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Scotched

By Jeannette Batz Cooperman

William Meyers was in college, headed toward law school, when a friend’s father informed him, “If you’re going to be a lawyer, you have to drink scotch”—and solemnly handed him a bottle. His fraternity’s free kegs every weekend held more appeal, but years later he went to a scotch tasting and remembered his vocation. With the first sip, a world opened up. Each single-malt scotch had its own distinct taste, carrying clues to its distillery and even to the cask it was aged in. He swirled peat smoke on his tongue, caught hints of seaweed and raisins, felt leather, toffee and tobacco slide past his tongue …

When Meyers started listening to merchant bottlers, scotch got even more interesting. They explained how they bought or traded unique casks and did single-cask bottlings, limited-edition scotches numbered by the bottle.

That scotch was cask strength, not diluted to 42 percent alcohol as it is at big distilleries. Nor was it fastidiously chill-filtered to remove the cloudiness caused by congealed lipids. “By filtering, you lose some of the flavor, the oiliness that coats your mouth,” Meyers says, “although for neophytes I don’t recommend cask strength, because the alcohol content will be so high, it’ll blow them away, both on the nose and on the palate.

“Lighter scotches have floral notes, like violets or grass, but on Islay, an island off the coast of Scotland, you get peat smoke and iodine,” he continues. “Some people describe the taste as chewing on old Band-Aids. In Omaha, I was at a scotch tasting, and one bottle had a definite pine scent. A bottling we were drinking in Chicago last spring had the cedary taste of pencil shavings.”

Most scotch is aged in bourbon casks, but some is finished in sherry or rum casks, and its sweetness approaches (although never reaches) that of bourbon. “With bourbon, what matters is the recipe, the mash bill. A bourbon might be 51 percent corn, 30 percent rye, 19 percent wheat. Single-malt scotch is all malted barley.”

As founder and president of the St. Louis Scotch Club, Meyers tracks local tastings (e-mail scotchguy@earthlink.net). “I got tired of flying to Chicago,” he explains. “There are knowledgeable people at The Wine Merchant, The Wine & Cheese Place and Lukas Liquors, but they have to know they have an audience before they’ll bring in ambassadors from different distilleries.”

There are fine scotch selections at the Scottish Arms, Brennan’s and, yes, Growlers Pub, he adds. You can also buy collectors’ scotches. “I tasted a $7,000 bottle of Macallan—not worth it,” says Meyers. Something he did love? “A 35-year-old Bowmore, an Islay whiskey aged in a sherry cask, one of 282 bottles. It tasted of heavily mildewed socks soaked in sherry with peat moss on top.” Realizing that he hasn’t quite conveyed the appeal, he reaches for Malt Advocate’s 94 rating: “lush, thick fruit and chewy toffee soothe the assertive notes of earthy peat and leafy bonfire. Underlying smoked nuts, brine, kalamata olive and tobacco ...”

Meyers owns perhaps 1,000 bottles of scotch and swears he’s opened one of every kind. “People buy rare bottles, just snatch ’em up as investments, and they gather dust,” he says disgustedly. “Scotch should be shared and enjoyed.”

Scotches Worth Sipping

For about $50 a bottle:

“The Macallan cask-strength, from the Speyside region of the Scottish Highlands, matured in oak sherry casks from Spain. Pale gold and smooth, with hints of toffee, vanilla, raisins and spices, it’s Macallan’s flagship in the U.K. I liked it so much, I bought four cases.”

Also reasonable? The 10-year-old Laphroaig, from one of the distilleries on Islay in the Western Isles: “It’s got a strong, peaty smoky flavor.”

For about $350 a bottle:

“Ledaig 1972, a cask-strength distillery bottling from the historic year the Ledaig distillery reopened. It’s got
some peat, and it’s finished in Oloroso sherry casks—a very dry sherry, which makes the scotch unique. Just a wonderful bottling.”

And if money is no object?

“The Bowmore 1970 from Signatory Vintage, smoky and salty, slightly perfumed, from Bowmore on the shores of Loch Indaal. It’s been called ‘enigmatic.’”

Or the Macallan 1949, from the distillery’s ‘fine and rare’ vintage line, aged in hogshead casks on Speyside for 50 years. A citrus and peaty nose and hints of wood and spice on the palate.”