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Region: Highlands (Orkney)
Owner: Chivas Brothers (Pernod Ricard)
Founded: 1885
Scapa, to be fair has always perplexed me. I remember back in the early 2000’s tasting a couple of bottlings which were made up of spirit distilled in the 1980’s and although those tasting notes have been lost in the mists of time I can clearly remember them being incredibly windswept and salty, something like old skool Talisker. Having tasted their whiskies over the intervening period I have wondered where that real coastal character had gone to. The closest I had got to that legendary old style of spirit was the Mackillop’s Choice 23 year old which was distilled in 1991.
Could this change of style coincided with the distillery moving from Hiram Walker to Allied Domecq (or Allied Lyons as it was at the time) in 1987. Could it be that more of its casks are being matured on the mainland rather than on Orkney? Could it be the heavier use of first fill Bourbon casks? Could it be a combination of all three? Either way it is definitely a mystery, that I don’t have the answer to, at the moment.
Scapa has always been a fruity whisky. Prior to 2015 it boasted one of the longest fermentation times in the industry at 150 hours, but since Pernod Ricard increased the production from 3 days per week to a full 7 day production, the fermentation of the wort has been cut to 70 hours, which is still relatively long. Obviously it will be few years yet until we see what affect that has had on the finished spirit. What I can say, however is that 2015 saw a fundamental change in the range, obviously the owners felt that the distillery needed a ‘brand refresh’, so out went the old 16 year old, that at its best showed all of that lovely, tropical Scapa fruitiness and in came a no age statement bottling called Skiren.
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Like a number of other distilleries this change to no age statement bottling meant that they could use a lot more younger spirit in the vatting for this bottling and that is obvious, so in order to address the shortcomings of less mature spirit they decided to throw loads and loads of oak at it. Yes, it was the classic first fill Bourbon cover up. Now, this Skiren isn’t a bad bottling per se, but it has made Scapa almost unrecognisable now and surely the ageing of non-peated spirit in ex-peated whisky cask in the gLnaza bottling, s is a bit of a lazy way of shoehorning in a peated malt into the range for the peatheads? Why not create a full fat version using peated malt? I guess the usual answer would have something to do with not wanting to swamp the character of the spirit with peat, or some such marketing waffle. But here’s a thought. Couldn’t you have just created proper lightly peated spirit instead?
Anyway, one thing we can applaud Pernod Ricard for is that they haven’t chucked out the Lomond still that Hiram Walker introduced. At least the distillery has retained something of its quirkiness, although the still is currently employed as the wash still without any of the rectifying plates fitted. It is also another reason for why their spirit is so fruity – copper contact. I mean the amount of copper in that still is huge, so the reality is that the spirit still isn’t exactly overworked when it comes to removing the sulphourous compounds. I suppose that is probably the real reason why they haven’t gone down the line of making a proper peated spirit because it would mean an awful lot of experimentation with cut points to get the balance of peat and fruit just right, but then I suppose they would be accused of trying to be like that other distillery on Orkney. It’s such a hard life this whisky making lark!
(Image Copyright James Mortimer Photography and Scapa Distillery)
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