I’ve been drinking whisky for a long time, I’m in my forties and I’ve been drinking whisky for a quarter of a century which sounds far grander than twenty five years so I’ll keep rolling with it.
I was at a swanky party once and this swanky chap I was speaking too worked for Moet, remember and pronounce that T people, and he said, in his sexy French accent, that part of his job was ensuring that every bottle of the Non Vintage Moet tasted exactly the same, every bottle, every time, every year. This can’t be easy and it must be the same with whisky.
The final reason? Well it’s keeping the price down isn’t it? Which is why expensive bottles at 40% do seem a little bit silly, single malts especially at the higher end of Supermarket and local booze shop price bracket should have a bit more happening strength wise for sixty to a ninety quid, no? Yes.
Over the last couple of years I’ve been sampling old blends from past decades and they are, in the main, very different and a lot better than they are now but that’s not what I’m writing about here, 40% must be the right level of alcohol to both bring balance and flavour to a whisky and to make every bottle taste the same which is what the vast majority of whisky drinkers want, no matter what you might think when you look at your selection of cask strength independent bottles most people just want consistency but personally but that said I think producers are in real danger of letting standards slip in quality and people will stop buying a product if eventually they click that although the product is consistent it’s also shite.
So come on, let’s be honest with ourselves, 40% is fine for somethings but it’s just naked profiteering in others, the hard part is figuring out who’s doing what.
The Captain.