In June 2019, the Scotch whisky world changed forever. In a move that many had long campaigned for, the Scotch Whisky Association (SWA) made a seismic ruling: for the first time, a far wider range of casks was permitted for use in maturation. Up until this point, only whisky from ‘traditional’ vessels could be released under the ‘Scotch’ banner. This allowed the use of bourbon, Sherry, rum and wine cask, plus a handful of other examples where a historical-use case could be proven. But from that moment, the likes of ex-agave, ex-Calvados and ex-shochu casks could all be legitimately utilised in a reignited quest for flavour. The end result was still supposed to be ‘traditional’, but many were concerned that the signature Scotch profile could be changed forever.
The move also strengthened the argument that distillers might be heavy-handed with casks to mask distillate flaws – let alone shift the spirit’s DNA. On the other side of the fence were those who refuted this stance: as the industry gatekeeper, the SWA would surely never allow such a sullying. The rebuff was that Scotch needed to modernise, and this allowed for greater flexibility. If other whisky producers around the world could tap into a wider range of casks, those who happened to be based in Scotland should also have the option.
While the conversation never really quietened down, the five years that followed saw a cacophony of flavour unleashed on Scotch. The SWA’s ruling was, in effect, a starting gun in the race for more: more flavour, more innovation, more intensity. In anticipation of the move, distilleries had already started laying down stock in these rarefied vessels. While before, a maximalist philosophy saw itself expressed in high-phenol, peated expressions and overly Sherried maturations, now the floodgates had fully opened to robust flavours.
Read more: The Scotch Whisky Report 2024
The one to jump the gun was Glen Moray, with its Cider Cask Project. Launched in October 2018 – ahead of the rule changes – the expression was banned by the SWA. It was non-compliant and would continue to be, even in this new flavour-forward era. The first to really usher in the changes were Diageo, with the herbaceous and grassy Buchanan’s Two Souls, and Pernod Ricard, with its creamy, honeyed Chivas Extra 13 Year Old Tequila Cask, released in 2019 and early 2020 respectively. Dewar’s was the pioneer with mezcal cask: its Ilegal Smooth launched in March 2020 with a peppery, vegetal profile. Many more of these esoteric new expressions followed. The industry went for these new potential flavour profiles – and it went hard.
While innovations in Scotch come in all forms and flavour profiles (just look to recent developments in fermentation and heritage grains), the 2019 SWA ruling signalled a trend for boldness. In many ways, an attitude emerged that the more pronounced a whisky was, the better. However, using a recent tasting for Club Oenologique’s Scotch Whisky Report as a barometer, it seems to me that the tide is starting to turn. Tasting my way through more than 120 of the latest premium expressions and limited-edition releases, I found that the bottlings that triumphed all had one thing in common: a quiet elegance. Could a subtlety be returning to Scotch?
To be clear, this did not mean a drop in quality. These whiskies were far from bland. And innovation was very much present too – just look at the prevalence of more unusual oak species in the maturation process. But a focus on distillate character, plus the use of bourbon and softer second-fill casks, revealed a trend for the intricate. These were delicate drams, yes, but they still had compelling stories to tell.
‘You are always going to have big bold peat monsters, but you also need something more subtle to introduce people to the whisky category’
-Blair Sterrick, Isle of Harris
For Guy Hodcroft, spirits buyer at Bordeaux Index, distillate-focused styles are the ones standing out right now. He likens the shift to what we’ve already seen in rum, recalling a time when tasting awards were being won by big, bold expressions that had been ‘dosed up’ or matured in active casks. Now, it’s the opposite, with quieter expressions standing out from the crowd – a trend that’s being echoed in the world of Scotch whisky. ‘The joy of having 120-plus distilleries is that each one produces a different or a unique distillate, and that should be celebrated,’ he stresses. It’s about what’s core to the spirit from the outset – not what’s been engineered later.
And it’s not just about casks. The level of perceptible peat in a spirit seems to have been dialled back, too. This is where Isle of Harris Distillery and its Hearach Batch 11 particularly stood out in The Scotch Whisky Report. A young producer in comparison to many other Scotch distilleries who submitted samples for the tasting, its intentional positioning of smoke as a background note, a seasoning perhaps, places it well within the ‘subtler’ sphere. Gristy cereal notes come to the fore, alongside citrus peel, apple and milk chocolate. Then the peat smoke arrives. ‘You are always going to have big bold peat monsters,’ says Blair Sterrick, UK market manager for Isle of Harris, ‘but you also need to have something more subtle to introduce people to the whisky category.’
Sterrick suggests, too, that it’s the newer distilleries that are behind a move towards the pared-back. ‘[They] are looking at their flavour profile and looking to establish themselves before they move into the bolder flavours as they get older.’ It’s also a useful way to hedge their bets for export markets. ‘We have a relatively low PPM [peated parts per million] scale on our final liquid, and I don’t find it particularly smoky. But when this has been sampled by American consumers, they have commented on how smoky the liquid is.’ It’s a reminder that flavour perceptions are subjective – and it’s a smart move to try to appeal to as many drinkers as possible. ‘If the first whisky somebody ever tried was an Islay peat monster, there is a really high chance they would never drink a whisky again,’ says Sterrick.
Another single-malt maker that stood out was Benriach. What’s fascinating is that this distillery brings peat smoke to some of its Speyside bottlings. The Twenty Five shows this trend fantastically, with orchard fruits and bonfire smoke woven articulately through its creamy mouthfeel. In a region famed for its fruit-forward releases, is it something of an outlier? Rachel Barrie, master blender at Brown-Forman – which owns the Scotch distillery, as well as Glendronach and Glenglassaugh – speaks of Benriach as the ‘Speyside delicacy’.
‘It is always “more sweety than peaty”, opening the door for those who love multilayered baked desserts,’ she explains. These aren’t enormous smoke-bombs. She continues: ‘I think the market for rugged/medicinal peat and over-oaked big cask finishes is diminishing with an increase in discerning drinkers worldwide, many of whom enjoy the finest food and beverage delicacies of the world. Is it possible that the most intense peat or cask finishes might simply be too rough, one-dimensional or unappealing for some? Why taste the rough when you can appreciate the most exquisitely smooth and refined delicacies?’ She describes the shift as a move towards excellence and a way to usher in even more discerning consumers to the world of Scotch.
A standout maker in The Scotch Whisky Report was undoubtedly House of Hazelwood. Its prestige, long-aged blends, blended malts and blended grains are perhaps the perfect example of this shift to subtlety. The Long Marriage – a blended Scotch distilled back in the 1960s, with its component parts combined three years later, before a long maturation – scored a near-perfect 99 points. Its exquisite balance and multifaceted yet restrained profile – with perfumed oak, eucalyptus and floral oils – perfectly demonstrate this concept.
However, House of Hazelwood marketing director Jonathan Gibson says the very nature of the brand’s bottlings transcends market whims. ‘We operate in a small niche – an unusual, rarefied part of the Scotch whisky market that perhaps is less affected by broader industry trends around flavour,’ he explains. ‘Our whiskies take a long time to create, and the thinking is generational rather than trend-led. Moreover, due to their great age (our youngest bottling to date has been 32 years old), complexity, nuance and layers of flavour are – for us at least – essential characteristics. It’s what you hope for and expect from greatly aged spirits that have been properly cared for and monitored over the years.’
House of Hazelwood only launched in 2022. Is its very existence in line with the emerging trend for subtler spirits, or is this style simply inherent in whiskies of this calibre? ‘The joy in whiskies of this age and quality is that, while they may be deliciously drinkable, they are also rarities to spend time with, to ponder over and to get acquainted with over a longer period,’ Gibson says. ‘The fact that many of our releases are blends, blended malts or blended grains only increases the opportunity to craft those layers. With more “ingredients” at our disposal, the creative possibilities multiply exponentially.
Of course, not everyone agrees with the premise that subtler whiskies are coming to the fore. Euan Campbell, head of whisky creation at The Scotch Malt Whisky Society (SMWS), argues the opposite. More and more cask types continue to be used, and there’s an appetite for new combinations of spirit and wood. ‘For us, it’s all about variety, exploration, prizing flavour above everything, and respect for all styles of whisky,’ he says. ‘That’s been our ethos since day one, when the club was formed in 1983, and that exploration of flavour – in single-cask whisky specifically – has never been more exciting than it is today.’ The SMWS’s Sensuous Opulence Cask 24.170 certainly speaks to this. As one of the bolder whiskies that did score highly in my report (the single cask ratcheted up an astonishing 98 points), its profoundly rich, boisterous profile impressed. ‘We’re big believers that there is room for bold and punchy, as well as for gentler flavours. It does not have to be either/or,’ Campbell continues. ‘The best thing about whisky, and especially single-cask whisky, is the wide spectrum of flavours for people to discover.’
As well as its role as a bottler, the SMWS also manages bars. Most are open to members only, but the Queen Street venue in Edinburgh caters to all in its Kaleidoscope bar. Campbell says that the range of flavours, from quiet to bold, often creates an ‘epiphany moment’ for those who are new to whisky. ‘We think the best thing for Scotch is helping more people discover the range of flavours in whisky, whether they want something big and bold or something more subtle. It’s all about the endless discovery that there is so much to experience in Scotch whisky.’
Gibson is in agreement that there is a move towards the bold; he reckons this was driven by the craft spirits movement more broadly, and it has been ‘tremendously positive and enlivening for the drinks industry’. A discovery mindset has emerged. ‘But in my view,’ he says, ‘for Scotch whisky, the role of the big, bold singular flavours is to nurture those first steps into the category – they are great stepping stones as an enthusiast’s knowledge and palate develops over time, but they should not be the end point of the journey.’
Gibson mentions the Dunning–Kruger curve, a cognitive bias that means humans can overrate their abilities in topics where they actually have limited confidence. An example he gives is thinking that an Islay malt will always be smoky. ‘I think the big, bold flavours within some whiskies can fuel this kind of initial confidence in one’s own knowledge. You can start to feel like an expert quite quickly, and in a sense that’s no bad thing – it’s a part of the journey, the hook that draws you into the category. But then, of course, the more we learn about Scotch, the less we realise we actually know. And that is where the fun starts all over again! Complexity, nuance, subtlety, genre-defying whiskies – these are where the opportunities for that next stage of discovery lie. And that journey has the potential to last a lifetime.’
A flavour category that well demonstrates that there’s space for both the subtle and the more striking is the enduring appeal of Sherry-cask whisky. At the SMWS, roughly one in three bottles released has been rested in a cask of this sort for at least part of its maturation, Campbell says. It’s a pattern that Bordeaux Index’s Hodcroft has also observed. Some of his clients ‘still look for a whisky that’s the colour of cola’ – that is, very heavily Sherried. While this can come down to personal preference, it may also stem from a lack of education. Aged whiskies aren’t always darker and certainly aren’t necessarily bolder, yet both these characteristics can misguidedly inform buying choices.
It seems clear that there’s an increase in subtler whiskies. What’s fascinating is that the shift isn’t uniform
Having tasted through an impressive array of Scotch in one sitting, it seems clear to me that there’s an increase in subtler whiskies. What’s fascinating is that the shift itself isn’t uniform – and that is a good thing. While the quantity of those more directional drams might have dropped off, there are still many examples out there. And good ones, too, as the SMWS bottling attests. Peat lovers can find their smoke-heavy expressions, and bold experimental casks are available for those who like their whisky punchy.
But most exciting is this newly formed group celebrating the intricate, the thoughtful, the detailed. Scotch has started to shed its skin from the post-2019 flavour-forward years, and what’s emerging in its place is truly thrilling.
Five top bottles that demonstrate a new subtlety in Scotch
