these casks, a video or even a few paragraphs with some detail of the general journey of these casks, would be amazing.

Single Cask 👄

Oh wow, here we are, it's a single cask and you have no excuses. I want to know absolutely everything about this cask, it's single cask you animals, tell me everything about the cask. It's birthday, it's social security number, it's birthday again, favourite colour etc. I want to know so much about this cask, I could crack its most used password in three guesses. Why not even have a picture? Pictures are easy to take these days. Where was this cask living? You give me all the information on the cask, it's one cask, you have no excuses. How dare you, how dare you not give me everything, you monsters, you animals, what is this? This is single cask, it's one cask, you have one job, goddam, goddam you. Where was this cask stored, who was the warehouse manager? No, scrap that, I want to know who the forklift truck driver was. Horizontal or vertical storage? Tell me, you tell me, you will tell me, tell me. Please, tell me. Even McDonalds have some food chain transparency.

If you want to be mayor you have to declare your candidacy

The conclusion to this is forgone, I want more information on the casks, I don't want to have to use my imagination when it comes to casks, I want the cold hard facts, not 'dream casks'.

I would like to thank Alistair who was the inspiration behind this blog post, and who also helped steer me clear of any glaring errors, whilst pointing out the importance of coopers and highlighting certain aspects of the cask making process. I am well aware that there are many other things I have not touched on, but please bare in mind I am just one man with very little knowledge. Please.