top dressing?

by **Frank D.Scott** » Thu Jun 27, 2002 11:54 am

Hello to all, I was in a discussion the other day with a mate, as we sat in our local having a pint and a dram about the possiblity of the distillers adding other aged whiskies to a malt as long as it's from the same distillery. Say, they are bottling a 12 year old for example, could they add some 15 or 18 year old as a top dressing so to speak.I say they could and probably do and my friend thinks it's just 12 year old.What do you think?
Slainte
Frank

by **SpeedyJohn** » Thu Jun 27, 2002 1:05 pm

You're right, Frank. They do. Most single malts on the market today are actually vattings of whisky of various ages from the same distillery. In other words, the 12yo malt you drank most likely did have 15yo, 18yo and perhaps older whisky in it. The age statement on the bottle reflects the age of the youngest whisky in the bottling.

As long as all the whisky in the bottle was made from malted barley and from only one distillery, it is a single malt.

The only malts containing whisky of the same age are "single cask" bottlings. That is, all the whisky in the bottle comes from one cask. If it doesn't say "single cask" on the label, you can be sure that there are whiskies of various ages in the bottle.

SJ

by **Deactivated Member** » Sat Jun 29, 2002 4:55 pm

Speedy John,

What can I ad further more on your comment.
Sometimes they use much older ages to achieve consistency, a good thing. But sometimes it's very nice to have a vintage, wich means a production from one year, and then compare the regular product with the vintage, sometimes the results are very astonishing...

Slainte,

Erik