Quote:
Originally Posted by Eratosthenes
Renato1
Pity you had a bad experience with an Australian whisky - there are some excellent blends and single malts coming out of Australian distilleries (Tassie especially), but are generally expensive. In the same price bracket most of the Australian whisky products just don't compare with anything coming out of Scotland - they do ok against some US whiskies though)
About 2 years ago I was lucky enough to taste a few whiskies at Bakery Hill Distilleries in outer Melbourne (Bayswater somewhere - although David (owner) was talking about a move to the Dandenong mountains). Bakery Hill Distilleries make a few products which includes a Gin. The bottle I bought was their standard aged (>7 years) Single Malt Whiskey for $110. This was a smaller 500 mL bottle so it was quite expensive if you compare it to the 700 mL standard bottle. He also had a single Malt Cask Strength bottle (~ 62% alcohol) for $135 which also sold in a 500 mL bottle. I tasted the cask strength whisky with a few drops of water added to release the flavours and smell, and it was superb.
Fantastic whisky, but realistically, you can buy Scottish Single Malt whiskies that are similar in quality for as low as $90 per bottle (and that's for a 700 mL bottle)
http://www.planetwhiskies.com/images...bakeryhill.jpg
I think the Australian Whisky industry suffers from its inherent small commercial scale as compared to the larger more experienced whiskey industry in Scotland.
But if you wish to support the Australian whisky distilling sector, then you may need to fork out about $30 to $50 extra per bottle to obtain a similar quality as imported Scottish products.
(unless of course you can smell or taste something unique in an Australian distilled and aged whiskey and wish to pay extra for it. In fact that would be my advice to the Australian whisky distilling industry - make something uniquely Australian, in flavour, taste and smell and market it domestically and internationally otherwise why would customers pay the extra dollars?) |
Thanks Peter,
So far Australian and particularly Tasmanian whisky appears to be a niche market for connoisseurs who, as you say are willing to fork out the extra $30 to $50 for a bottle for something very good and a bit different. And single malt whisky is actually more a connoisseur item, compared to blended whisky which the general public prefer buying to the single malts.
Given the excellence now being accorded to fine Aussie whiskies, it appears that few of them have bothered trying making a decent blended whisky from their single malts - which would translate to an extra $10 to $20 premium per bottle from lack of economies of scale, but which would be on par with imported premium blended scotch whiskies. Or if they have, they may have had problems with distribution and shelf space in liquor stores.
Or it could be that the Australians just do not have the blending skills that the Scots have - who have huge teams working on their blends, and who jealously guard their blending recipes.
The only relatively big selling Australian blended whisky I know of is Bond 7, and I've only ever seen it sold at IGA liquor outlets. Though when my firends ran a pub 20 years ago, they explained that when people asked for Whisky and Coke they got Australian whisky (Corio, I think) and when they asked for Scotch and Coke, they paid 10 cents more and got a cheap Scotch whisky instead. So that back then Australians in pubs mainly drank Australian blended whisky.
Anyhow - I can guarantee that Blend 73 will never make it into pubs or anywhere else.
Cheers,
Renato