Whisky solera, continued
My pours haven’t been precise up to this point in my unpeated living bottle. The figures I gave last time about the relative volumes of the constituent whiskies were close but not perfect. They summed to 175 mL (but I did not measure it) before I poured off a tasting sample. My sample was probably about 25 ml, then I found another bottle to add (allegedly) 50 mL of to it, then poured off two tasting samples on two nights. Now I’ve measured the volume, and it’s, as far as I can tell, exactly 200 mL. I’ve made a measurement error. Assuming my errors were constant up until now (a significant assumption, but reasonable since I’ve been doing the same equipment), I’ve been off by about 25% in my pours. But I have calibrated my equipment now, and now we can begin newly calibrated.
What we need to do is to pour off enough of the existing bottle so that it matches the series as we want to continue. Currently our formula for the total volume before the pouring should be ((7*8)/(2*7))*X=250, where X is the size of the pours I’ve actually been making. Solving for X, we get X = 250/4, or 62.5mL. I measured the amount I think I’ve been pouring, and it’s very close to this number. We’ve already poured off 50 mL of this, or 20%, so we have therefore poured out 20% of our largest pour, 62.5 mL, leaving us at (ta da) 50 mL. So what’s the amount we have to pour out to make this fit our series? The hard way to do this is with division, but since we now have a bottle with 50 mL of the largest contributor in place and everything else in line, we can intuitively see that we just need to pour off a standard tasting sample, 25 mL, and our bottle will be ready for the next contribution. Seen another way, (1/7 + 2/7 + … + 6/7 + 7/7) * 50 is (56/7)/2 * 50, or 4 * 50 is our current volume before the pour (200 mL). So hold on while I go pour one.
The whisky I added was Aberlour 100, a nice, Christmasy, sherried malt.
To run down the contributions so far, it’s:
- 7 mL Glendronach 15 sherry cask
- 14 mL Aberlour a’bunadh, euro bottling (heavily sherried)
- 21 mL Glenturret ‘80/’00 (Blackadder)
- 29 mL Glen Moray 12 Chenin Blanc finish
- 35 mL Glen Moray 16
- 43 mL Glen Garioch 8
- 50 mL Aberlour 100
Nose: Candied fruits, spiced apple cider, raspberry fudge truffles, rye crackers.
Palate: Prickly, warm, reminiscent of a young sherried Glenfarclas, cinnamon imperials.
Finish: Somewhat muddled at first, then resolving into licorice and hints of cherry sours.
Notes: As you can see, the sherry casks are back, making up 36% of the volume, letting the worse whiskies take on filler roles.
Score: 86/100
I’ve added one more sample to the bottle, which I’ll leave to marry for a week and have another installment of the series.
Click “living bottle” below (grey metadata box on the site itself) for the other entries in the series.
Email subscription
