Travel Reference
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compared to £50 for a bourbon cask. Some of the more adventurous distilleries have used
barrels which have contained other drinks, like rum or red wine, and produced some very
interesting whiskies indeed (more of this later). Whatever; after the filling, it's off to the
warehouse.
The pace slackens off here.
A lot.
Three years minimum by law before you can even call what's in the barrels whisky -
it's still 'spirit' until those 36 months are up.
Most whisky spends at least twice that amount of time in the warehouse (wonderful,
cool, beautiful, fabulously -fragranced places) and most single malts will age for a minim-
um of ten or twelve years before being allowed anywhere near a bottle. The reason these
dark, quiet, usually earth-floored warehouses smell so damn wonderful (it is hard even
for a heathen like me not to think of them as hallowed) is that, not to over-sharpen the
point, even the best-made wooden barrels leak. The fumes find their way out of the casks
and into the atmosphere; they even penetrate the usually very thick walls of the average
bonded warehouse, turning those walls black because there's a particular airborne fungus
which thrives on just those vapours (and which, umm, is black). This happens at a rate of
about two per cent per year, so a cask that's been sitting for ten years will have lost about
a fifth of its contents.
This sounds wasteful but it isn't; it's a bit like the infant human brain losing synaptic
connections as it grows and matures; what's left - the network of strengthened pathways
in the brain or the concentrated flavours remaining in the barrel - is all the better for
what's been given up. This two per cent per year loss is usually called the Angel's Share.
Presumably because the Fungus's Share doesn't sound quite so romantic.
Once bottled, whisky doesn't mature or deteriorate as long as the seal remains tight,
though if it is uncorked and then - for some unfathomable reason - not finished, it will
eventually go off in a year or two. (I am mildly horrified that this has been discovered.)
Oh; and store it upright, not flat.
That's it.
'Hello, ma darlin. How are you—?
'The phone won't stop!'
'Won't stop what?'
'Ringing! I've had all these newspapers calling the house wanting to talk to you about
us burning our passports! I'm going crazy!'
'But we didn't burn—'
'Why are you always away when these things happen?'
'Good timing? Ha, just kid—'
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