As part of my preparation for the Burnie Ten fun-run I stopped for lunch at the
Hellyers Road Distillery... Lunch consisted out of a couple of nips from the distiller's choice casks. I came home with a scandalous amount of bottles of whiskey, ranging from the original, the slightly peated to the fully peated, fully sick!
The Hellyers Road Distillery is the largest single malt whisky distillery in Australia. This level of production ensures there will always be sufficient stocks of original single malt whisky to survive any world recession here on the North West Coast...
Seriously, it was most interesting. Distiller Mark Littler took me through the facility at short notice on an unscheduled tour and I was most impressed! My question about the lighter colour of the whiskey was answered to my satisfaction; we do not add the
caramel colouring that is used by
the majority of all whiskey makers! Research located this article on the official website of the
Scotch Malt Whisky Society, the world's leading specialist in single malt, single cask, and cask strength whiskies.
For – now we get to the tricky bit – colour, usually in the form of spirit caramel, has been added to whisky since way back. Certainly since the 1840s, when the virtues of ex-sherry cask maturation were first recognised. In these days, horrid substances like shellac were added by unscrupulous blenders, though spirit caramel does the job best.
When Scotch whisky was first defined by law in 1909, there was no mention of colouring up. The current legal definition (1988) says that Scotch cannot be Scotch if anything is added to it “other than water and spirit caramel”.
The reason for colouring up is to standardize colour differences from batch to batch. Non-connoisseur consumers become suspicious if the bottle they buy today is totally different in appearance to the bottle they bought last week. Also, Dr. Swan tells me that caramel performs very useful functions in a blend by pulling together flavours, improving smoothness and mouthfeel.
They make a nice drop, Cheers!
