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Region: Northern Highlands
Owner: The Glenmorangie Co (Moet Hennessey)
Founded: 1843
Now here’s a spooky circumstance. As I was embarking upon writing this chapter, there was a interview with Dr Bill Lumsden, director of distilling and whisky creation at The Glenmorangie Company in the latest issue of the Whisky Magazine (Issue 161 – Aug/ Sept 2019). Even spookier was that Dr Lumsden was talking about how he was creating his own yeast strain and I had just finished writing about yeast in the chapter on Glencadam!
Anyway, spookiness aside, let’s talk about the whisky! In order to understand and appreciate Glenmorangie you have to understand wood, or more precisely, Lumsden’s obsession with the stuff. Firstly, the bulk of their new make spirit is filled into American oak, which, funnily enough is exactly how I would do it! These casks are only ever used twice, which means that you will never taste a bottle of Glenmorangie that has been ruined by maturation in shagged out old casks or displays that forced oak character of rejuvenated wood.
It could be argued that maturation in good quality oak casks is the most important part of the whisky making process. A distillery could produce the best quality new make spirit on the planet but if fill it into poor quality casks then you might as well just tip that new make down the drain. However, having a supply of quality casks is is pretty expensive and when investment is tight, it’s the wood policy that often gets sacrificed.
Why is oak so important to the whisky making process? Well, it essentially does three very important jobs. Simply put wood maturation can be broken down into three stages – Subtractive, additive and interactive. These stages are not linear and often they occur simultaneously, albeit at differing rate. Oak is a porous substance; this allows the spirit to seep into the wood. The wood subtracts or reduces the levels of fusel oils, feints and sulphur present in the young spirit by absorption and by oxidation so that these flavours are transformed into subtler, less unappealing notes. . Ex bourbon casks are more effective in regard to removing these unwanted compounds because they are charred on the inside of the cask. This layer of char is usually between 2-4mm deep and it allows the spirit to seep further into the wood, thus making the process a lot more efficient.
The adative stage of maturation see’s the oak adding colour and character to the whisky. Oak is composed of cellulose, which is fairly inactive with regards to flavour extraction. Hemicellulose, which contains a number of different sugars which breakdown easily when heated (charred) they impart a range of compounds such as furfurals (almond, walnut), hydroxymethyfurfural (wax, butter, caramel), maltol (malt) and cyclotene (maple, liquorice, caramel). Another component is Lignin. Lignin’s are quite complex chemical structures comprised of molecules of a variety of sugars, acids and phenolic aldehydes, which when heated transform those compounds into very aromatic compounds called guaiacaol (smoke), 4-vinylguaiacol (clove), phenyl ethanol (rose), vanillin and vanillic acid.
If all that chemistry wasn’t enough, then there’s more! Oak wood extractives. These include eugenols (clove, cinnamon), β-damascenone (peach, cooked apple), hexanal (grass), trans-2-nonenal (saw dust, grease) and 2-octenal (green leaf, untoasted oak). Oak is also comprised of two different types of lactones. These are what give oak its distinctive ‘oakiness’. Firstly, the cis-oak lactone imparts a coconut/ vanilla character and then there is trans-lactone which imparts spicier coconut, clove and incense notes. Finally, we can’t ignore tannins. The tannins found in oak are less stable than those found in grape skins and pips, thus more volatile and active during maturation, they can impart a certain ‘smoothness’ to the whisky yet they can also impart a bitterness, which often tends to appear in the finish when tasting a whisky. This bitterness is not necessarily a bad thing as long as it is balanced by the other flavours.
And finally interactive maturation. Again, simply put this is the term for how the whisky reacts with the wood extracts and with what the cask had originally held. As the whisky mingles with the liquid remaining within the staves it imparts those characteristics. Thus, ex-bourbon casks will impart additional vanilla, crème brûlée, almond, hazelnut and butterscotch along with a distinct sweetness, but the most dramatic changes are imparted by ex-sherry casks, particularly those that held Oloroso sherry, which can give treacle, toffee, sultanas, raisins, plum, dark rich fruit cake gingerbread and walnuts. Also, ex wine casks can be used to impart further flavours.
Lumsden’s oak obsession and money (Glenmorangie is comfortably a top 5 selling whisky brand) has allowed him to be even more exacting with regards to the distilleries wood policy and he orders bespoke American oak casks which are fashioned from trees that are only grown on north facing slopes in Missouri and when those trees are felled the wood has to be air dried rather than the more usual kiln dried. These casks are predominantly reserved for the Astar bottling, which Lumsden has described as the “Original on steriods”, which I’m not going to disagree with, although I will say that The Original bottling can be a little variable and simple, but it is far from being a bad bottling. The Astar on the other hand is interesting.
However, it appears, for all his love of oak, Lumsden is also an advocate of balance. Possibly with exception of the Midwinter Night’s Dram you would never describe Glenmorangie bottlings as being an oak monsters. He is a pioneer in the art of finishing and without a doubt the Quinta Ruban is possibly the second finest port finished whisky on the market, second only to the Balvenie 21 year old. However, even pioneers have ‘off days’. Some of the wood finished 12 year olds from the mid 2000’s were a bit variable and I can’t say that I was blown away by the Dornoch release, but by and large Lumsden’s bottlings are full of balance and finesse.
The final area of experimentation for Lumsden, aside for the yeast business is with the malt. Once each year, probably at the end of the distilling season an amount of chocolate malt is added to the mashbill. This heavily roasted malt is more often used in the brewing of stouts and porter’s and as the name suggests imparts a distinct chocolaty note to the Signet bottling and although it can often be heavily oak influenced like many of Glenmorangies bottlings that distinctive chocolaty character is always evident.
So, just like I say about Glenfiddich, put aside any perceived notions that Glenmorangie is just a ‘starter’ malt and please don’t indulge in whisky snobbery because like Glenfiddich it is quite ubiquitous. What I keep saying is, like Glenfiddich, judge it on the ‘juice in the bottle’ and by and large that juice is pretty good and with some age it is more than just good!
(Image Copyright James Mortimer Photography)
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