ralfy review 815 Extras - The variety of whisky buyers !
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- Опубліковано 13 вер 2024
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Ralfy talking straight to me, here...new to all this (genuine deep-diving on whisk(e)y) but I've done a lot or research and video watching, just trying to get an idea of where I should jump in. The fact is scotch drinking runs on my dad's side of the family but I didn't start until I was 44 and it only got fired up by accident as I recently had some Redbreast 15 on XMas Eve, that an uncle received as a gift for his recent retirement....GAME OVER! "Effectiveness of spending power" Exactly! I just need to find where my spot is. So far, the Bruichladdich Islay Barley 2011 is the one that's got me doing backflips but I can't wait to taste more of the rainbow! Good stuff, Ralfy!
Ralfy takes out a bottle of Dalmore, pours a dram, does a vlog, shuts camera off and then likely pours the dram back into the Dalmore bottle without taking a sip. Ralfy telling like it is and putting the boots to marketing!
Sir, thank you for making these lovely videos. I really appreciate it.
Sachin Kainth hear hear
Master class by a master. Greetings from a small island in the Atlantic.
Ralfy, I hope you get back to explaining the air dried wood versus charred wood you mentioned at the beginning of the video. Quite interested to hear your impressions on this
Having watched and re-watch your reviews malt reviews for a number of years,, this is the commentary to further extend my journey and appreciation of malt. Thanks, from NYC.
That ruby red Dalmore bottle is disgustingly distracting!
The state of the sherry market has a lot to do with it. The sad truth is that outside Spain nobody drinks sherry any more. The result is fewer and more expensive casks.
The majority of casks used to provide sherry finishes are only "sherry conditioned", not casks used in the commercial preparation of sherry. - www.whiskynotes.be/sherry-casks-in-the-whisky-industry.pdf?pdf=sherry-casks.
@Broccoli Broccoli . . . . . and your medical evidence is ?
@Broccoli Broccoli Frankly it's not. It's fortifed white wine fermented and aged in oak.
@@Malt454 Neat report, thanks!
It is great to hear your comprehensive input on this topic, not just the usual bits and pieces from the videos. The thing is, time by time I face with the destructive mindset of these so called high spending "collectors" who does not even know what they are buying. Do not care about the quality whatsoever....and there are these kind of people, immersed deep into the industry as well, which makes me really disappointed. It does because obviously they know what is good, and they are buying the good stuff for themselves, but facilitating the ignorant people to buy the rest of the stuff, and inherently bumping up the prices in the whole industry. Why? Simply because it is a false feedback to the industry, the s**t that they are producing (bought by collectors) are also good stuff, so let's make more of it. I get there are different approaches to collecting whiskies and I am a huge advocate of the notion; "what is the liquid inside"...but really this fraction of consumers are so so tiny, it makes the situation of newbies harder and harder. As time goes by, the newcomers are going to face with lesser and lesser quality as their first impression, and it is going to shrink the whole business on the long term. I am just disappointed that te so called professionals are does not care about this at all. Does not matter what they are saying, what they are doing for the industry, if silently (or not even silently) the are acting differently. Sorry for the seemingly negative, but apparently very real opinion of mine onto this topic, but I feel sorry for the new consumers who, lets say 5 years later wants to buy some better positioned whiskies to get to know, "What is all the buzz about?"
That Dalmore looks like it's been to the Med for a suntan! I find I can now tell through smell and taste the heavy addition of caramel. My current 3 are a Classic Laddie, 12 year old Edradour Caledonia and 12 year old Deanston. Clean , uncluttered NCF (or minimal filtering) , Nat colour and minimum 46% abv. I used to like the Dalmore but have been put off (by you Ralfy - lol) in recent times.
Dont do that. Dont fall into that trap. You have changed your mind on something you enjoy just because ralphy said so.
studies have all shown that people are unable to tell if colour or filtration has been used, in fact some showed people have preferred the ones that had colour or filtration. Hell, the guys at the whisky tribe sipped a cup of pure colouring and wasnt even immediately sure it wasnt just plain water! Ralphy, in all his knowledge has no way to tell how much colour has been added. He just sees it and has an immediately biased opinion. If he doesnt like the marketing, fine. Completely valid. We all prefer natural coloured whisky, but its pretty obvious he lets his disdain for marketing affect his opinion on the flavour. Hes doing the same thing he claims the marketers do, alter your experience based on appearance of the bottle, except his bias swings in the negative direction.
He has never quantified the taste change it causes specifically, just vague references to something 'lacking'. He doesnt have one with colour, one without, one with filtration, one without to do a blind comparison, so how would he know? the answer is, he cannot. Its not his preference, thats fine, but dont let him scare you off perfectly decent whiskies just because they have colour or filtration, because i bet you will never know the difference.
I have australian whisky's that are non chill filtered, no colour 63% that dead set look like ribena in the bottle and have a thinner mouth feel than the dalmore 15. Thin Mouth feel is NOT a certain indication of filtration, so dont look at a bottle that says its filtered and then knock it for having thin mouth feel. Some whiskies are just thinner than others, with or without filtering.
Dont fall into the trap of snobbery like this. If you like it, who gives a shit. drink it. Take it for what it is. I personally prefer the dalmore 15 over 18. i think the 15 has more bold flavors, and i got a 1L bottle for a good price. GOOD! i will enjoy all of that and not ruin it by being snobby and fooling myself that i can taste something thousands of people in tests have failed to detect.
@@slickstrings It's all opinion my friend. I reserve the right to my opinion as you do yours.
What Ralfy has done is open my eyes to certain realities - including the fact that colouring and filtration actually serve no good purpose other than to line the pockets of multi-national corporations through marketing. Flavour change with/without colouring is super subtle - sometimes I can detect the difference - often not. But the over processing in order to mass market does annoy the hell out of me. So I tend to stick to artisan presentations from small producers. Enjoy your Dalmore 15 - I would never try and take that away from you :) Just not my choice any more. I have grown and matured in my preferences during my journey - which has been ongoing now for about 40 years.
Slange..
@@mikeaddison-saipe5820 "I have grown and matured in my preferences" my goodness, I need a good sized bucket to puke in when I read that.
I cannot really speak for taste (I have yet to taste any of the Dalmores).
But, I find it very useful to know that, behind the marketing 'whohaa' with Richard P. you will find a product that may or may not be worth the price you need to pay, here it is around €100 for 70cl of the 15 year old.
For that price, there are many many other well tasting and perhaps more honest and less hyped products, so I thank Ralfy for providing us with a wealth of knowledge and information of what is available and some tasting notes to go along with that.
I will try the Dalmore at some point, but in a bar, just to try them out, I have some references at home that I can compare them to at this point.
If I like one of them, I may consider buying, but only if the price vs my palate preference can be defended in a reasonable manner. I suspect it will be a struggle for the Dalmore to beat my Glenfarclas'es, my Aberlour's, my Glendronach's and even the 18 year old triple cask Macallan I have in min shelf.
But, never say never :)
@@hankbankster9700 I'm with you there. And yes-many thanks to Ralfy for his knowledge and guidance over the last 10 years. As I read your comment I thought of the bottles I have at home (Glenfarclas 15,Edradour 12,Deanston 12, Macadam 15, Arran 10, Kilchoman Sanaig, G &Mcp Caol Isla 12, the list does go on) and I note that without me "missing out" on any flavour experiences I have a serious collection of some very good SMW. I don't see the need to compromise.
Great information. Thank you! And look out for 30 Year Old, Triple Wonderful Cask Editions.
Hi Ralfy, would you consider reviewing more often a current bottle and one of its past versions from 10, 15, 20 years ago? I think it would be interesting to review in contrast and go deeper into what you can really sense it changed over the years. Wish you a wonderful week ahead till the next malt moment.
Always a pleasure to watch your reviews! Greetings from Central Adriatic.
An extremely astute assessment. Nice one Mr M.
Ralfy, I wonder if you could tell us more about what makes a good cask and what makes a bad one.
. . . I will do that later this year !
Thanks Ralfy, great insight as always and much appreciated. Problem is that whilst the majority of production is focused on the 'mass' market appeal, the production volume of integrity malts, of highest quality is relatively low... and whilst collector focus artificially inflates the rarer releases from the big 'brands', they also go after the integrity stock... which drives those prices ridiculously high as flippers take over, and as limited stock is hoarded... just look at what has happened to Daftmill... a cracking dram, but flippers double the price and more overnight on every release... and this is now also filtering into the independents, as the value of their casks increases exponentially.
Others are also 'cashing in'. I have been following the re-development of Rosebank with interest, and they recently invited folks to register for a release of older stock... at £2500-£3000 a bottle. One for the wealthier collectors only. I can understand this may help fund the investment needed to re-open, but it seems excessive to me.... Of course, as you say, whether its fine wine, art, watches or cars, or even other commodities, its all only worth what someone is willing to pay for it, but it is a shame that so much interesting stock will never be tasted, whether good or average - after all, as you develop your palette, its no longer about just finding stuff you really like, but about sampling stuff you hope to find really interesting.
The other problem is that relative high quality, and relative complexity, take time to create - a problem that the industry has worked around for its own benefit by selling people on the idea that (when it suits production schedules) age suddenly "doesn't matter". When you can premiumize both young AND old stock by saying age doesn't matter - sell the young stuff at inflated prices and undisclosed ages while also making the old stuff just that much more rare - you have the commercial benefit of raising prices for two groups: those you can fool on the subject of age and those you can't.
As Whisky gets more "Hip and In" it's a good thing these Status bottles are out there to divert the punters from the good quality values out there so there is enough for us! :-p Cheers
Engagement and connection. I heard Peter Honore say recently that playing a variety of gigs is actually 80% just being able to get on with folks. Life lessons.
I have never bought a bottle I didn't intend to open and drink. have I sold/traded bottles? yes, if the happy coincidence of them going up in value/price presented itself. used the money to buy more whisky :-) Slainte Ralfy, your analysis is, as usual, spot on.
Got disappointed by a bottle of Lasanta recently. A bottle from a few months earlier was amazing, and then boom… the next bottle was so poor I wouldn’t have guessed it was the same whisky. Shame on Glenmorangie!
I’d like to see you review Jenever once. They say it’s like Dutch Gin, but that’s not the case. Yes, it’s flavored with juniper but where Gin basically is a flavored wodka, Jenever is a triple distilled grain-spirit with juniper as one of its flavors. Once Jenever was enjoyed throughout the World, but now it’s very much a local Dutch spirit. Thé Dutch Spirit, I might add.
Fun idea, though I would enjoy it most if he tried Corenwyn or Aged jenevers..
Nathan Walaardt Sacre I absolutely agree. No Young Jenever.
Very true what you say at the end. I think for example Glengoyne/Tamdhu is doing this very well: they communicate about their cask quality and Spanish cooperages. Waterford is also a good (Irish) example about how and what to communicate (in their case = terroir)
Still waiting on a "Ralfy clicker" montage. ;)
Me too, but my guess is he's a little too proud for that ;)
Fred Labosch ehh, I know Ralfy does not take himself too seriously...and he always says, “a change is as good as a rest.” 😉
If a person wanted to start a collection--(rum, bourbon, whiskey, and/or whisky)--would you just advise them to start with what they like and build from there? I'm not overly concerned with increasing value down the line--just a really good collection of decent beasties. Just starting makes me nervous! Thanks much.
I always keep a basic malty and go back to it. It keeps your bearings and sometime I just want something less complicated.
Robert Rogers * Me too. Glenfiddich 12 and Glenmorangie 10 ("The Original") are the basics I keep there for reset of bearings and sometimes just to wet ma whistle before a more challenging malt moment. (This to on advice from Ralfy - and it works!)
Just tried a Tamdhu 12. Lovely stuff
There's a nice whisky bar in Inverness, and everytime I'm home ( i work abroad), i head in there with my mate, who I got back into whisky in agood way. I buy whisky/collect whisky for fun. I'm not opening the bottles unless i have a duplicate. Saving if not most of them for hopefully 10-15 yrs. Compared to some youtubers who present their collections on youtube, I'm an amature. I do like to try whiskies when I'm flying, and buy the Travellers Exclusives or Small/Limited Batches. I also buy online and in the supermarkets. A nice whisky I came across is Bannisters. I found this to be nice, a bit sharp in taste, but smoother with a droplet of water. I enjoy trying whiskies such as this, that I've not come across before, but my go to whiskies is Aberlour 12, and Tamnavulin Double Cask.
They are nice to drink at home with or without friends after a nice long day.
I really enjoy your channel, keep up with the good work.
Hey, do you mind sharing the address of this whisky bar? Would be great to have the local's knowledge when I travel there eventually!
Thanks!
@@mairisbriedis6967 Hi, sorry for delayed reply.
Hopefully once these strange times have passed you'll be able to visit this wee place in Inverness.
The Malt Room
34 Church St,
Inverness
IV11EH
It's just off Church Street, up a wee alleyway.
Hopefully you'll visit it once times become normal again.
@@andrewmcintosh6413 Thank you! I will definitely pay a visit there once I go to Inverness after things are back to normal in the world!
Cheers!
@@mairisbriedis6967 , perhaps when this virus is over, and if I'm home we could meet up in the said establishment ( fingers crossed it will survive) for a few drams?
@@andrewmcintosh6413 Sure! We can then rise our glasses to those who survived! Meanwhile I will have to step up my whisky knowledge and tasting palette, haha!
Cheers and stay healthy, friend!
The joke is, with the nutbag collectors who never drink what they buy, you only need to fake the bottle and label.
Hi Ralfy. Have been looking at your old whisky stash videos. What about (just an idea)doing a couple of update videos on your stash,after all its been a number of years and I would say its changed quite a bit. 🤔👍
Hi ralfy. I'm still fairly new to whiskeys. My current favs are monkey shoulder for Scotch, redbreast lustau for Irish, and Buffalo Trace for bourbon
@@elijahfluw4347 Wild Turkey 101 is undrinkable swill.
It's actually fantastic, but I'm trying to keep the price down.
your lighting seem too bright, nice vid as always, thanks for all your hard work!
I was planning a pre purchase taste test, and Quinta Ruban was to be included. Putting on hold until review 816
Quinta Ruban 14 is great!😋😋😋
ETH Zurich has a lab that can do analysis on whiskies without removing the seal via mass spectrometry. I have done whiskey testing in the past with past with a Thermo EA-MS. Seals have to be broken to test & standards were provided at a considerable cost from a government food & drugs testing company. An uninvasive testing by uv-vis wouldn't give you the molecular signature.
Hullo Ralfy,
We've all heard of aqua vitae and uisge beatha and 1494: 8 bolls of malt. I have a query, if I may. When did the word 'Scotch' first appear? All that is found is whiskie...which becomes whisky in 1716. The term 'Scottish' is inferred in the tax proposal of 1644. No real pinpointable year when 'Scotch' first appeared.
Thank you for your reviews and extras Ralphy- much appreciated!
Watching the reviews from yourself and others it strikes me it’s almost be fun to get reviewers to self publish and share their favoured flavour profiles (and maybe analyse their reviews to see if it holds!)
Eg are there many “sweeter tooth” or herbal/floral favouring reviewers to give reviews of these areas? Would guess that reviewers better give comparative and objective reviews in their flavour profile wheelhouse (and can’t in flavour profile areas that they personally don’t like). Anyway thanks me again, so great to have such a catalogue of videos spanning years (just finished watching your Springbank distillery tour - any ideas where o line to easily get the various Spring and offerings? Seems a bit more niche)
. . .Springbank hard to find now.
I think I would rather invest in a whisky collection of flavours,smells and memories than one that will hopefully be worth a lot more money in the future,but that is just me.
But what you're talking about involves buying and actually opening bottles, which is the practical opposite of whisky collecting: buying unopened bottle-shaped doorstops on someone's word that the contents are good (a point that's completely unprovable and irrelevant in any case) and holding them, unopened, until you sell them or die.
Sing it Ralphie.
Hi ralfy
I just wonder if you have ever put a flash light up against your whiskey bottles and seen what is really in your bottle, I do this flash light test on every bottle that I pour from, for example I just put the light test on the bottle 🍼 of glendronach 18year old and there is so much junk in the bottle and the glass, it's unbelievable, this particulate is very easy to see, I don't know what it means but I know that the whiskey is filtered but to what extent, it is suppose to be none chill filtered, but do none chill filtered whiskey have this amount of particulate, is barrier filtered whiskey the same?? I will keep trying this method until I see 👀 no particulate in my whiskey and I will figure out the way these whiskeys are filtered, or not filtered, ralfy give this a try and tell us fans who watch your reviews why we see this in our whiskeys, very interesting test I've done, and I'm waiting to see what you think about this, cheers 🍻 brother, hope to see 👀 a video from you related to this question,you magnificent malt making mortician !!!
. . .the less filtered a whisky is, the more you see the cask sediment of wood bits and sometimes hessian bung fabric. All harmless, If in doubt, put your malt through a wet unused coffee filter. Good luck.
@@thewhiskybothy
Thank you ralfy for that bit of knowledge, I don't think however I will be putting it through the filter, it's just I didn't know if you had ever noticed the particulate in the bottles which you can't see normally, without a flashlight, it's my first time noticing it, I always assumed all whiskey had filtered all the cask charring and tidbits out, after all these years I never noticed it before, still learning about whiskey I guess, I have only been drinking scotch for about 30 years, and never done this before, I always hang on to the filtering that you mention about chill filtered and non chill filtered and barrier filtered, I have just been experiencing the lot on filtering, thanks for the reply ralfy !!!
I bought Laphroaig 25yo in travel retail at Heathrow so it is reckless to generalise that you only get crap in travel retail.
Hej Ralfy,
I'm a big fan of yours and through the whole video I was thinking about how right you are (again, as always ;-) because what brought me to be a whisky fan was a Glenmorangie Quinta Ruban. So I bought the new 14 year old with a big memory of smell and taste of the 12 year old and I guess I know exactly what your video will be about. What a luck that I have a few 1l bottlings of the old Quinta Ruban in my collection (Thx to your advices). I wanted to write this comment through the whole video and in the end you state that this Glenmorangie will be your next review video. I have a strong guess there will be a use for your new malt mark range.
Here a Malt mention although I know you stopped collecting (just for your entertainment):
Malt mention:
Malt marks minimisation
maximizes Malt mentions meanings
marvelous Maltastic
All the best, I really love your fitter philosophy videos too
I think the biggest takeaway from this episode was “cross-reference” Gone are my days of impulse buying, UA-cam and social media alike are now the tools I use. I’ll always cross-reference these platforms and make sure they’re all singing off the same song sheet. I have noticed when certain platforms give good reviews the prices almost increase overnight. Just saying...
We can never work out the customers at whisky tastings or whisky shows. In London you get a good number of City types after work at tastings. Whether they are there because it is a social event or because whisky is fashionable I don’t know. Put it this way, they don’t look like drinkers.
Yes, life was simpler in the old days. The Distillers Company controlled many of the big selling blends. Bells or Teachers cost a few shillings more. People were more easily pleased. There was less oneupmanship in drinks too. There was no foreign whisky in the British Isles apart from Canadian Club.
I wonder how many informed malt mates there are compared to "frequent whisky drinkers"? 1:100? 1:1000??
I find it's a good acid test to ask them if they think age matters to whisky.
@@Malt454 Is there a 'correct' answer? And if there is, what is it?
@@jic1 - There's no real doubt that age does matter to whisky, but the line of argument in support of NAS (Non-Age Statement) products usually goes something like:
"Age is no guarantee of quality" - as if anything IS a guarantee of quality or product information should be eliminated on that basis; maybe get rid of ABV on the label as well because it's "no guarantee of quality"?
"There are many good NAS whiskies" - except none are good, or made better, simply because they have their age information removed, and NAS itself is only a labeling choice, not a whisky process. If I rip off every label of every bottle, and make them all NAS, have I "enhanced" the quality of my whisky collection?
"Producers have their hands tied, by law, about what they can reveal about age" - yet the big players in the SWA don't see any need to reform the law either, saying it's "fit for purpose" -
"‘What we have been informed of since we kicked off the transparency campaign was that, through the SWA, the industry if you will has communicated that there’s no desire to effect any change in the law at this time,’ says Glaser. ‘They view the law as “fit for purpose”, in their words.’ - John Glaser, Compass Box. - scotchwhisky.com/magazine/in-depth/11234/compass-box-ends-transparency-drive-for-now/
"Age is just a number" - except that producers track the age of every cask they rack and whisky is aged for different durations BECAUSE of the effects it has on the finished product.
Many of the same people who will tell you how age "doesn't matter" will, in the next breath, tell you that revealing product information somehow stands against the wonders of multivintaging, even though the difference that age makes is precisely the cornerstone OF multivintaging.
The truth is, if the industry says it can somehow "decide" when and if cask physics apply to its products and when they don't simply by the label applied, it's all, quite obviously, complete nonsense. Those who would defend the recent rapid expansion of NAS should ask themselves who does it benefit and how does it benefit consumers at all: did consumers somehow "demand" to know less about what they're spending more and more money on, or was it an idea first sold TO them by the whisky industry?
Dalmore 12 year is on sale in my area...now I have to try it and see what all the fuss is about
ok, got it right now...hmmm, kind of like a bland Ballantines with Sherry and sweet cherry notes. Hint of something Jerez Brandy like. Its not unpleasant, maybe the wife might like it. for the price I would prefer four actual bottles of sherry or jerez brandy
yeah, finish this one after 10 minutes, don't let it sit and don't add water...its even thinner now if thats possible. this might be the first bottle of something i don't finish and save for "special" guests ;)
I see you couldn’t get the stag back on!
malt mention - "Malty Muncher Mother Muckers!" - Ken, Tom & Mark from U.S.A.
. . . now on the M-mention List, thanks !
Well said Ralfy. Prost...
omg Ralfy, your book is on bol.com {The Netherlands]
❤️👌
Now on facebook for all to see Look for Lee EightTen Bird for the truth if you want it !
Mainey malt mermaids 🙃
. . . now on the M-mention List, thanks !
First?
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. . . Verified as First !
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The problem with deficiency of good quality casks is just an excuse, Ralfy. And there is one very exact and reliable way to understand each one's whisky buyer profile. Ask him about his watch. Because even expensive watches are relatively affordable and the brand and model will tell you about the owner and his taste more than thousand words and surveys.
And what if I don't wear a watch?
@@KNURKonesur You are different category. There is a specific segment for people without watches
@@nickolaymiltenov what segment would that be? :D
@@KNURKonesur Check for yourself in Google. I have no time to explain.
@@nickolaymiltenov so you're just a troll then, cool :)
I think you're losing the plot mate
@@Bringadingus read more
What is this guy even saying?