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Fellow Drammers!
For this month's Drammers Book Club, we're going to delve into how do we best discuss whiskey controversies? Is it "Japanese whisky" if it's not actually distilled in Japan? What is ok and not ok when you source whiskey, how transparent do you need to be? What about "hyper-aged" or other whiskies using technology to skip the longer maturation process? And how do we define whiskey anyway? Is rice distillate whisky? In Japan no, in the USA yes. How about if molasses is in the mix? In India yes, in the rest of the world no. Are closed distilleries worthy of the hype? Have "finishes" gone too far? Here at Drammers Club, we love nerding out about these kinds of topics, and after months of looking at books that give us deep dives into particular types of whisky, we thought it would be fun to take a step back, a look at the broader picture -- is there a better framework to discuss all these interesting questions, philosophically?
So, we’re excited to announce our next Drammers Book Club event focuses on the book Whiskey & Philosophy: A Small Batch of Spirited Ideas. The is a collection of essays about whiskies, grouped into chapters such as Ethics and Whiskey, The Beauty and Experience of Whiskey, The Metaphysics of Whiskey, and Whiskey: A Sense of Place. These are all written by various authors, so instead of having the “author” of the book, we have its editor Fritz Allhoff (he edited it along with Marcus P. Adams). Together it tackles an interesting subject quite different than the other books we’ve read so far — essentially how whiskey affects culture, and how culture affects whiskey. It also provides an interesting framework for how to discuss controversies in whisky, and Fritz has encouraged us to include some whiskies that might inspire debate. After getting input from the members, we came up with an awesome lineup, many of these whiskies are the subject of great controversy, and then again, many of them are fantastic drinks:
Pour #1 - Rosebank. (Debate Topic: Are whiskies from closed distilleries worth the hype?) Since one of the sections is on The History and Culture of Whiskey, we thought it would be fun to include a long lost, and certainly very well regarded, Scotch from a closed (and now recently rebooted) distillery — a bottle from Rosebank, distilled in 1990 in the Lowlands, bottled in 2003, a 13 yo fully matured in a sherry cask and bottled at 46% abv. These bottles are becoming harder (and significantly more expensive) to come by, making this our definite headliner at least on price.
Pour #2: Templeton Rye 6yo (Debate Topic: What is ok and not ok when it comes to sourcing whiskey?) Templeton's whiskey tastes delightful, but they have been the subject of controversy. If you do a search for them online, this pops up near the top: "Iowa whiskey maker Templeton Rye has settled three class-action lawsuits accusing the company of intentionally misleading imbibers with claims about the homegrown origins of its spirit." How important is transparency, and what needs to be disclosed or not?
Pour #3: The Matsui Mizunara Cask (Debate Topic: Denomination of Origin Rules -- i.e. Is it "Japanese whisky" if it's not made in Japan?). We've heard for years about Japanese whisky that isn't actually made in Japan, how much does that matter? While certainly not alone in this practice, Kurayoshi has received criticism for some for its releases. As one article writes, this was shall we say "not helped" by an article that was published on the company's website back in 2016: The latter paragraphs of an essay entitled "About Whisky" posted on the company's homepage (since removed, but still available in the Wayback Machine) were viewed by some in the Japanese whisky world as a diatribe. The author says that many people in Japan like to "bestow their knowledge" of whisky upon whisky makers, and this is a "big pain in the ass for us makers." He continues: "I personally think it's important to have a better understanding before speaking up." Later, the author turns to semantics. "You can't really call [other Japanese whisky] 'made in Japan' since they're using raw materials from overseas." Controversial stuff. Then again, the whisky we'll be drinking on Sunday won a Double Gold at the San Francisco World Spirits Competition and was named Japanese Single Malt of the Year (multiple casks) in the Jim Murray 2020 Whisky Bible (NOTE: one of our members told us that this whisky actually WAS distilled in Japan, perhaps unlike their other “Kurayoshi” line, but a sufficient placeholder to have the discussion all the same) . In an industry that values "blind tasting", do the results justify the means?
Pour #4: Royal Challenge (Debate Topic: How Do We Define Whisky? Can you distill from rice, or (as here) from molasses and still call it whisky?). We love spirits of all types here at Drammers, so its no insult in our book to be deemed "not a whisky" by any means. Still, it's an interesting topic - what is whisky? Here we have a whisky made in part with molasses distillate from India, where so-called "Indian made foreign liquors" or IMFL are included in the definition of whisky, hence the broad statements that India consumes more whisky than any country in the world. But do they? Is IMFL whisky? Is rice whisky whisky? Let's taste this one and decide for ourselves!
Pour #5: Glyph (Debate Topic: When Does Technology Make It Whisky or Not Whisky?). Here's a hot-button topic. There are a lot of companies out there promising that they can make whisky quickly using technology, either by radically speeding up the maturation process (we are, for example, big fans of Lost Spirits distillery in Los Angeles), or potentially even more controversially taking something approaching a grain neutral spirit and adding whisky-like flavoring. Glyph has arguably been the boldest in this space, and seems a great place to start the conversation.
Pour #6: Barrell Craft Spirits KY Whiskey Finished in a Ratafia de Champagne Barrel (Debate Topic: Is the trend towards exotic finishes coming to an end?) That last one is a bit of a stretch admittedly, but our friends at Barrell generously gave us this bottle and I've been looking for an excuse to work it in somewhere, so squint and we'll make it work here, ha. But again, while many of these whiskies invite debate -- sometimes heated debate -- they're not necessarily bad, and just because we're including them in this tasting doesn't mean we don't think they're fantastic drinks (certainly we have nothing against that rare Rosebank!). On the contrary, debating whiskeys and other spirits is what we love to do here at Dammers Club, and we couldn't be more excited for this unique event to learn a broader framework for how to think about these topics and more. We couldn't ask for a better guide for this than our guest speaker Fritz Allhoff, the editor of this wonderful book. We hope you can join us. Cheers!
As we've done in the past, the samples are optional, but everyone is encouraged to buy the book on their own.
WHEN: April 18, starting at Noon Pacific / 2pm Central / 3pm Eastern / 21:00 in Europe
You can sign up for the event here at Drammers.com
$45/person for Drammers Members
$60/person for Drammers Observers